Nine of Swords
Nine of Épées (Tarot de Marseille) · Lord of Despair and Cruelty (Golden Dawn) · Cruelty (Thoth)
The Nine of Swords, a figure sitting up in bed with face in hands beneath nine blades, is the tarot's card of anxiety and sleepless worry.
Upright anxiety · worry · sleeplessness · guilt · nightmares · despair · mental anguish
Reversed hope returning · reaching out · fears easing · secrets told · lingering worry · recovery
- Astrology
- Mars in Gemini (second decan)
- Element
- Air
- Number
- 9
- Golden Dawn title
- Lord of Despair and Cruelty
- Yes or no
- No
Upright
Upright, the Nine of Swords is commonly read as the mind's night: worry, guilt, regret and fear that grow larger in the dark. The Waite–Smith tradition stresses that the swords hang on the wall rather than piercing the sleeper; the suffering is real, but much of it comes from thoughts that circle and magnify.
For relationships it often points to anxiety about a partner, guilt over something said or done, or a fear of loss that disturbs peace of mind. It may also show grief that keeps someone awake.
In work and finances, the card can describe stress, dread of a deadline, fear of failure or a problem replayed endlessly at three in the morning. Readers tend to say that the facts may be less dire than the feeling.
The advice drawn from it is to bring fears into daylight: speak to someone trusted, write the worries down, and separate what can be acted on from what cannot.
Reversed
Reversed, the Nine of Swords is generally read as dawn after a bad night. Anxiety begins to ease, a person reaches out for support or confides a secret, and the fear loses its grip. Some readers take a more serious view: worry that has been bottled up for so long that it has deepened, or shame preventing someone from asking for help.
Reversals are optional, and many readers read every card upright. When they are used, this reversal often encourages talking to others rather than suffering alone.
The image
In the Rider–Waite–Smith card a woman sits up in a narrow bed against a black background, her face buried in her hands. Nine swords are fixed horizontally across the darkness behind her, one above another. Her quilt is patterned with red roses and squares bearing astrological symbols, and the side of the bed is carved with a small scene of one figure overpowering another. Nothing in the room is lit except the figure, the bed and the blades.
History
Before 1909 the Nine of Swords, like most minor cards, carried no picture in standard decks; in the Tarot de Marseille it is a pattern of curved blades around a single straight sword. Smith's nocturnal scene was her own creation. Waite, in the 1910 Pictorial Key, described the card as one of "utter desolation" and gave a very bleak list of meanings, including failure, delay, deception, disappointment and despair; reversed, imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear and shame. Modern readers generally read the card in more psychological terms, as anxiety and distress rather than literal misfortune.
Symbolism
The black background is the darkness of night and of the troubled mind. The roses on the quilt, an emblem of love and of the heart's life, and the zodiac signs, emblems of the wider order of heaven, are both there but unseen by the sufferer. The carved scene of combat suggests the conflict going on beneath the surface, perhaps the memory that will not let her sleep.
The Golden Dawn assigned the card to the second decan of Gemini, ruled by Mars, and called it the "Lord of Despair and Cruelty"; Crowley called it simply "Cruelty". Mars in a mental sign is read as aggression turned into thought, the mind attacking itself. The nines belong to Yesod, the sefirah of the Moon, of dreams and the unconscious, which fits the night-time setting.
In a reading
Readers often use the card to ask what keeps the querent awake. With the Moon it intensifies anxiety and confusion; with the Three of Swords it points to grief; with the Eight of Swords to a feeling of being trapped. Next to the Star, Temperance or the Four of Swords it is usually read as recovery in progress. Many readers suggest practical responses to the card, such as rest and conversation, and note that it describes a state of mind rather than an outside event. For the suit's development, see the minor arcana.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley, 1944
- The Golden Dawn — Israel Regardie, 1937
- Tarot for Your Self — Mary K. Greer, 1984