Ten of Cups
Satiety
Lord of Perfected Success
- מלכותMalkuth Kingdom, sphere 10
- Number 10
- Cups Water, Heh
- Water element
- Briah the world of creation
- ♂︎Mars in Pisces III 20°–30°, Mar 11–20
- ♓︎Pisces mutable Water
- ♂︎Mars decan ruler
- Queen of Wands rules this decan
- Haiaiel and Mumiah Shem angels
- Citrine, olive, russet and black Queen scale of Malkuth
In a reading
Matters settled as wished, lasting success, contentment; but with the sense of too much, the moment before the tide turns. Badly placed: peace turned to dissipation, waste, satiety.
On the card
Ten cups in the pattern of the Tree of Life overflow so completely that the arrangement is unstable; the water is spilling everywhere.
Kabbalah
Malkuth, Kingdom, in Briah, the world of creation. The Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, the world as it actually is: matter, the body, the finished thing that has fallen away from its source and yet contains it. Malkuth is the Daughter, the final Heh. The Tens are Malkuth in the four worlds and show the element carried to its end, for good or ill; the Princesses belong here.
Malkuth in the world of Water: the element carried to its end and fixed, where fullness becomes surfeit. Mars in the last decan of Pisces disturbs the completed waters.
Astrology
Mars in the third decan of Pisces (20°–30°, about Mar 11–20). Mars is force, war, energy, the breaking of forms so that they can move. On the Tree it is Geburah; among the trumps it is the Tower. Mars also opens the sequence of the decans at the first degree of Aries.
Pisces is mutable Water: the two fish, the end of the zodiac, dissolution and the waters before the spring. Jupiter rules it traditionally (Neptune in modern practice) and Venus is exalted here. Its trump is the Moon. The trump of Pisces is The Moon.
This decan is ruled by the Queen of Wands, whose arc runs from 21° Pisces to 20° Aries. The two Shem angels of the decan are Haiaiel and Mumiah.
Number
The crystallised Actual: the cycle complete, matter as it is known, the end that contains the next beginning. Malkuth, the Kingdom. The Tens carry each element to its extreme; Fortune is trump X.
Depth psychology
Feeling at its limit; the value so fully possessed that it begins to cloy. The Cups are usually read as the feeling function in Jung's typology, an interpretive convention rather than a text of Jung's.
Thoth and Rider-Waite
Rider-Waite calls the suit Cups (also Chalices). Its small cards carry scenes; the Thoth small cards carry the suit emblems arranged geometrically, with the keyword printed at the bottom and the colours of their Sephirah and decan. The Golden Dawn title (Lord of Perfected Success) is shared by both traditions.
Related cards
The Tens, Malkuth in the four worlds
The other decans of Pisces
The trump of Pisces
The trump of Mars
Ruled by
Neighbours in the year
Correspondences follow the Golden Dawn system as used in Crowley's Book of Thoth and Liber 777. Card images are described, not reproduced. Where sources differ.