2 of Cups
The 2 of Cups is the second numeral card of the Cups suit in the Minor Arcana. In numeral suit cards, low numbers tend to represent early stages of a process — here, the meeting of two forces or two people within the emotional domain the Cups suit represents.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-22
Historical fact
In decks predating 1909, the 2 of Cups was typically a plain card showing just two cups, with no scene. The scene now associated with the card — a man and a woman facing each other, exchanging or raising cups in a gesture of alliance, with a winged caduceus hovering above them — was introduced by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909. The caduceus, a symbol associated with Hermes, was not part of the suit's traditional imagery before this version.
Interpretation — Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn
Waite described the card in terms of love, passion, friendship and affinity — the interrelation between two parties who attract and complete one another. In the modern reading, the 2 of Cups is associated with union, partnership, mutual attraction and harmony between two people, often read as the start or confirmation of a balanced relationship. Reversed, it can indicate imbalance, misunderstanding, or a connection that isn't progressing.
Interpretation — Thoth (Aleister Crowley)
In the Thoth/Golden Dawn system, the 2 of Cups carries the title 'Love,' directly reinforcing the reading of union between two complementary forces. The card is associated with initial harmony between polarities — not only romantic, but any productive meeting between two principles that balance each other.
Curiosities
- Art historians including Stuart R. Kaplan trace much of the visual inspiration for Pamela Colman Smith's Minor Arcana scenes to the Sola-Busca tarocchi, a 1491 Italian deck — the earliest known tarot to illustrate every numeral card with a narrative scene rather than plain suit symbols — which Smith is believed to have studied before designing the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
- The Golden Dawn assigned each of the 36 numeral Minor Arcana cards (2 through 10, across all four suits) to one of the 36 decans of the zodiac — a system dividing each sign into three 10-degree segments that originated in ancient Egyptian astronomy and was later adopted by Hellenistic astrology, as in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the 2 of Cups mean in Tarot?
- In the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, it represents union, mutual attraction and harmony between two people — often read as the start of a balanced partnership or relationship.
- Is the 2 of Cups always about a romantic relationship?
- Not necessarily. While commonly associated with romantic relationships, it can also represent any balanced partnership — friendship, a business alliance — in which two parties connect reciprocally.
Sources
- Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).
- Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910).
- Aleister Crowley. The Book of Thoth (1944).
- Stuart R. Kaplan. The Encyclopedia of Tarot (1978).