The snake biting its tail
The ouroboros, a snake swallowing its own tail, is an emblem of eternity from Egyptian and Greek alchemical art. The Magician wears it as a belt.
In the tradition
The serpent that eats its tail turns up in Egyptian funerary texts and then in Greek alchemy, where a manuscript known as the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra draws it around the words "one is the all". Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, a late Greek book of Egyptian signs read across Renaissance Europe, gives it as a sign of the universe.
Waite adds that on the Magician it means the eternity of attainment in the spirit. Wearing it as a belt, the figure is ringed by it at the waist, between the raised wand and the pointing hand.
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.
- Horapollo, Hieroglyphica (probably 5th century CE). A late Greek book of Egyptian signs, read widely in the Renaissance.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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