Two of Swords

Identity

Symbols

• Crossed Blades at the ChestTwo silver blades crossed into a cipher — a guarding posture, not a combat stance. Either blade lowered would break the figure.+

  Book T draws the Two as crossed swords in angelic hands, with 'a rose of five petals' on 'the point where the two cross'. In Smith's card the crossing is a person's: her forearms fold over her breast, and the blades rise from there.

• The BlindfoldWho tied it the card does not say; with both hands on the swords, she keeps it on — judgment held off, so a hasty ruling does not breed future harm.+

  Waite's word is 'hoodwinked', the same he uses for the woman of the Eight of Swords, 'bound and hoodwinked'. Here nothing binds her: her hands are free and hold the swords, and only her sight is covered.

• The Crescent MoonA crescent hangs above her shoulder. Stillness is only the surface — beneath this paused moment, something is slowly growing.+

  In the Golden Dawn system the Two of Swords is the Moon in the first decan of Libra, and Book T sets the Moon's sign on a small dagger at the top of its card. Smith's card has a crescent in the sky instead, high to the right.

• The Sea BehindLow waves, sharp outcrops — the shape of the matter is not yet smoothed, but at least no longer churning. A peace of 'the surface is calm for now', not of 'there is nothing underneath.'+

  She sits with her back to the water, so even without the blindfold she would not see it; the rocks breaking its surface are there for the viewer alone. Book T's gloss: 'Quarrel made up, yet still some tension in relations.'

• Stone BenchA plain stone seat with the water behind it; she sits on it upright, facing out of the card.+

  Waite reads the card as 'conformity and the equipoise which it suggests'; the Golden Dawn puts it in Libra, sign of the scales. The bench gives that balance a level base: a stone slab under a figure leaning neither way.

Story

Everything in this picture is held up. Her forearms cross over her breast and the two long blades open upward past her shoulders, so the widest span on the card is the gap between their points, wider than her own body. She faces us squarely, seated and unseeing. Behind her the water lies low, rocks breaking its surface, and the sky opens above it. Neither shoulder drops, neither blade dips. Holding two swords aloft like this takes effort, and the calm is that effort hidden: a balance being kept, not one that merely happens.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

The High Priestess

The Moon

Three of Swords