“The last and highest trump of the Ship of Fools Tarot shows a fool burdened with the weight of a great circle or disk, which encloses a landscape of mountains, waters, and houses (21-1). This disk is the world itself, rendering the fool a version of Atlas, the mythological Titan who holds up the heavens…The earliest versions of the tarot World card, vary greatly, with here a nymph and there a Mercury or Cupid; but they all include a human figure standing on, or holding up, a world disk.” (69-71)
Brian Williams
Llewellyn Publications www.llewellyn.com
2002
Ship of Fools Tarot by Brian Williams ©2002 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125. All rights reserved, used by permission.
