Three of Swords
Three of Épées (Tarot de Marseille) · Lord of Sorrow (Golden Dawn) · Sorrow (Thoth)
The Three of Swords, a heart pierced by three blades under a rain cloud, is the tarot's plainest image of sorrow: hurt that comes through words, truth or loss.
Upright heartbreak · grief · painful truth · separation · sorrow · release through tears
Reversed recovery · healing · forgiveness · lingering hurt · suppressed grief · letting go
- Astrology
- Saturn in Libra (second decan)
- Element
- Air
- Number
- 3
- Golden Dawn title
- Lord of Sorrow
- Yes or no
- No
Upright
In the Waite–Smith tradition the Three of Swords stands for heartache that is understood rather than merely felt. Something painful has been said, discovered or decided, and the mind cannot unknow it. Readers stress that the card describes grief as a passing weather, not a permanent state: the rain falls, and rain also clears the air.
In love it is the classic card of a disappointment, a separation, a quarrel, or the discovery of a third party; it can also show the grief of an ending that both people knew was coming.
For work and money it may point to a rejected proposal, a hurtful critique, a painful restructuring or a partnership that splits. The wound is often to pride or trust more than to the purse.
Its counsel is honest mourning. Name what hurts, allow it to be felt, and avoid stabbing yourself again by rehearsing the injury.
Reversed
Reversed, the Three of Swords is often read as the storm moving off. The worst of a hurt is over, forgiveness becomes possible and a person starts to recover. Some readers give it a darker turn: grief that has been pushed down and not expressed, or an old wound reopened by a new event.
Many readers never reverse their cards and would read the upright meaning modified by its neighbours. Where reversals are used, the card commonly asks whether a sorrow is being healed or merely hidden.
The image
Smith's Three of Swords is one of the few cards in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck with no human figure. A large red heart floats in the centre, pierced by three swords: one entering vertically from above and two crossing diagonally from either side, their hilts outside the heart and their points emerging below. Behind it the sky is filled with grey storm clouds, and slanting lines of rain fall across the whole picture.
History
Like most minor cards before 1909, the Tarot de Marseille Three of Swords is an ornamental pattern of curved blades with a single straight sword through the centre. Smith's scenes for the numbered cards were largely new, but this one has a famous forerunner: the Sola Busca tarot, an Italian deck of about 1490 whose every card is illustrated, shows a heart pierced by swords on its Three of Swords. A set of photographs of the Sola Busca reached the British Museum in 1907, and researchers including Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin have argued that Smith knew them. Waite's 1910 text gives the card the meanings of removal, absence, delay, division, rupture and dispersion, and adds that the picture's meaning is evident. The Golden Dawn title, "Lord of Sorrow", became Crowley's one-word name "Sorrow".
Symbolism
The heart is the seat of feeling, and the swords are the weapons of the mind; their meeting is the classic picture of thought wounding emotion. Three is the number of the first complete form, so the sorrow here is not vague but takes definite shape. The rain may be read as tears and also as cleansing.
The Golden Dawn gave the Three of Swords to the second decan of Libra, ruled by Saturn, a planet traditionally linked with limitation and grief, which is exalted in Libra. The threes belong to Binah, the third sefirah, sometimes called the "Great Sea" and associated with understanding and with sorrow. In Thelemic commentary Crowley described the card as sorrow on a cosmic scale rather than as a private heartbreak; see Tarot and Qabalah in Thelema.
In a reading
Few cards are read as literally. Readers usually look to nearby cards to find the cause of the hurt: Court cards may identify the people involved, the Lovers a romantic triangle, the Five of Cups a period of mourning. In a past position the card often names an old wound still shaping present choices. As an outcome many readers soften it by pointing to what follows in the suit: the rest of the Four of Swords.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley, 1944
- Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot — Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin, 2015
- The Golden Dawn — Israel Regardie, 1937
- The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination — Robert M. Place, 2005