In divination
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.
The library's note
A dejected man walks away from eight cups arranged behind him, leaving what Waite calls "the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern." He flags the card's readings as "entirely antithetical," the same image also standing for "joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty," and settles the contradiction practically: often the matter shown is simply less important than it first seemed. Cups' feeling here chooses absence over a fullness the Nine, one card later, will show taken to its opposite extreme.