Dodal, linked reproduction
Roy d'Espee
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗A mind pulled in several directions
The Prince’s chariot adds a problem of direction to the two Kings’ seated authority.
Start with the pictures
King of Swords
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 227
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Roy d'Espee
A crowned seated figure holds a long upright red sword. Bent legs, decorated clothing and the seat occupy the lower half of the card.
Smith
King of Swords
A crowned figure faces forward with an upright sword held at a slight angle. Winged motifs decorate the high-backed throne.
Harris
Prince of Swords · Prince
A figure sits in an angular chariot above three small winged figures. The smaller figures face or pull in different directions beneath the vehicle.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite connects the king with judgment, office and the authority to act. He distinguishes this governing power from merely repeating the Justice trump’s virtue.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley describes a geometrical chariot pulled by winged children moving in divergent directions. He presents this airy figure as an image of the mind and its restless activity.
What gives direction when the forces carrying a figure do not appear to agree?
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.