Three of Cups

Identity

Symbols

• Three Raised CupsA gesture of mutual recognition — vessels in resonance.+

  Waite's maidens hold 'cups uplifted, as if pledging one another' — the Two of Cups' pledge widened into a ring. The Golden Dawn calls the card 'Lord of Abundance': Mercury in Cancer's second decan, in Binah.

• Leaf WreathGreen leaves ring the hair of the maiden on the right — a victory belonging to the group, not the individual.+

  Waite's meanings for the card include 'victory', and a leaf crown is one of its oldest signs: in Ovid, Apollo takes the laurel as his tree after Daphne's change and gives it to triumphs. Here it is worn for a dance, not won.

• Ripe Fruit on the GroundAbundance after effort — but if you only watch the ground, you miss the cups resonating above.+

  Waite gives the card 'the conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment', and the drawing puts that plenty up front: fruit and gourds heaped at the dancers' feet, already gathered and set down.

• Three Maidens DancingThree women turn together in a ring — no one leads, and no one is watching from outside.+

  Later readers often see the Three Graces here — Hesiod's Aglaea, Euphrosyne and Thalia, whose names mean splendour, good cheer and festivity. Waite's own word for the card, 'merriment', sits close to Euphrosyne's.

Story

Gourds and fruit crowd the bottom edge, and from there the eye climbs — past the hems, past the leaf wreath in the right-hand maiden's hair — to three cups lifted into open daylight at the top of the picture. The maidens turn in a ring on garden ground, a circle closed on itself rather than opened toward the viewer. Nothing here is seated or laid on a table; the whole scene is on its feet and in motion. The picture catches the beat when all three cups are up at once, before the ring turns on.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

The Empress

Two of Cups

Ten of Cups