Waite–Smith, Swords
Four of Swords
What you can see
A recumbent armoured figure rests with hands together beneath three hanging swords. A fourth sword lies along the base, below a decorated window.
What Waite says
Waite identifies the figure as a tomb effigy, not simply a sleeping person. His meanings include retreat, solitude and repose alongside the funerary associations that helped shape the design.
Waite · Part III, §2 · printed p. 246 ↗Edition and image credits
Pamela Colman Smith, illustrations in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Rider 1922 reprint, first published 1910. The scans keep the printed borders and page marks, with no cropping or recolouring.