Where did Waite get these meanings?

La Force

Please forget about Picatrix and Etteilla and Huson for just a wee moment, and just think about RWS and GD, nothing else.

In the attachment is a scan of the RWS 4 of Swords and a selection from Book T (Golden Dawn). The picture and the decan title agree, do they not?

No they do not agree.

Waite Didn't follow GD

The picture doesnt agree with GD title

I Quote from Waite

"A BAD card, Viligence, retreat, solitude, hermits repose, exile, TOMB and COFFIN".

That clearly doesnt go with " Lord of Rest from Stife."


ETA: if Waite did decided to follow GD, I am sure he would've come up with a better picture, showing some dude actually resting after strife. and NOT of inside a church depicting a coffin / tome, a funeral, that a king / knight is dead. As well as he made it clear it is a BAD card.

The Title "Rest from strife", makes this card a good card, resting after battle, means its a good thing. So the GD Title doesnt match with Waites image.

Maybe if GD titled it "Death from Strife", then it would. Or "Exiled from strife", or "Retreat from Strife", this would then mean you backed off from the fight or battle.

Therefore it is opposite.
 

Lee

No they do not agree.

Waite Didn't follow GD

The picture doesnt agree with GD title

I Quote from Waite

"A BAD card, Viligence, retreat, solitude, hermits repose, exile, TOMB and COFFIN".

That clearly doesnt go with " Lord of Rest from Stife."


ETA: if Waite did decided to follow GD, I am sure he would've come up with a better picture, showing some dude actually resting after strife. and NOT of inside a church depicting a coffin / tome, a funeral, that a king / knight is dead. As well as he made it clear it is a BAD card.

The Title "Rest from strife", makes this card a good card, resting after battle, means its a good thing. So the GD Title doesnt match with Waites image.

Maybe if GD titled it "Death from Strife", then it would. Or "Exiled from strife", or "Retreat from Strife", this would then mean you backed off from the fight or battle.

Therefore it is opposite.
La Force, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you're doing a bit of projecting of your own assumptions onto the GD founders who created their tarot system. They may certainly have viewed "Rest from Strife" as a negative concept. Also, I think we need to remember that the RWS as well as the GD tarot system are drawn from a variety of sources. In the case of the RWS, Kaplan's Encyclopedia reproduces an earlier drawing by Smith which is clearly the precursor of the 4 of Swords design. So that preexisting image which was reused by Smith is clearly one of a number of sources the image could have had.
 

La Force

La Force, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you're doing a bit of projecting of your own assumptions onto the GD founders who created their tarot system. They may certainly have viewed "Rest from Strife" as a negative concept. Also, I think we need to remember that the RWS as well as the GD tarot system are drawn from a variety of sources. In the case of the RWS, Kaplan's Encyclopedia reproduces an earlier drawing by Smith which is clearly the precursor of the 4 of Swords design. So that preexisting image which was reused by Smith is clearly one of a number of sources the image could have had.

Okay, thats what I have been trying say, I just didnt know the right words, thanks, but you do understand, what I was getting at. I wasnt projecting my own ssumptionn, I just didnt know how to put my words across right.

You said "GD created their own system" thats what I was trying to get across thank you. and agreee with you about the rest, with the 4 of swords, again I was trying to get that acrss as well. One day I will learn how to communicate better.
 

Richard

In the Additional Meanings section of PKT, it says that the 4 of Swords is a "bad card," but Waite makes it clear at the end of this section that these supplementary meanings are often in disagreement with those previously given. In the main section on the Minors, the meanings are given as "vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin."

It would be typical of Waite to be thinking of this passage in the Bible from II Timothy, chapter 4:

6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.​
My wife, parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles are all now at rest after this life of strife, and I like to think that they are now in a place of joy and peace.
 

ravenest

I didn't know that - I've removed the link until I can clarify with Scion.

Its just an answer I got from someone else ... as I was able to access it ... then it seemed to disappear from the net and when I asked why that was the response. But better to be sake than sorry :)

EDIT: "SAFE than sorry " ... I didnt mean get drunk on Japanese wine :laugh:
 

ravenest

No they do not agree.

Waite Didn't follow GD

The picture doesnt agree with GD title

I Quote from Waite

"A BAD card, Viligence, retreat, solitude, hermits repose, exile, TOMB and COFFIN".

That clearly doesnt go with " Lord of Rest from Stife."

.

[Recites Swinburne's 'Ilicet.'3

There is an end of joy and sorrow;
Peace all day long, all night, all morrow,
But never a time to laugh or weep.
The end is come of pleasant places,
The end of tender words and faces,
The end of all, the poppied sleep.

No place for sound within their hearing,
No room to hope, no time for fearing,
No lips to laugh, no lids for tears.
The old years have run out all their measure;
No chance of pain, no chance of pleasure,
No fragment of the broken years.

Outside of all the worlds and ages,
There where the fool is as the sage is,
There where the slayer is clean of blood,
No end, no passage, no beginning,
There where the sinner leaves of sinning,
There where the good man is not good.

There is not one thing with another,
But Evil saith to Good: My brother,
My brother, I am one with thee:
They shall not strive nor cry for ever:
No man shall choose between them: never
Shall this thing end and that thing be.

Wind wherein seas and stars are shaken
Shall shake them, and they shall not waken;
None that has lain down shall arise;
The stones are sealed across their places;
One shadow is shed on all their faces,
One blindness cast on all their eyes.

Sleep, is it sleep perchance that covers
Each face, as each face were his lover's?
Farewell; as men that sleep fare well.
The grave’s mouth laughs unto derision
Desire and dread and dream and vision,
Delight of heaven and sorrow of hell.

No soul shall tell nor lip shall number
The names and tribes of you that slumber;
No memory, no memorial.
"Thou knowest"—who shall say thou knowest?
There is none highest and none lowest:
An end, an end, an end of all.

Good night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow
To these that shall not have good morrow;
The gods be gentle to all these.
Nay, if death be not, how shall they be?
Nay, is there help in heaven? it may be
All things and lords of things shall cease.

The stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes;
The bronzè brims are deep in ashes;
The pale old lips of death are fed.
Shall this dust gather flesh hereafter?
Shall one shed tears or fall to laughter,
At sight of all these poor old dead?

Nay, as thou wilt; these know not of it;
Thine eyes' strong weeping shall not profit,
Thy laughter shall not give thee ease;
Cry aloud, spare not, cease not crying,
Sigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing,
Thou shalt not raise up one of these.

Burnt spices flash, and burnt wine hisses,
The breathing flame’s mouth curls and kisses
The small dried rows of frankincense;
All round the sad red blossoms smoulder,
Flowers coloured like the fire, but colder,
In sign of sweet things taken hence;

Yea, for their sake and in death's favour
Things of sweet shape and of sweet savour
We yield them, spice and flower and wine;
Yea, costlier things than wine or spices,
Whereof none knoweth how great the price is,
And fruit that comes not of the vine.

From boy's pierced throat and girl's pierced bosom
Drips, reddening round the blood-red blossom,
The slow delicious bright soft blood,
Bathing the spices and the pyre,
Bathing the flowers and fallen fire,
Bathing the blossom by the bud.

Roses whose lips the flame has deadened
Drink till the lapping leaves are reddened
And warm wet inner petals weep;
The flower whereof sick sleep gets leisure,
Barren of balm and purple pleasure,
Fumes with no native steam of sleep.

Why will ye weep? what do ye weeping?
For waking folk and people sleeping,
And sands that fill and sands that fall,
The days rose-red, the poppied hours,
Blood, wine, and spice and fire and flowers,
There is one end of one and all.

Shall such an one lend love or borrow?
Shall these be sorry for thy sorrow?
Shall these give thanks for words or breath?
Their hate is as the loving-kindness;
The frontlet of their brows is blindness,
The armlet of their arms is death.

Lo, for no noise or light of thunder
Shall these grave-clothes be rent in sunder;
He that hath taken, shall he give?
He hath rent them: shall he bind together?
He hand bound them: shall he break the tether?
He hath slain them: shall he bid them live?

A little sorrow, a little pleasure,
Fate metes us from the dusty measure
That holds the date of all of us;
We are born with travail and strong crying,
And from the birth-day to the dying
The likeness of our life is thus.

One girds himself to serve another,
Whose father was the dust, whose mother
The little dead red worm therein;
They find no fruit of things they cherish;
The goodness of a man shall perish,
It shall be one thing with his sin.

In deep wet ways by grey old gardens
Fed with sharp spring the sweet fruit hardens;
They know not what fruits wane or grow;
Red summer burns to the utmost ember;
They know not, neither can remember,
The old years and flowers they used to know.

Ah, for their sakes, so trapped and taken,
For theirs, forgotten and forsaken,
Watch, sleep not, gird thyself with prayer.
Nay, where the heart of wrath is broken,
Where long love ends as a thing spoken,
How shall thy crying enter there?

Though the iron sides of the old world falter,
The likeness of them shall not alter
For all the rumour of periods,
The stars and seasons that come after,
The tears of latter men, the laughter
Of the old unalterable gods.

Far up above the years and nations,
The high gods, clothed and crowned with patience,
Endure through days of deathlike date;
They bear the witness of things hidden;
Before their eyes all life stands chidden,
As they before the eyes of Fate.

Not for their love shall Fate retire,
Nor they relent for our desire,
Nor the graves open for their call.
The end is more than joy and anguish,
Than lives that laugh and lives that languish,
The poppied sleep, the end of all.
 

Lee

Also, I see that Huson suggests that Waite mainly relied on Etteilla for the 4 of Swords, which supports what I'm saying about a variety of sources. I think the upshot of all this is that neither Waite nor the GD followed a strict plan or scheme when they created their decks. I think it was a much more organic process. So we shouldn't be frustrated or disappointed when specific cards aren't fully consistent with one particular source.
 

caridwen

Also, I see that Huson suggests that Waite mainly relied on Etteilla for the 4 of Swords, which supports what I'm saying about a variety of sources. I think the upshot of all this is that neither Waite nor the GD followed a strict plan or scheme when they created their decks. I think it was a much more organic process. So we shouldn't be frustrated or disappointed when specific cards aren't fully consistent with one particular source.

I'm sure Waite talks about this insistence as "pathalogical". As has been discussed, he did not place as much import on the Minors as he did the Majors. He relied on a variety of sources for the Minors and they can have an indefinite amount of combinations and meanings. He says he is only going to put in enough information so as not to break oaths, that the information will be already known to those on the outer circles of the mysteries and that the Tarot is a system of symbols which I think is very important here. The Minors are very richly symbolic (just look at the Ace of Cups) but the book may only refer to normative Cartomancy readings and the GD decans.

The Rider Waite, especially the Minors always throws out new symbolic images to me and I have been using is for a long time now. There doesn't seem to be an end to how much information there is in each card.:)