Minor Arcana, the Cups

Two of Cups

A young woman and a young man face each other, each holding a gold cup, in Pamela Colman Smith's Two of Cups from 1909. Above their cups a staff with two snakes curled round it rises to the head of a lion with great red wings, and a red-roofed house sits on the green hill behind them.

What Waite wrote it means (1910)

Divinatory meanings: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and—as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination—that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.
Reversed

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 222. Read it in the chapter

A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place.

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

What's in the picture

The winged lion. A lion's face, red and shaggy, looks straight out of the card from the top. Two wide red wings spread from it almost to the edges.
The two snakes. Under the lion hangs a black staff with two snakes wound round it, their heads curling out at the top. Waite named it the "Caduceus of Hermes", the staff of the messenger god.
The cups. The two cups are the same shape and size, tall gold cups with flared feet. The man reaches with one hand toward her cup and holds his own with the other, so their hands almost touch over the stems.
Her wreath. She wears a green wreath of leaves on her dark hair and looks across at him.
Her dress. A long white gown with spotted sleeves reaches to her feet, under a pale blue mantle. Red shoes show under the hem.
His wreath. On his curly hair the man wears a wreath of red flowers. His head is bowed a little as he looks down at the cups between them.
His tunic. His short yellow tunic is covered with black and red patterns, with full white sleeves. Below it are pale yellow hose and soft boots folded at the top.
The house on the hill. Behind them is a gentle green hill with a few round trees and a small house with a red roof. They stand on flat, sandy ground in front of it, a step apart.

The card in brief

In the deck: Card 38 of 78
Arcana: Minor Arcana, Cups
Number: Two
Element (Golden Dawn): Water
Astrology (Golden Dawn): Venus in Cancer
Title in Book T: Lord of Love
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 Hand, issuant from the lower part of the card from a cloud, holds lotuses. A lotus flower rises above water, which occupies the lower part of the card rising above the hand. From this flower rises a stem, terminating near the top of the card in another lotus, from which flows a sparkling white water, as from a fountain. Crossed on the stem just beneath are two dolphins, Argent and Or, on to which the water falls, and from which it pours in full streams, like jets of gold and silver, into two cups; which in their turn overflow, flooding the lower part of the card. ♀ and ♋︎ above and below.
Harmony of masculine and feminine united. Harmony, pleasure, mirth, subtlety: but if ill dignified—folly, dissipation, waste, silly actions.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), pp. 200–201. See the source
Papus (1892)
Opposition to this commencement. Unimportant obstacles raised by one of the lovers.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 312. See the source