Knight of Cups

Upright meaning

A heartfelt invitation or pursuit of an ideal. Romance and imagination are strong, though expectations may outrun reality.

Something to consider

A heartfelt invitation can open a conversation. Enjoy the possibility while paying attention to whether actions support the promises.

What is on your mind? Begin a reading →

Historical texts

Waite: the card

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.

Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain

Waite: divinatory meaning

Arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.

Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain

Waite: reversed

Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.

Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain

Mathers: meaning

38. Knight of Cups.-Arrival, Approach, Advance; R. Duplicity, Abuse of Confidence, Fraud, Cunning.

Source: The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) · Public domain