Dodal, linked reproduction
Trois d'Épées
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗What is pierced?
Look at the central object before treating every three-sword design as a broken heart.
Start with the pictures
Three of Swords
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 249
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Trois d'Épées
A straight upright blade occupies the space between a pair of curved swords. Coloured floral ornaments remain outside the enclosed centre.
Smith
Three of Swords
Three swords pierce a heart suspended beneath clouds and rain. No human figure appears.
Harris
Three of Swords · 3
A long central sword intersects two curved blades. Broken flower forms lie around the crossing beneath a dark, turbulent background.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite gathers separation, interruption and dispersion around the design. His explanation is broader than a specific story of romantic betrayal.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley calls this Sorrow and relates Binah and Saturn in Libra to a difficult account of creation and darkness. His design explanation says that the crossing swords have destroyed the rose.
How does changing the pierced object change the kind of sorrow you infer?
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.