1. Tarot
2. Card meanings
3. Strength

Major Arcana · VIII

Strength

• power
• energy
• courage
• magnanimity

Upright meaning

Gentle strength. Waite's figure has already calmed the lion and leads it with a chain of flowers: courage and patience rather than force.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, a feeling of weakness or discord within. A prompt to meet your own restlessness with the same patience the card shows.

• weakness
• discord

Symbolism

A woman, the sign of infinity above her head, closes a lion's jaws; the lion is led by a chain of flowers.

Group

Major Arcana

Waite’s name

Strength, or Fortitude

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 II §2 (symbolism); Part III §3 (divinatory meanings). 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.