Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

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.

About the Deck

Pivotal and canonical, this deck defined a new pattern that would be followed up to the present.

Provenance

Designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. England, 1911.

Meaning of Two of Cups from the Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Upright

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.

Reversed

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.

According to Many Schools of Thought

Papus's Divinatory Meanings

Opposition. Unimportant obstacles raised by one of the lovers.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

Upright

Favourable in things of pleasure and business, as well as love; also wealth and honour.

Reversed

Passion.

S. L. MacGregor Mathers's Divinatory Meanings

Upright

Love, Attachment, Friendship, Sincerity, Affection

Reversed

Crossed desires, Obstacles, Opposition, Hindrance.

Mme. Le Marchand's Divinatory Meanings

a marriage; fidelity in wedlock