What does this famous line, chanted by the three Weird Sisters in Shakespeare’s MacBeth actually refer to? It’s Gemini season, so let’s deep dive into doubling.
The Tragedy of MacBeth
The Weird Sisters are basically the Fates (Moirai) or the Graeaes. We’ve spoken about three being the magic number of Hermes, but of course it is also the magic number of the Lunar Goddess, that maiden-mother-crone of past-present-future who spins the cycles of earthly existence. Hence three witches, fates, etc. The allegory of lunar Fortuna as black and white illustrates that ‘Some are born to sweet delight/Some are born to endless Night’ (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence) and the changeability of fortune in general.
As the Sisters chant ’round the cauldron, they concoct and prophecy General MacBeth’s destiny – that he will become Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. Hurray, but unfortunately MacBeth is not qualified to achieve the spiritual gold, because he lets his own demons run amok and, well, not to get too far into it, an unholy bloodbath ensues. According to my teacher mum, the tragedy demonstrates a perversion of the alchemical stages, which occur in backwards/out of order, from gold to black. ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair.’
So ‘Double Double’ refers to the two sides of fate and of human duality. With ascension to power, fame, wealth, there are pitfalls, if the destructive/shadow side of a man’s nature is not kept in check. This poster for the Polanski film depicts the reverse of an emblem we recognize as the Tarot Ace of Swords. In the card, the sword of Truth, pointing up, is both penetrating and girdled by the yonic crown of Wisdom (Sophia); the olive branch (lunar) of peace and palm frond (solar) of victory are held in equilibrium. I believe the symbol might possibly come from the Isis lotus flanked by two serpents, below.
‘Toil and Trouble‘ is a forewarning that might refer to ‘the work’ and its inherent dangers. Be careful what you wish for. They famously tell him ‘none of woman born‘ shall be able to harm him, but neglect to mention the fine print, that C-sections don’t count. There are ‘doubles’ all through the play – specifically MacBeth and his wife, Lady MacBeth (she has no first name, for starters), who, in absorbent, lunar fashion disappears further into madness as her husband commits crimes. In reverse process, they start out unified, but become separate, Lady MacBeth eventually committing suicide.
The Sacred Marriage
A more joyous union, or at least the beginning of one, is beautifully illustrated in the 2 of Cups. Typically in Tarot de Marseille, the two dolphin-fish are slightly different in appearance. This twin fish theme, besides being Piscean, can also be traced back to the ancient, pagan world. In the sanctuary of Didyma (“twins”, thought to refer to twin temples of Apollo and Artemis), Greece, for example, we find a figure not unlike the split-tailed melusine (aka the Starbucks mermaid), who grasps her two tails, or sometimes two fish, much like the ones in the Cups card.
The 2 of Cups was one of the minor arcana cards with a space where a printer could put their name or an emblem. In these two examples, the emblem beneath the cups is not unrelated, heralding love and peace (the heart and olive branches). This card had come up in a discussion, recently, regarding the two ‘trumpets’ therein. Are they in fact trumpets? If so, what kind? Though they resemble telescopes, it’s probably something like a buisine or the North African import, below, played at processions, celebrations funerals and especially weddings.
The Myth of Marsyas
What my little eye spied, however, was the Greek Aulos, a double flute that long ago served the same function, and is associated with the myth of Marsyas and Apollo. (Perhaps the lyre shape behind them was a clue).
The Aulos was said to have been created by Athena, who, upon catching a glimpse in the water of her puff-cheeked reflection playing it, threw the instrument away. It was then found by the satyr Marsyas, who was so elevated by it’s music, he had the crazy idea to invite Apollo and his lyre to a contest – winner ‘have his way’ with the loser. As judges, Apollo chose the Muses and Marsyas chose King Midas. Marsyas won the first round and was pretty excited at the prospect of sex, but for round two, Apollo demanded they play their instruments upside down, putting the satyr at an obvious disadvantage. Apollo was declared the winner, whereby he promptly had Marsyas strung from a tree and flayed alive for his hubris (divine insult against a god), then gave Midas donkey ears. Like MacBeth, Marsyas’ ambition blinded him and didn’t read the fine print of prophecy (Apollo).
The myth is symbolic of the continual battle between the Apollonian reason and the Dionysian madness that make up man’s nature – as viewed by the Athenians. (Presumably women are better versed in this particular polarity, due to our physiological ties to the inconstant Moon…unless they have a partner like MacBeth).
Athena’s horror at her own reflection might have been too much of a reminder of her Medusa side (PMS – a most irrational affliction!). The aulos itself, being a double, wind instrument, can be viewed as expressing two winds or two spirits that ‘make beautiful music together’.
As such, there is a deeper meaning to the flaying of Marsyas than the dangers of hubris. In his essential book, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, Edgar Wind explains:
‘The musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas was therefore concerned with the relative powers of Dionysian darkness and Apollonian clarity; and if the contest ended with the flaying of Marsyas, it was because flaying itself was a Dionysian rite, a tragic ordeal of purification by which the ugliness of the outward man was thrown off and the beauty of his inward self revealed.’
and:
‘The cry [of Marsyas]: ‘Why do you tear me from myself?’ expresses then an agonized ecstasy and could be turned, as it was by Dante, into a prayer addressed to Apollo: ‘Enter my breast, and so infuse me with your spirit as you did Marsyas when you tore him from the cover of his limbs.’
To obtain the ‘beloved laurel’ of Apollo, the poet must pass through the agony of Marsyas…The torture of the mortal by the god who inspires him was a central theme in the revival of ancient mysteries, its illustration in Apollo and Marsyas being only one of many variations’.
In traditional TdM, the golden-haired Charioteer at first appears to be a solar-heroic, Roman emperor type. But his stance says Dionysus and, indeed, the very word ‘triumph’ comes down to us not from Roman victory processions, but from hymns to Dionysus sung in processions in his honour. So rather, the Charioteer is a conglomerate – albeit, like MacBeth, he is more Apollonian on the outside.
His epaulettes are indicative of his solar-lunar natures, facing opposite ways, while the two horses also want to go off in either direction. There definitely is a sense of hubris about him. The three stems growing underfoot in the black soil, here, foreshadow his reversal from hero to scapegoat; The Hanged Man, strung up between two boughs, not unlike Marsyas, and the dismemberment/decomposition that follows in arcanum 13.
As with the fish and horses, the two tree bases in arcanum 12 are usually different, sometimes even containing sun and moon in them, as in the Vieville example. The figure can be flipped vertically and viewed two ways; hanging or dancing. His golden, solar hair is a clue to what’s going on – ‘the beauty of his inward self’ is slowly being revealed as he undergoes ‘living death’. Two of these oldest TdM examples (Vieville, Dodal) require flipping the card to read the number correctly – printer mistake?
The strange placement of his epaulette-ish hands might represent wings (sprouting or hidden), most apparent in this 17th c Jean Noblet card. Also of note, his reddish hair, a basis of discrimination and choosing sacrificial victims, especially Jews – Noblet himself being Jewish. But looking at it alchemically, ‘red gold’ was ‘pure gold’:
‘The oftener gold is subjected to the action of fire, the more refined in quality it becomes; indeed, fire is one test of its goodness, as, when submitted to intense heat, gold ought to assume a similar colour, and turn red and igneous in appearance; a mode of testing which is known as “obrussa.” [Pliny, “Natural History,” 33.19]’
The Hanged Man (Le Pendu/Pandu) was once called ‘The Traitor’ and the figure held two money bags, a reference to Judas, aka Didymus, ‘the Twin’ (also a supposed redhead). We know the two cards are related, because 7 is 3 + 4 and 12 is 3 x 4. (3 and 4 began separately as Empress and Emperor).
Summation
Obviously we are complex creatures, made up of many polarities, but the most basic one is that we live consciously, outer or by day (solar) and unconsciously, inner or by night (lunar). This was expressed in Egypt as the two eyes of Horus. Right now, you are reading this and having both an outer and inner experience.
The alchemical equivalent of Marsyas and Apollo is the torture of base metals, such as lead, in order to extract the precious, pure one – namely gold, but also its ‘mate’, silver, and others. Lead is the metal of Saturn, who, strangely enough, ruled the Golden Age and is associated with Pan, satyrs, nature, etc. Apollo is of course the solar gold.
Seeking material gold (symbolized by the physical crown, in MacBeth) is the ‘lower mystery’. But, as the alchemists discovered, this corporeal quest is often how initiation to the ‘higher mystery’ begins. In the end, after all our ‘toil and trouble‘, we might be fortunate enough to attain spiritual gold.
Self-knowledge (gnosis) is not just about understanding one’s own personality (another ‘lesser mystery’), but rather, understanding the entire workings of the universe as being within oneself, and vice versa; ‘As within, so without’. But this must be done in stages and is not something that can merely be understood as some intellectual concept.
I leave you with the last lines from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence ‘ which, though we love to quote the first verse (‘To see the world in a grain of sand…’), in it’s entirety, puts it all in a nutshell. ~rb
‘Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day‘
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