Knight of Cups
Secret whisperHe carries the cup like a promise across the stream.
Upright meaning
Upright keywordsromance, charm, idealism, invitation
Romance, invitations and following your heart. An idealistic offer or proposal may arrive.
Reversed meaning
Reversed keywordsmoodiness, unrealistic expectations, jealousy, disappointment
Moodiness or unrealistic expectations. Check that the feelings and promises are matched by actions.
About the suit of Cups
Cups belong to Water: feelings, love, friendship, intuition and the imagination. They show what is happening in the heart and in your relationships.
Reading the Knights of the tarot
Knights are in motion: the quest, action and the energy of the suit pushed to extremes.
In Waite’s own words (1910)
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, public domain. Original English text.
Divinatory meaning: Arrival, approach--sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.
Reversed: Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.
The picture
Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.
