One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
the plate, in waite's words · the painted card will hang here in time
A seated figure laments beneath the nine swords ranged above her, and Waite calls the scene simply "utter desolation," a grief he says knows no equal to itself. It is the suit's darkest pip by his own account, death, failure, and despair filling his compiled reading without qualification this time, no gentler alternative offered the way earlier cards in the run received one.
a young page · the keeper's voice pass on the note is still to come