Card Meaning: Five Of Cups
General
Main motives in this card are obviously sadness and loss. This cloaked
figure is under no circumstances satisfied with the current situation, probably
some dissapointment or rejection took place. Three chalices are knocked down
while two remain upright. There is even blood red stains on the ground near the
lost chalices. Obviously there was a serious loss but two chalices remains and
the figure has turned his back to them. There is no appreciation for what is
left. The river and the bridge suggests that everything will pass and there is
always a bridge across unhappy times.
Reading
Positive:
re-evaluation, reassessment, learn from experience, not everything is lost.
Negative: incomplete partnership, loss, turmoil, regret, futility, sense of
loss, bad luck.
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two
others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a
small keep or holding. Divanatory Meanings: It is a card of loss, but
something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of
inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations;
with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or
frustration. Reversed: News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity,
ancestry, return, false projects.
— The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A.E. Waite