King of Pentacles
Secret whisperGrapes and bulls upon his robe — the harvest king rules gently.
Upright meaning
Upright keywordswealth, discipline, leadership, security
Material success and steady leadership. Wealth built through discipline, and shared with generosity.
Reversed meaning
Reversed keywordsgreed, stubbornness, materialism, poor money decisions
Greed or rigidity. Remember what wealth is for.
About the suit of Pentacles
Pentacles belong to Earth: money, work, the body, home and the slow building of security. They ask what is real, practical and lasting.
Reading the Kings of the tarot
Kings hold the suit outwardly: authority, responsibility and leadership in the world.
In Waite’s own words (1910)
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, public domain. Original English text.
Divinatory meaning: Valour, realizing intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind; success in these paths.
Reversed: Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.
The picture
The figure calls for no special description the face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but somewhat lethargic in tendency. The bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers. I have not invented the substitution of pentacles and I have no special cause to sustain in respect of the alternative. But the consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of some change, because the cards do not happen to deal especially with questions of money.
