Five of Swords

Identity

Symbols

• The Victor with Three SwordsHe won — but what he holds is not a medal, only the weapons others gave up. The weight on his shoulder and in his hand reminds him: each blade was once aimed at him; now each belongs to him, and he carries them all alone.+

  Waite calls him "disdainful" and "the master in possession of the field." Yet in the Golden Dawn system the card's title is "Lord of Defeat" (Venus in Aquarius): the only figure who has won stands on a card named for losing.

• The Two Walking AwayThey are not withdrawing to the next battle — they are withdrawing to the distance from which they will no longer speak to you. What was defeated is not this round but the possibility of standing beside you again.+

  Waite's phrase is "two retreating and dejected figures." Neither face is shown: both have turned their backs, one bows the head with a hand to the face, and both walk toward the water, the way the man's gaze is pointed.

• The Two Swords Left on the GroundTwo no one wanted even to retrieve — they have ceased to be weapons, only the scrap metal left by the quarrel. There is always something this useless at the scene of a victory.+

  Waite's wording makes them the losers' own: "Their swords lie upon the ground." Laid flat across the foreground, they are the only two blades in the picture that no hand is touching.

• The Jagged Grey CloudsThe sky seems to have joined in the fight just past — the clouds split into sharp shards. It is the kind of weather that draws the skin tight without ever letting down rain.+

  Book T's Golden Dawn design for this card is an emblem, not a scene: swords in angelic hands falling apart, and at the centre a rose whose petals are "torn asunder and falling." In Smith's card the tearing is in the weather, ragged clouds stretching over victor and defeated alike.

• The Water They Walk TowardThe two walk off toward a level stretch of water with land beyond — the one calm line in a scene of torn sky and scattered blades.+

  The water runs straight across the card behind all three figures, a flat band set under the jagged clouds. Of the two leaving, the nearer is still on the near ground; the smaller one already stands close to the water's edge.

Story

The distance between people is the subject here. Nearest the viewer, filling the right side, one man turns his head to watch; farther off, two smaller figures walk the other way with their backs to him, toward a level band of water and the land beyond it. The eye follows his look and keeps going, past them, to the far shore. Torn grey clouds stream across a pale sky. He stays put with his three swords gathered; they keep walking, and the open ground between them widens.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

Five of Wands

Four of Swords

Seven of Swords