Minor Arcana, the Cups

Page of Cups

Pamela Colman Smith drew the Page of Cups in 1909 as a young man standing on the shore with one hand on his hip, holding up a gold cup in the other. A small fish has put its head out over the rim of the cup and is looking at him, and the sea rolls in behind them along the shore.

What Waite wrote it means (1910)

Divinatory meanings: Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business.
Reversed: Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 204. Read it in the chapter

A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.

Waite's description of the card, from the same book.

What's in the picture

The fish. A small grey-blue fish rises out of the cup, its round eye turned toward the page. Waite called it "a fish rising from a cup to look at him".
The cup. He holds the gold cup out at arm's length by its knotted stem, a little below the height of his shoulder.
His glance. His head tilts to one side, and his eyes slide over to the left, toward the cup. A small smile shows at the corner of his mouth.
The hat and scarf. On his head is a soft blue cap shaped like a turban, with a bunch of ribbon at the side. A long blue scarf hangs from it down past his shoulder and around his neck.
The lotus tunic. His blue tunic is patterned with pink and white flowers that look like water lilies or lotuses, between thin yellow stripes.
The hand on the hip. His other hand rests on his hip, the elbow out, in pink puffed sleeves.
The sea. Behind him the sea rolls in long, smooth waves of blue drawn in a few black lines, right across the card. Above it the sky is a flat, pale grey.
The boots. He stands on the yellow sand in pink hose and tan boots with turned-down tops, his feet apart and pointing outward.
The belt. A black belt with a buckle holds in the tunic at his waist, and below it the skirt flares out over a red hem.

The card in brief

In the deck: Card 47 of 78
Arcana: Minor Arcana, Cups
Number: Page
Element (Golden Dawn): Water
Title in Book T: The Princess of the Waters: the Lotus of the Palace of the Floods
Drawn by: Pamela Colman Smith
Planned by: Arthur Edward Waite
Published: London, William Rider & Son, 1909
Scan: Pam-A printing, c. 1910, Wikimedia Commons

In the old books

Book T (1912)
A Beautiful Amazon-like figure, softer in nature than the Princess of Wands. Her attire is similar. She stands on a sea with foaming spray. Away to her right a Dolphin. She wears as a crest a swan with opening wings. She bears in one hand a lotus, and in the other an open cup from which a turtle issues. Her mantle is lined with swansdown, and is of thin floating material.
Sweetness, poetry, gentleness and kindness. Imaginative, dreamy, at times indolent, yet courageous if roused.
When ill dignified she is selfish and luxurious.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), p. 165. See the source
Papus (1892)
A fair child. A messenger. Birth.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 312. See the source