THE SUIT OF PENTACLES.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
De Laurence, L. W. (Lauron William) and Smith, Pamela Colman
PENTACLES. KING.
The face of this figure is dark, suggesting courage, and the bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved with the pentigram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In old Tarot packs this suit represented money. The consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of change, as the cards do not deal especially with questions of money.
Divinatory Meanings: Valor, intelligence, business, mathematical gifts, and success in these paths.
Reversed: Vice, weakness, perversity, peril.
PENTACLES. QUEEN.
The face suggests that of a dark woman, whose qualities might be summed up in the idea of greatness of soul; she has also the serious cast of intelligence; she contemplates her symbol and may see worlds therein. Divinatory Meanings: Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty. Reversed: Evil, suspicion, suspense, fear, mistrust.
PENTACLES. KNIGHT.
He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein.
Divinatory Meanings: Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude—all on the normal and external plane.
Reversed: Inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.
PENTACLES. PAGE.
A youthful figure, looking intently at the pentacle which hovers over his raised hands. He moves slowly, insensible of that which is about him.
Divinatory Meanings: Application, study, scholarship, reflection; another reading says news, messages and the bringer thereof; also rule, management.
Reversed: Prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury, unfavorable news.
PENTACLES. TEN.
A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. They are accompanied by a child, who looks curiously at two dogs accosting an ancient personage seated in the foreground. The child's hand is on one of them.
Divinatory Meanings: Gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family.
Reversed: Chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.
PENTACLES. NINE.
A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grape-vines in the garden of a manorial house. It is a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.
Divinatory Meanings: Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment.
Reversed: Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.
PENTACLES. EIGHT.
An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.
Divinatory Meanings: Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.
Reversed: Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.
PENTACLES. SEVEN.
A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there.
Divinatory Meanings: These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrel—and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation.
Reversed: Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.
PENTACLES. SIX.
A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as his goodness of heart.
Divinatory Meanings: Presents, gifts, gratification; another account says attention, vigilance; now is the accepted time, present prosperity, etc.
Reversed: Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion.
PENTACLES. FIVE.
Two mendicants in a snowstorm pass a lighted casement.
Divinatory Meanings: The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated—that is, destitution—or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers—wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.
Reversed: Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.
PENTACLES. FOUR.
A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. He holds to that which he has.