The Open Athenaeum

✶ The Study Deck

Two of Pentacles

Pentacles, of the lesser arcana

Waite & Colman Smith, 1909 · described 1911

A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.

the plate, in waite's words · the painted card will hang here in time

In divination

On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.

Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.

The library's note

Two pentacles pass between a dancing figure's hands, joined by a cord shaped like a figure eight laid on its side. Waite reads the scene first as simple gaiety, "recreation," before adding a second, busier sense entirely, "news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble." The suit's material concern is still light here, held in motion rather than settled weight, closer to play than to the labor pentacles will carry by its later pips.

a young page · the keeper's voice pass on the note is still to come

Doors Onward

Sources & Further Reading

  1. Waite, A. E. (1911). The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Card text quoted verbatim, his punctuation kept. (Public domain.)
  2. Card described at: http://sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktpe02.htm
  3. direct fetch failed repeatedly; retrieved via mirror https://spiritmaji.com/sacredtext/tarot/pkt/pktpe02.htm which reproduces the same public-domain 1911 text

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