The Queen of Swords (Tarot Triptych)
Name: Queen of Swords
Astrology: Libra, Water of Air
Qabalah: He of Vau ה of ו
Chris Gabriel April 20, 2024
The Queen of Swords is a court card. Court cards in tarot differ from the face cards in a playing deck only in their inclusion of a fourth face, the Princess. Each court card in tarot is elemental, all Kings are Fire, all Queens are Water, Princes are Air, and Princesses are Earth. So the Queen of Swords is the watery part of air, thus the clouds that surround her.
In these three cards she is enthroned, and she bears the sword indicating her suit. Her expression remains essentially the same, a slight frown.
This is a card of great wit, beauty, and cutting words.
In Marseille, we find her with a simple crown, fine colored robes, and bearing a red bladed sword. In a playing card deck her equivalent would be the Queen of Spades. She is blonde. Her left hand is kept before her.
In Rider, we find her with a crown of butterflies, a robe covered in clouds, and sitting atop a throne of babes and butterflies. She is the most expressive of the three, with a more intense frown and glaring eyes. She is brunette. Her left hand is raised, as if gesturing for one to come toward her.
In Thoth, we find her at her most evocative. Her crown is enormous, made of green crystal, and adorned with a babe’s head. Her breasts are bare, but she has a blue skirt, and she is enthroned by the clouds themselves. She is without a care, her sword is held low and in her left hand the fruits of its labor, the head of a man.
We can grasp the nature of the Queen of Swords by looking for her historical counterparts. We find one in Judith, who beheads her unwanted suitor Holofernes in his sleep, protecting her virtue. And another, in “reversed” form, in Salome, who demands the head of John the Baptist be brought before her on a silver platter.
The Queen of Swords is a woman who knows exactly what she does and does not want.She is both a symbol of purity and of the ruthlessness required to preserve it.. Her character being Libra, we know that this is not wanton violence, but literal justice and a maintenance of balance by her sword.
She is, in fact, a figure of Lady Justice, in her original, unblinded form. The phrase “Justice is blind” is a misunderstanding of a joke on the uncaring nature of the state. Human Justice may be blind, but divine Justice has 20/20 vision.
When dealt this card, we may be forced to “cut off” a negative influence in our lives.
