Queen of Cups

Peredur

The "original" (rose and lilly back) version of this card seems to show a bird flying above the water just to the left of the cliff. As this does not appear on either the 1971 (yellow box) printing or the 1909 (Pamela "A") I was wondering if it was significant. Or....am I becoming obsessed with meaningless details? After all, it may be just a copyist's error.
Bob
 

Fulgour

I'm with you, Bob. Looking at the "original" (w/rose back)
we're seeing a cliff there on the left: think Dover, England.

Now sticking out of that, just above the dumpling shaped
rocky outcropping, there it is: just like how Pam did birds
on all of the Swords Courts. So ~ what do you think it is?

Kind of looks like one of those branches an imperilled hero
hangs from, dangling off an edge high above certain doom.
 

caridwen

Maybe it was taken out because it's unclear - it does look a little like a branch sticking out from the cliff but I reckon it's a bird. The bird is either flying to the cliff away from the more exposed rock or from the security of the cliff to the rock. Looks a tad like the symbol for Aries.

Birds can be messengers/messages; telepathy; freedom and the element of air
also, ideas.
 

Parzival

Interesting observation of details. The "Original" version brings a unique mood to the scene by the golden cliff being immediately under the golden- dark-winged ciborium or sacramental vessel and over the swirling, agitated, shadowy waters : the brooding of higher meditative thought, with feeling for spiritual truth, beyond personal emotional murkiness below. Or the golden, higher mind as a bridge between personal feeling and spiritual vision. The bird suggests free flights of meditative musing on life's mysteries, above the sea, the darkly churning, meandering worries and woes below. A reaching up for illumination beyond confusion. Waite aptly describes this as "loving intelligence". Note that the right hand which holds the sacramental vessel is in a white glove, with the left hand bare. Purity, pure light of the Spirit. (What epiphany hides in that occult container?)
 

Rusty Neon

Further to the discussions above about comparisons between the RWS Queen of Cups and the Golden Dawn's Queen of Cups, here is the Queen of Cups from the Classic Golden Dawn deck (a new, limited edition black and white deck). Like the Wang and Cicero decks, this new deck is intended to reflect the GD's Book T descriptions.

http://www.classicgd.bigstep.com/generic6.html