Five of Swords
a hollow victory · conflict · winning badly · loss of face
Card art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, for A. E. Waite. Public domain.
The suit of Swords
In a few words
- a hollow victory
- conflict
- winning badly
- loss of face
One man gathers swords while two walk away. A win that cost the relationship, or a defeat with your dignity intact.
Upright
- Everything
- One man gathers swords while two walk away. A win that cost the relationship, or a defeat with your dignity intact.
- Love
- An argument nobody won. Being right is not the same as being together.
- Work
- Office politics, a victory that makes enemies. Ask what it was worth.
- Money
- Gain at someone's expense, or being outmanoeuvred. Either way, count the cost.
- Myself
- Pride in the way. Sometimes walking away is the strong move.
Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, with the variants and analogues of these.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 244
Reversed
- Everything
- The conflict ends: reconciliation, or a mess finally cleaned up. Or old wounds reopened.
- Love
- Making up after a fight, if both drop the swords.
- Work
- A truce at work. Or a quarrel you keep replaying; let it be over.
- Money
- Cutting your losses in a dispute. Or a settlement that nobody likes but everyone accepts.
- Myself
- Letting go of the need to win. Lighter already.
The same; burial and obsequies.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 244
The card, as Waite described it
A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 244
The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.