Minor Arcana, the Wands

Two of Wands

In the Two of Wands, as Pamela Colman Smith drew it in 1909, a man in a red cap stands on a castle roof with a small globe in one hand and a staff in the other. A second staff is fixed to the wall beside him, and past the battlements lie the sea, green fields and a red-roofed house.

What Waite wrote it means (1910)

Divinatory meanings: Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world's wealth.
Reversed: Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911), p. 194. Read it in the chapter

A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.

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

What's in the picture

The globe. He holds it up in one hand, small enough to fit in his palm. It is painted in patches of green and red. His head turns the same way, to the left, toward the globe and the land beyond it.
The red cap. A soft red cap sits on his dark hair. We see his face in profile, turned to the left of the card, with a calm look.
The staff in his hand. With his other hand he grips a tall staff whose foot rests on top of the wall. Small sprigs of leaves grow from its sides and its tip.
The staff in the ring. The second staff stands upright at the right, held to the wall by a black iron ring, with no hand on it.
The roses and lilies. A square panel on the wall at the left shows two red roses and two white lilies crossed in an X. Waite asked readers to notice "the Rose and Cross and Lily" here.
The cloak. A long dark red cloak falls from his shoulders to his heels over a tan tunic. Under it one leg shows, in orange hose and a pointed shoe.
The sea. Beyond the wall on the left, a bay of blue water, empty of boats, runs back to purple mountains.
The red-roofed house. On the right, the land is green and full of trees, with a small house with a red roof just below the wall and blue hills behind.

The card in brief

In the deck: Card 24 of 78
Arcana: Minor Arcana, Wands
Number: Two
Element (Golden Dawn): Fire
Astrology (Golden Dawn): Mars in Aries
Title in Book T: Lord of Dominion
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 Radiating Angelic Hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping two crossed wands. Flames issue from the point of junction. On two small wands above and below, with flames of five issuing therefrom, are the symbols of ♂ and ♈︎ for the Decan.
Strength, domination, harmony of rule and of justice. Boldness, courage, fierceness, shamelessness, revenge, resolution, generous, proud, sensitive, ambitious, refined, restless, turbulent, sagacious withal, yet unforgiving and obstinate.
Book T, “A Description of the Cards of the Tarot”, The Equinox I.8 (London, 1912), p. 194. See the source
Papus (1892)
Opposition to the commencement of the Enterprise.
The Enterprise is commenced when an unexpected obstacle suddenly prevents its execution.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, tr. A. P. Morton (London, 1892), p. 311. See the source