Opening the calculator…
This usually takes a second or two.
Still working. On a slow connection it can take a few seconds more.
Opening the calculator…
This usually takes a second or two.
Still working. On a slow connection it can take a few seconds more.
Minor Arcana · Suit of Swords · Number card
Ten · Swords
A card that falls upside down is read reversed.
Key words
↑ UprightA painful endingRock bottomLetting it end
↓ ReversedPartial recoveryA passing gainRising again
What it means
↑ Upright
A figure lies face down, pierced by all ten swords, while the black sky above starts to lighten at the horizon. Pain, tears and desolation are named here, and so is an end: the point where something is plainly over and further struggle only adds wounds. Let it be finished. Rest, let others take care of you, and turn toward that strip of light.
↓ Reversed
Getting up from the ground: a recovery, an advantage regained, some favor or standing returned — real, but in Waite's words not permanent. Use the reprieve to rebuild on firmer footing rather than to resume the fight that laid you low. Treat the gain as a breathing space, not a verdict, and spend it on what lasts.
Ten is the full measure, and in Swords it is thought or conflict pushed to its limit. In the 1909 Smith–Waite deck, this card shows a man stretched face down on the shore, ten swords in his back, a red cloth across him, his right hand curled in what is often read as a gesture of blessing. It is an image of an ending, not a literal wound: over still water the dark sky is turning gold, the struggle done.
Upright
Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.
Reversed
Advantage, profit, success, favor, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III.