Minor arcana
Cups
Fourteen cards — ace to ten, then Page, Knight, Queen and King. Attributed to water, and the counterpart of hearts in an ordinary playing-card pack.
- Element
- WaterAttributed by the Golden Dawn, which Waite's deck follows.
- Taken to cover
- feeling, attachment and what a person valuesReported from tradition, not asserted.
- Playing-card suit
- HeartsThe tarot pack and the 52-card pack share an ancestor.
- Cards
- 14Ten numbered, four court.
The ten numbered cards
Smith's number cards were the innovation of this deck. The court cards had always shown figures, but the packs in ordinary use printed the Five of Cups as five cups set out in a pattern, and Smith drew a scene on every one of the forty. A few older packs had pictures on their number cards too, the Sola Busca of about 1490 among them, but this was the one that made it usual, and it is the main reason this deck, rather than any older one, is the deck most people picture.
The court
Waite's meanings, all fourteen
| Card | Upright |
|---|---|
| Ace | House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof. |
| Two | Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and—as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination—that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified. |
| Three | The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing. |
| Four | Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only; another wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered the wastrel, but he sees no consolation therein. This is also a card of blended pleasure. |
| Five | It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration. |
| Six | A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as—for example—on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct. |
| Seven | Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested. |
| Eight | The card speaks for itself on the surface, but other readings are entirely antithetical—giving joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty. In practice, it is usually found that the card shews the decline of a matter, or that a matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence—either for good or evil. |
| Nine | Concord, contentment, physical bien-être; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made. |
| Ten | Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent. |
| Page | Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business. |
| Knight | Arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement. |
| Queen | Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother. |
| King | Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence. |
Quoted, not summarised. Nothing here is a claim that a card means anything.