Page of Cups (Rider Waite Tarot)
First Impressions
There’s always been much made of the androgyny of the Pages in the Rider Waite Tarot. But while I’ve found the clothing on the Page of Cups to be very effeminate, I don’t see the character himself as being girly. Not like I could consider him to be a her, is what I mean. I do find that I like more and more to have Pages as females in my decks, like in the Robin Wood Tarot - still the deck with the
best court cards ever, in my opinion
- or mixed like in the Minchiate decks where the “feminine” suits of Cups and Coins have handmaids and the “masculine” Wands and Swords have pages. But to me, the Pages in this deck are boys. Not the manliest boys I’ve ever seen, mind you, but boys nonetheless.
What is a Page, anyway? Historically, medievally I guess, a page was a youth (usually male) from a noble family who served the king. He acted as a herald, announcing the king and any visitors of consequence, fetched and carried, ran messages. It’s this last one, the role of messenger, that we typically associate with Pages in the Tarot. In the abstract they often represent news or messages, and it hails back to this.
So back to
this Page, the Page of Cups. He’s fresh-faced, youthful in a pretty way. Dark hair and eyes, which doesn’t much work for me. Having learned on a not-especially-multicultural series of decks such as this one, I tend to follow the Eurocentric tradition of assigning colouring to the people in the various suits, and the Cups courts by this logic are generally fair. Blue/gray/green eyes, blonde or light brown hair. So the dark hair and eyes doesn’t especially chime with me. Gorgeous clothing, though. Fancy blue hat that I initially couldn’t make sense of, but which I now think from the way it drapes and its elaborate shape, is meant to resemble a fish. Pink leggings and blousy long sleeves; a belted tunic over it that is a light blue and adorned with a pattern of water lilies or lotuses. Their pink and white stems are at various heights from the hem. And boots with a cuff but no sort of a heel. They look soft and comfortable, more like slippers or socks. Ideal for someone used to smooth floors and soft carpets as opposed to tramping the byways and hillsides. Clearly a pampered child.
He stands feet apart and facing slightly to the left - he’s reflective, intuitive - and has one hand on his hip. In the other hand he holds a golden goblet just like the ones we’ve seen in the numbered cards of the Cups suit. Well, except for the Ace, but that’s another story. The Page is looking at it with a bright and smiling expression on his face. And small wonder: a little blue fish is poking out of the cup as if looking up at him. The fish clearly amuses the Page; you can just imagine him saying, “Hey, look at that! There’s a fish in my cup! Neat, I can’t wait to show someone!” It’s not quite the surprised wonder of the Hanson-Roberts version, which is my favourite, or the proprietary contentment of the Robin Wood, it’s just simple pleasure in the novelty.
The background of this card is pretty simplistic. Just a pale and nondescript sky over blue and rolling water. The Page’s boots are planted on a sand-colored surface the same shade as the boots themselves, and is separated from the water by a clear horizontal delineation. Another stage card, then.
What do I take away from this card? Right now I see it as a dreamer, an incurable romantic, a young lover or beloved child. But that is just in terms of physical manifestation.
Creator’s Notes
In
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Waite says:
Waite said:
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Waite must mean “fair to look at”, because he seems dark in colouring to me. To me he seems more to describe the Page of Pentacles; I never saw this gentle soul as particularly studious, much less intent.
Others' Interpretations
Waite thinks that the Page of Cups should be interpreted in a reading to mean:
Waite said:
Divinatory Meanings: Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business. Reversed: Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
Again, I can't shake the feeling that he means the Page of Pentacles.
In her
Learning the Tarot course, Joan Bunning said it means:
Bunning said:
The Page of Cups is Cupid bringing you opportunities for love. He delivers real chances to experience romance, deep feelings and the inner life - the wonders of the Cups suit. In readings, this Page suggest that an opening may appear that stirs your emotions, pulls at your heartstrings or brings you great joy. When you see such a chance, act on it!
The Page of Cups can also stand for a child or young-at-heart adult whose interactions with you involve emotional needs, moodiness, love, intimacy or spirituality. Sometimes the Page of Cups implies that your entire situation is suffused with the spirit of love and emotion. At such times, feel free to express and enjoy your feelings with light-hearted abandon.
Symbols and Attributes
Elementally this Page is the Earth (Page) of Water (Cups). You could see it as the wherewithal to nurture the emotional, spiritual or intuitive side. Making it real, solid, substantial. This side of the Page’s character is immature, not fully developed. But it’s got the potential.
The Page, like all Pages, is youthful and androgynous but vaguely male. He stands with one hand on his hip - a surprisingly assertive stance to my mind, confident. The direction of his feet, his upper body, his gaze, the entire direction of focus is to the left. It makes me think of the so-called feminine aspects of passivity, inactivity, reflection. He’s thinking back to the past, not looking forward to the future. Not living in the here and now.
His clothing is just loaded with water symbolism. His hat is the blue of the ocean and seems to me to be somewhat fish-shaped. Or am I imagining things? I just can’t make sense otherwise of its drape and configuration. Over his blouse, which is a soft and romantic shade of pink, he wears a tunic. Its hem is a passionate red showing the potential for great romance and depth of emotion. But the rest of the tunic is watery blue again and is decorated with lotus flowers. As they start beneath the water and grow to allow their blossoms to just crown the surface, they represent the ascent of the soul from the depths of the subconscious toward the light. They symbolize the purity and the spiritual growth of the innocent Page. They also tie into the Page of Cups’ title, according to the Golden Dawn: the Princess of the Waters, the Lotus of the Palace of the Floods. And the boots are, at least in my version, the same shade as the ground on which they stand. An illustration, I think, of what grounds him, of the Earth element of the Pages.
The cup in his hand is, obviously, emblematic of his suit. The watery, receptive, feminine Cups. And the fish? Given the unformed nature of a child on the cusp of adolescence, the changing and adapting to his adult form, it heralds transformation as it did in Celtic myths. Rachel Pollack (heh, Pollack, fish
) says that the fish is imagination, the visualization of imaginative ideas. Its emergence from the cup is, like the crayfish in the pool on the Moon card, indicative of ideas that surface from the subconscious. But in this case, appropriate for a Page, it is less eerie; it is shallow and not fully formed. The Page of Cups’ subconscious is shallow and lacking in murky depths. Knowledge, ideas, intuition, inspiration, they all bob to the surface, but nothing really ominous like in the Moon. But it's the start of something great. As the Page of Cups gains in maturity and experience, so too does his fish - and his cup - until he winds up with the whale in the ocean behind the King of Cups!
LRichard made a really interesting point before in the Rider Waite subforum; the fish was a common symbol in the earliest days of Christianity, by which Christians recognized one another. The version I always heard was that when Christianity was still deep underground they didn't go around announcing their faith to all and sundry. When meeting one another one Christian would unobtrusively draw the shape of a fish in the dust with his toe. Kind of a password. The second Christian would recognize it as such and use his toe to dot an eye in the fish shape. So the fish has long been a symbol of Christianity, and of Christ. Anyway, the fish (Jesus) in the cup, LRichard suggested, could very well be a reference to the legends of the Holy Grail, so dear to the heart of Waite. So we go back to the idea of a Holy Grail (san greal) as an allegory for the royal blood (sang real) that flowed through Jesus' veins and those of his descendants. As Baigent and the like put forth in
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and then Dan Brown took that ball and ran with it, the blood of Jesus, the body of Jesus as symbolized by the fish, in the cup or womb of Mary Magdalene. Another interesting thought as far as the Page of Cups goes, and his spirituality.
The way the Page looks at the cup, fish and all, is also interesting. He shows lively interest, but no especially great surprise. It's as if he is gradually becoming attuned to his surfacing imagination and budding intuition. It is of great interest to him, but little surprise; he knows and recognizes that it is happening.
Behind the Page are roundly rolling waves. They represent his suit element of Water, of course, but the topography of the wave, if you will, seems to indicate activity. This isn't the calm and still pool behind the High Priestess' veil. Being young and still spiritually naïve, he doesn't necessarily have his emotions or his intuition under control. And notice how the Page of Cups is standing on a tan foreground that's not just the same shade as his boots (the Earth of all Pages, and a sign that despite his frilly appearance this kid is actually pretty grounded) but also separated so distinctly from the waves. No natural coastline or horizon, but a clear delineation. The presence of this stage, this card's distinction as a stage card, would lead us to believe that these waves might not be real, that they are projected by the Page to illustrate both the depth of his imagination and also some hint of his lively imagination below the surface.
My Interpretation
In its most general, most abstract sense, the Page of Cups represents a message on emotional or spiritual matters. As Cups are very intuitive it may mean a "gut feeling", or a message from your subconscious, your dreams. You might do well to listen to such messages. Or it may represent budding romance, newly emerged spirituality or intuition. Perhaps a fledgeling student in fields related to this. Because a Page can also represent a student, one embarking on a new path. When representing a person, this Page is likely a child, youth or young woman, someone beloved to the Querent, maybe sensitive, emotionally immature, dreamy, with an active imagination and great intuitive or psychic potential.
I like what you said very much. 
