The deck · Cups · Water

Page of Cups, from the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck

Page of Cups

Fair young manStudious youthNewsMessage

Upright

Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business.

Reversed

Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

The picture

A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

Older readings

Good augury; also a young man who is unfortunate in love. Reversed: Obstacles of all kinds.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §4. Waite collected these and says they often disagree with the main meanings.

Waite wrote in 1911 and some of his meanings show it. Tarot is a tradition of reflection, not a prediction, and no card decides anything for you.