Two of Cups
partnership · mutual love · a bond · understanding
Card art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, for A. E. Waite. Public domain.
The suit of Cups
In a few words
- partnership
- mutual love
- a bond
- understanding
Two cups raised to each other. A bond of equals; affection returned in kind.
Upright
- Everything
- Two cups raised to each other. A bond of equals; affection returned in kind.
- Love
- Mutual love, a proposal, a couple who choose each other every day.
- Work
- A partnership that works because both give. A good collaborator arrives.
- Money
- A fair deal between two people. Shared money handled with trust.
- Myself
- Peace with someone, or with yourself. Reconciliation is near.
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.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 222
Reversed
- Everything
- A bond out of balance, or a break in trust. One cup lowered.
- Love
- Distance, a falling-out, or love unequal on the two sides.
- Work
- A partnership with hidden resentment. Air it before the split.
- Money
- A shared arrangement souring. Put it in writing, kindly.
- Myself
- At odds with yourself. Make peace between what you want and what you do.
Passion.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 288 — Waite gives no reversed line for this card in his main list; this is from his additional meanings.
The card, as Waite described it
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.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 222
The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.