1. Tarot
2. Card meanings
3. Four of Cups

Minor Arcana · Cups

Four of Cups

• weariness
• blended pleasure

Upright meaning

Weariness with what is already on offer. Waite notes a new cup held out that goes unnoticed, and calls it a card of blended pleasure.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, Waite gives novelty, new instruction and new relations: openness returning.

• novelty
• new instruction
• new relations

Symbolism

A young man sits under a tree, looking at three cups; a hand from a cloud offers a fourth.

Group

Minor Arcana · Cups

Element, astrology

Not given by Waite, so we give none

Source

Our own plain-English summary of A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1911), Part III §2 (The Lesser Arcana). The keywords are Waite’s own words. Waite’s fortune-telling lists also contain harsher terms; we keep to the reflective readings he gives and never state an event as certain.

Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a prediction of fixed outcomes. This is not medical, legal or financial advice.