THE SUIT OF CUPS
King
He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right;
his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the
other a dolphin is leaping. The implicit is that the Sign of the Cup
naturally refers to water, which appears in all the court cards.
Divinatory Meanings: 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.
Reversed: Dishonest, double-dealing man; roguery, exaction,
injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.
CUPS
Queen
Beautiful, fair, dreamy--as one who sees visions in a cup. This is,
however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her
activity feeds her dream. Divinatory Meanings: 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. Reversed:
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not
to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.
CUPS
Knight
Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet,
referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes
characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of
sense haunt him in his vision. Divinatory Meanings: Arrival,
approach--sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour,
invitation, incitement. Reversed: Trickery, artifice, subtlety,
swindling, duplicity, fraud.
CUPS
Page
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent
aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the
pictures of the mind taking form. Divinatory Meanings: 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. Reversed:
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
CUPS
Ten
Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and
ecstacy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right
arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The
two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy
after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond. Divinatory
Meanings: 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. Reversed:
Repose of the false heart, indignation, violence.
CUPS
Nine
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant
refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to
indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material
side only, but there are other aspects. Divinatory Meanings:
Concord, contentment, physical bien-être; also victory, success,
advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the
consultation is made. Reversed: Truth, loyalty, liberty; but the
readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc.
CUPS
Eight
A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity,
enterprise, undertaking or previous concern. Divinatory Meanings:
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. Reversed: Great joy,
happiness, feasting.
CUPS
Seven
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of
the fantastic spirit. Divinatory Meanings: 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. Reversed: Desire, will, determination,
project.
CUPS
Six
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.
Divinatory Meanings: 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. Reversed: The
future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently.
CUPS
Five
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two others
stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a
small keep or holding. Divanatory Meanings: 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. Reversed: News, alliances,
affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.
CUPS
Four
A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on
the grass before him; an arm issuing from a cloud offers him another cup.
His expression notwithstanding is one of discontent with his environment.
Divinatory Meanings: 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. Reversed:
Novelty, presage, new instruction, new relations.
CUPS
Three
Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one
another. Divinatory Meanings: The conclusion of any matter in
plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment,
solace, healing, Reversed: Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end.
It signifies also the side of excess in physical enjoyment, and the
pleasures of the senses.
CUPS
Two
A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises
the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a
lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old
examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to
it, but they do not concern us in this place. Divinatory Meanings:
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.
CUPS
Ace
The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues
from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are
pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to
place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It
is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.
Divinatory Meanings: House of the true heart, joy, content, abode,
nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.
Reversed: House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
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