The Suit of Cups

The Ace of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot with the title, "Cups"
  • Album: Ys
  • Element: Water
  • Season: Spring
  • French Suit: Hearts

The Suit of Cups deals with public and private life. Cups suggest nourishment and feasts, where people come together. As delicate vessels, they are also emblematic of the heart, symbolic containers for deeply-held emotions and dreams. The theme of society is similar to the suit of Swords, but in Cups the focus is more on living up to family ties and community responsibilities.

The sunken city of Ys, for which this album was named, was once surrounded by the sea and shielded on all sides by great walls. Its people, and most specifically the king’s daughter Dahut, are accused of all manner of immoralities in different versions of the tale. In all, the city falls when Dahut gets hold of the key which opens the gates and lets the water in.

The five songs of Ys are dense, decadent, and interlacing. As a result, the images of this suit are mosaic, each drawing on lyrics from a few different places. The numbered cards have a mirrored structure like the suit of Swords.


Click a card below to read more.

Ace of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: A city in a forest in a giant cup
2 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: a girl drops a bell from a dock, toward a burning underwater city
3 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: a figure in the dirt beneath drooping peonies
4 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: a woman wheeling a barrow of chopped wood
5 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: black birds surrounding a kettle and tea cups
6 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: a woman in a hollow in a tree, with bread and cups of water before her
7 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: a woman in a boat with a fishing pole, making a broom
8 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: spiders hanging from blooming cherry branches
9 of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot: Animals at a gate, running from a flood
10 of cups from Anecdotes Tarot: Knee deep in water, a woman looks up at a flying seagull and a distant city
Page of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot walks on the seashore with a dove in a cup
Knight of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot rides on the seashore, dressed like a moth
Queen of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot, covered in seaweed on a throne of sand, holding a squid in a cup
King of Cups from Anecdotes Tarot sits in a tree house and watches a brown bird fly away

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