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Minor Arcana · Suit of Cups · Court card
Queen of Cups
Queen · Cups
A card that falls upside down is read reversed.
Key words
↑ UprightCompassionIntuitionSteady care
↓ ReversedOverwhelmed by feelingCare with stringsDoubtful trust
What it means
↑ Upright
She studies a closed and ornate cup at the water's edge, seeing into it as others see into a face. Waite pairs her loving intelligence with the gift of vision, and adds that she acts on what she sees. She may be a devoted, perceptive person beside you, or the way you are asked to meet this: listen closely, then help.
↓ Reversed
Feeling floods the throne. Waite admits the accounts vary — a good woman to some, to others one not to be trusted — and the card can show care with strings attached, or sympathy that drowns rather than helps. Steady yourself before steadying anyone else, and notice whose kindness comes at a price.
What's on the card
The queen sits on a throne at the edge of the sea, carved with small sea-children and a scallop shell, gazing into an ornate cup with angel handles and a closed lid. It is the only covered cup in the suit, commonly read as feeling and insight held within rather than poured out. The water at her feet runs into the hem of her robe, so that she seems part of the sea beside her.
Waite's meaning, 1910
Upright
Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother.
Reversed
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonor, depravity.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III.