Minor Arcana, the Pentacles
Six of Pentacles
The Six of Pentacles belongs to the suit of pentacles; Pamela Colman Smith drew it in 1909 for A. E. Waite's deck. A man in a red cloak holds up a pair of scales in one hand and drops coins with the other into the hands of a kneeling beggar, while a second beggar kneels on his other side.
What Waite wrote it means (1910)
- Divinatory meanings
Presents, gifts, gratification; another account says attention, vigilance; now is the accepted time, present prosperity, etc.
- Reversed
Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion.
Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 270. Read it in the chapter
A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart.
What's in the picture
- The six coins. Six coins hang in the grey sky around the man: three down the left edge, one at the top in the middle and two on the right.
- The giver. He wears a red hat, a red cloak and a tunic striped in blue and white, and looks down to his right. Waite calls him “a person in the guise of a merchant”.
- The scales. In his left hand he holds a small pair of scales up by a ring. The two pans hang level.
- The falling coins. From his right hand a few small coins drop, one after another, toward the open hands below.
- The cupped hands. The man on the left kneels in a yellow cloak and a pale cap. He looks up and holds out both hands, ready to catch the coins.
- The mended cloak. A small patch of crossed lines sits on the back of his cloak, as if it has been darned.
- The other beggar. On the right a second man kneels in a blue cloak. He looks up at the giver's face, and his open hands reach out near the giver's knee. The coins are falling toward the other man.
- The red patch. A red patch is sewn near the bottom of the blue cloak. Between the two men, the giver wears tall tan boots.
- The town. Far off on the right stand the towers of a town, and a low green hedge shows between the giver and the man in yellow.
The card in brief
- In the deck
- Card 70 of 78
- Arcana
- Minor Arcana, Pentacles
- Number
- Six
- Element (Golden Dawn)
- Earth
- Astrology (Golden Dawn)
- Moon in Taurus
- Title in Book T
- Lord of Material Success
- 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 White Radiant Angelic Hand holding a rose branch with white roses and buds, each of which touches a Pentacle. Pentacles are arranged in two columns of three each ⟨figure⟩. Above and below are the symbols ♉︎ and ☽ of the Decan.
Success and gain in material undertakings. Power, influence, rank, nobility, rule over the people. Fortunate successful, liberal aud just.
If ill dignified, may be purse-proud, insolent from excess, or prodigal.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), p. 197. See the source Papus (1892)
Realization of the opposition. Ruin.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 314. See the source
Before 1909
The older cards and pictures behind this one will be shown here once their licences are checked.
The film
No film for this card yet.
Sources
- Waite: a person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales.Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III, Six of Pentacles
Around this card
Before and after it in the deck
The same number in the other suits
All the cards of the Pentacles, or the whole deck.