Waite–Smith, Swords
Queen of Swords
What you can see
A crowned figure sits in profile, holding a sword upright while extending the other hand. Clouds gather behind the decorated throne.
What Waite says
Waite reads a severity shaped by sorrow and explicitly resists making the sword a simple emblem of power here. His collected meanings emphasize absence and separation.
Waite · Part III, §2 · printed p. 228 ↗In the Thoth deck
Waite’s courts are King, Queen, Knight and Page. Thoth has Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess, so a rank does not carry straight across. See both ways to match them.
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.