Five of Cups
loss · regret · grief · what remains
Card art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, for A. E. Waite. Public domain.
The suit of Cups
In a few words
- loss
- regret
- grief
- what remains
Three cups spilled, two still standing behind you. Grief for what is lost; do not forget what is left.
Upright
- Everything
- Three cups spilled, two still standing behind you. Grief for what is lost; do not forget what is left.
- Love
- A loss or a disappointment in love. Mourn it, and then turn around: not everything went.
- Work
- A setback, a failed effort, a partnership that ended. Learn, and count the assets left.
- Money
- A loss of money or an investment gone wrong. The two cups are your remaining means; use them.
- Myself
- Sorrow is honest. Sit with it, and then look at the bridge behind you.
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.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 216
Reversed
- Everything
- Acceptance. Turning to the two cups; moving on from the loss.
- Love
- Forgiveness, letting an old hurt go, opening up again.
- Work
- Recovery after a failure. The lesson learned, the next step taken.
- Money
- Rebuilding after a loss. Slow, but the direction is right.
- Myself
- Relief. The weight lifts as you stop staring at the spill.
News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 216
The card, as Waite described it
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.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 216
The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.