The Open Athenaeum

✶ The Study Deck

Three of Swords

Swords, of the lesser arcana

Waite & Colman Smith, 1909 · described 1911

Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.

the plate, in waite's words · the painted card will hang here in time

In divination

Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.

Reversed: Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

The library's note

Three swords pierce a single heart, rain falling behind them, and Waite offers one of his most spare descriptions in the entire deck, the meaning "too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration." Rupture, division, and removal fill out his short compiled list, nothing softened or qualified this time, the suit's conflict reaching plain statement before the Four turns toward something quieter.

a young page · the keeper's voice pass on the note is still to come

Doors Onward

Sources & Further Reading

  1. Waite, A. E. (1911). The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Card text quoted verbatim, his punctuation kept. (Public domain.)
  2. Card described at: http://sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktsw03.htm

Free, and kept that way by readers. If this page served you, keep a lamp lit.