The fish in the cup
A fish looks out of the Page of Cups’ cup. Waite reads it as the pictures of the mind taking form.
In the tradition
Fish belong to the suit of Cups, which the Golden Dawn gave to Water, and they swim through its court: on the Knight’s tunic, at the King’s neck and in the sea beside him. Waite gives the Page’s fish a mental sense, an idea surfacing from the cup.
Pisces, the two fish, is the last water sign of the zodiac, and its own page tells the Greek myth behind it.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Book T: The Tarot (1890s, published by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn (1937 to 1940)). The source of the planetary, zodiac and elemental attributions of the cards.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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