Dodal, linked reproduction
Neuf d'Épées
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗A person in distress, blades without a person
Separate the scene’s visible subject from the emotional or moral judgment attached to it.
Start with the pictures
Nine of Swords
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 237
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Neuf d'Épées
A straight upright blade fills the centre of four pairs of curved swords. Their many edges form a dense border around it.
Smith
Nine of Swords
A figure sits upright in bed with both hands covering the face. Nine swords run horizontally across the dark background above a patterned coverlet.
Harris
Nine of Swords · 9
Nine downward-pointing swords of different lengths cross a dark field. Red drops and streaks appear below the blades.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite reads profound grief and a range of fears and disappointments. These belong to a historical divinatory list; the picture alone does not establish what event has occurred or will occur.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley calls this Cruelty and connects Mars in Gemini with force operating without restraint. His description emphasizes damaged blades dripping blood and poison; it is a symbolic moral account, not a clinical assessment.
How does the presence or absence of a human figure change where you place your attention?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
Foolmade supplies the linked Dodal reproductions. Its surrounding commentary is not the basis for our historical claims. These images are linked externally; the Smith illustration reuses the public-domain source scan with its full page context.
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.