Forza

Risposta rapida

Il significato principale di Forza è Resilienza delicata sulla forza bruta. Al dritto, solitamente indica Coraggio, pazienza, compassione, gentilezza che supera la forza. Simboleggia il ; rovesciata, potrebbe suggerire Insicurezza, debolezza, istinti selvaggi, impazienza. Può indicare di essere sop.

Immagini della carta

Una donna vestita di bianco accarezza delicatamente la testa di un leone e gli chiude dolcemente le mascelle. Il simbolo dell'infinito fluttua sopra la sua testa e una ghirlanda di fiori le circonda la vita.

Significato al dritto

Coraggio, pazienza, compassione, gentilezza che supera la forza. Simboleggia il domare i desideri e gli istinti crudi attraverso la resilienza interiore e l'amore piuttosto che la forza bruta.

Significato invertito

Insicurezza, debolezza, istinti selvaggi, impazienza. Può indicare di essere sopraffatti dalla paura o di gestire le questioni con mano troppo pesante o troppo timida.

Amore, carriera, denaro e crescita

Amore

Innamorato, Forza indica Resilienza delicata sulla forza bruta. Rileggilo confrontandolo con il modo in cui si comporta effettivamente la relazione e con ciò che scegliete entrambi.

Carriera

In materia di carriera, Forza indica Resilienza delicata sulla forza bruta. Inizia individuando quali risorse controlli e quale sarà la tua prossima mossa.

Soldi

In materia di soldi, Forza indica Resilienza delicata sulla forza bruta. Non considerare una lettura simbolica come una conclusione di investimento: segui i fatti, il budget e la tua tolleranza al rischio.

Crescita personale

Per la crescita personale, Forza indica Resilienza delicata sulla forza bruta. Annota la domanda che solleva, quindi trasformala in un'azione che puoi effettivamente verificare.

Sì o no

Diritto

Sì

Rovesciata

No

Questa è la nostra lettura veloce, basata sulla direzione in cui tende il significato della carta. Le tradizioni non sono d'accordo sulle singole carte, e un "Forse" deve essere valutato rispetto alla posizione nello spread e alla situazione reale piuttosto che essere preso come una risposta di una sola parola.

Testo originale di Waite (1911)

Simbolismo interiore (originale)

A woman, over whose head there broods the same symbol of life which we have seen in the card of the Hierophant, is closing the jaws of a lion. The only point in which this design differs from the conventional presentations is that her beneficent fortitude has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a chain of flowers. For reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight. As the variation carries nothing with it which will signify to the reader, there is no cause for explanation. Fortitude, in one of its most exalted aspects, is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union; the virtue, of course, operates in all planes, and hence draws on all in its symbolism. It connects also with innocentia inviolata, and with the strength which resides in contemplation.

These higher meanings are, however, matters of inference, and I do not suggest that they are transparent on the surface of the card. They are intimated in a concealed manner by the chain of flowers, which signifies, among many other things, the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. The card has nothing to do with self-confidence in the ordinary sense, though this has been suggested—but it concerns the confidence of those whose strength is God (Nature), who have found their refuge in Him. There is one aspect in which the lion signifies the passions, and she who is called Strength is the higher nature in its liberation. It has walked upon the asp and the basilisk and has trodden down the lion and the dragon.

Significato originale al dritto

Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honors.

Significato originale invertito

Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.

Citato da A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrato da Pamela Colman Smith. Il testo è di pubblico dominio.

Origini del mito e dei simboli

Its full title on the card is "Strength, or Fortitude" — the name of one of the cardinal virtues. And the swap of eight and eleven is something Waite wrote down himself.

Documented imagery

Attested by surviving objects or texts

It began as the virtue Fortitude

Waite heads this card "STRENGTH, OR FORTITUDE." Fortitudo is one of the four classical cardinal virtues (the other three being Prudence, Justice and Temperance), and Justice and Temperance each hold a trump of their own, so three of the cardinal virtues were in this deck from the start. Medieval personifications of Fortitude had two fixed forms: breaking a stone column, or subduing a lion bare-handed. Tarot took the second.

Fonte The classical four cardinal virtues; the two medieval schemes for the personified virtue; the card title is in Waite 1911

The bare-handed lion is upstream from Heracles

The motif of subduing a lion with bare hands had its most famous classical vehicle in Heracles and the Nemean lion, after which it became the general visual vocabulary for strength and was taken over by the medieval images of the virtues. The order of descent is the thing to be clear about: what tarot inherits directly is the personified virtue. Heracles is the further upstream source of the motif, not the identity of the woman on the card.

Fonte The classical Heracles-and-the-Nemean-lion motif and its reuse in medieval images of the virtues

Esoteric correspondence

A sourced traditional claim, but constructed inside an occult system

Eight and eleven swapped: the author's words are "reasons which satisfy myself"

In the Marseille tradition Justice is eight and Strength is eleven. Waite exchanged the two, writing in the book: "for reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight," and adding that the change "carries nothing with it which will signify to the reader," so "there is no cause for explanation." The real reason is in the Golden Dawn's zodiacal attributions: Strength has to take Leo (Hebrew letter Teth) and Justice has to take Libra, and in zodiacal order Leo comes before Libra. So this is not a whim; it is a renumbering to make the sequence follow the zodiac.

Fonte Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, Strength; Golden Dawn Book T zodiacal attributions

Modern reading

Popular only since the twentieth century; unrelated to where the card came from

"Taming the beast within" is what the card became after psychology

The current standard reading is "inner strength," "taming the animal inside you." That is not where Waite's text lands: he says the card "has nothing to do with self-confidence in the ordinary sense," and that the garland stands for the yoke of divine law being sweet and its burden light. The psychologised reading is useful, but it swaps an image about virtue and law for an image about self-management.

Fonte Modern popular reading; Waite 1911 rejects the "self-confidence" reading in this same entry

Scritto da BESTAROT, non citato da fonti storiche. Ogni affermazione è contrassegnata da quanto bene è dimostrata; gli strati interpretativi moderni sono utili per la lettura, ma non costituiscono l’origine storica della carta.

Studia il tema: Mito e origini dei simboli (Accademia capitolo 6)