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Minor Arcana · Suit of Swords · Court card
Queen of Swords
Queen · Swords
A card that falls upside down is read reversed.
Key words
↑ UprightClear sightPlain speakingSorrow made wise
↓ ReversedBitternessA cutting tongueNarrow judgment
What it means
↑ Upright
Her face, says Waite, is severe but chastened, familiar with sorrow; his meanings run to mourning, absence and separation. She may be someone in your life who has known loss and speaks plainly because of it, clear-eyed rather than gentle. Or she is the stance asked of you: see the matter as it is, say so cleanly, and let what you have been through sharpen you without hardening you.
↓ Reversed
Clarity curdled into malice: the sharp remark meant to wound, a rigid moral line, deceit dressed as frankness. In another person it is someone whose criticism is about their grievance more than your conduct; in you, it is old hurt doing the talking. Before you speak, ask whether the words are true and also whether they are fair.
What's on the card
The queen sits in profile on a high throne carved with butterflies and a winged child's head, raising a sword upright in her right hand and holding out her left as if to receive or to beckon. Clouds gather below the throne and a single bird flies high above her. The lone bird is commonly read as her independence, and the raised sword as judgment exercised clearly, by someone who has known sorrow and is not easily deceived.
Waite's meaning, 1910
Upright
Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.
Reversed
Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III.