The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.
the plate, in waite's words · the painted card will hang here in time
In divination
House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.
Reversed:House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
The library's note
A hand from the cloud holds a cup overflowing four streams, a dove descending to set a marked wafer into it. Waite attaches to this single image a claim he gives no other pip card, "an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana," as though the whole suit's run were already folded into this first cup. Cups is the one suit Waite ties openly to an element, "the Sign of the Cup naturally refers to water," and here the water begins already in motion, poured before it is asked for.
a young page · the keeper's voice pass on the note is still to come