Ixion was king of the Lapiths, a tribe in ancient Thessaly, and to my mind, one of the most notorious men in Greek mythology. He lived back in the day when gods and mortals still socialized and when possibly mortals were a bit immortal, since gods and mortals interbred with gusto. Depending on who you are reading, Ixion’s lineage goes back to Gaia herself, or he may have been a son of Ares, or he may have been a mere mortal. At any rate, he murdered his father-in-law, who was a guest in his house, thus becoming both the first kin-slayer and a violator of xenia, the Greek concept of guest-friendship. Because no one had ever slain a family member before, his neighbors had no idea how to perform the rituals that would cleanse him of his guilt. Ixion went mad and roamed the land as an outlaw. Zeus took pity on him, released him from his guilt, and brought him up to Mount Olympus. Ixion repaid his kindness by seducing Hera. Zeus, of course, found out and was furious. He’s the god of travelers and the code of xenia is sacred to him. The kinslayer had twice violated it, once as a host and now as a guest. Zeus fashioned a likeness of his wife from a cloud, and when Ixion coupled with it he sealed his doom. Zeus blasted him from mount Olympus with a thunderbolt and ordered Hermes to bind him to a burning (or winged) wheel that would turn forever through the universe.
Perhaps Zeus’s real punishment was to banish Ixion, and maybe the rest of mankind as well, from the immortality of Olympus and communion with the gods. He bound us to the wheel of mortality, to suffer the ups and downs of fate, death and rebirth.
It shows not one, but four people on a wheel turned by a blindfolded woman. Impartial fate? Blind luck? There are barely discernable banners coming from each of their mouths. The top figure says “Regno – I reign”, the descending figure says “Regnavi – I reigned”, the figure at the bottom says “Sum Sine Regno – I am without reign”, and the figure ascending the wheel says “Regnabo – I shall reign”. If you look very carefully, you can see a pair of ass’s ears on the figure at the top. Nothing really changes, does it? Yet another lesson of the wheel.
In the Marseilles style decks done in the 1600’s, the people have morphed into animals and the wheel is now turning counterclockwise all by itself.
2 thoughts on “The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: Wheel of Fortune, Part II”
Complex card. Nice post. Great series of posts.
As I began to research it, I discovered that this card is even more interesting than I’d thought.
I stumbled upon the story of Ixion and had to share it.