Eight of Cups

A dejected figure leaves behind the cups of his past happiness or undertaking -- though the source also allows for joy or modesty, and most often points to a matter fading in importance.

Upright

dejection
desertion
abandoning felicity
decline of a matter
slight consequence

Waite's own figure for this card is a dejected man turning his back on cups that stood for his happiness, his ambitions, or something he had been pursuing. Read straightforwardly, this is about walking away from a source of satisfaction. But Waite is explicit that the card can just as easily mean the opposite -- joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty -- and he holds both readings in tension rather than choosing between them. What he says usually happens in practice is narrower than either extreme: the card tends to mark a matter declining, or a matter that seemed to matter a great deal turning out to be of slight consequence, whether that turns out to be a good thing or a bad one.

Traditional meaning.

The source shows a man of dejected aspect deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern -- he is walking away from something that was once his happiness or his project. The card 'speaks for itself on the surface' as this abandonment, but Waite notes other readings are entirely antithetical, giving joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty. In practice, he says, the card usually shows the decline of a matter, or that a matter thought important is really of slight consequence -- for good or evil alike.

Symbolism

A man of dejected aspect is shown deserting cups -- the cups standing for his felicity, enterprise, undertaking, or previous concern. His bearing is one of dejection, and the act depicted is a leaving-behind: he turns from what the cups represent rather than toward it. Traditionally the cups arranged and left signify that whatever they held -- joy, achievement, a course of action -- is being walked away from, deliberately or wearily.

In this context

Work or direction: One way to read this in relation to work is a project, role or undertaking being left behind, consciously or through fading energy -- the dejected posture in the source image suggests this isn't necessarily an easy or triumphant exit. It may also mark a work matter that seemed weighty turning out to carry less consequence than expected.
A decision I am weighing: The source image is one of departure rather than arrival -- someone turning from what the cups represented. This can reflect a decision already being lived out, or a matter that, on reflection, may be declining in importance rather than demanding a dramatic choice.
Something about myself: Waite's dejected figure walking from his own cups of felicity can be read as an image of moving on from a phase, attachment or achievement -- not necessarily gladly. The source's alternate reading of modesty and honour suggests this leaving can also be read as a quieter, humbler kind of change rather than a loss.

Sit with this

Is there something you recognise in the image of a dejected figure walking away from cups that once meant felicity?
Waite says the same card can mean joy, mildness or modesty -- does either of those feel closer to where you are?
Does a matter on your mind feel like it's declining, or like it only seemed important and is settling into something slighter?

Reversed

dejection reversed
joy
happiness
feasting
returning to what was left

In its upright form, this card traditionally centers on a figure leaving behind something that had mattered to him, his 'felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern', shown walking away looking dejected. The source's reversed meaning does not soften or explain that departure; it simply hands the reader a different set of words for the reversed position, great joy, happiness, feasting, without saying how one grows from the other. One way to read this is that the reversal points away from the dejection and departure altogether, toward celebration and shared pleasure instead. Held against the upright scene, it can also be read as what the man might find, or return to, once he stops walking away, though that bridge is a reader's addition, not something the source states.

Traditional meaning.

Waite's upright card shows a man of dejected aspect deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern, a walking away from something that had been a source of satisfaction. Reversed, Waite gives only three words: great joy, happiness, feasting. He does not explain the mechanism by which the dejected departure of the upright becomes celebration reversed; the source simply states the reversed meaning as its own short, separate entry, without reconciling it against the upright scene. A reader working strictly from this source should not invent a bridge between the two that Waite himself did not supply.

Symbolism

The upright image is a man of dejected aspect turning away from eight cups, described as his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern, leaving them behind him. Waite ties the cups directly to something the man had built or valued and is now abandoning. He gives no separate reversed image; the reversed meanings (great joy, happiness, feasting) are listed as a divinatory shift in the card's meaning, not as a different picture. The tension between a figure walking away from his own felicity and a reversed meaning of joy and feasting is left unresolved in the source itself.

In this context

A relationship: Where the upright card can involve leaving something that had been a source of felicity, the reversed meaning of joy and feasting may reflect warmth, celebration or renewed pleasure in a relationship or gathering, though the source gives no detail specific to romantic or relational matters.
Work or direction: The upright figure deserts an 'enterprise' or 'undertaking' he had built. Reversed, with its meaning of joy and feasting, this may reflect a shift away from that dejected abandonment, perhaps satisfaction, celebration or reward connected to work, though Waite does not specify this application himself.
A decision I am weighing: The upright scene shows someone walking away from a former concern. Held against a reversed meaning of joy and feasting, a reader might reflect on whether a decision in front of them leans toward departure or toward staying to celebrate what is already there, the source does not resolve which applies.
Something about myself: The upright man's dejected departure from his felicity, set against the reversed meaning of great joy and happiness, can invite reflection on the relationship between leaving something behind and finding contentment, without the source claiming one causes the other.

Sit with this

Where in your life right now might 'great joy, happiness, feasting' apply, as this reversal names it?
Does the upright image of walking away from your own felicity feel present for you, or does this reversal feel like its opposite?
Is there a celebration, gathering or pleasure you've been putting off or postponing?
What would it mean to stay with something you might otherwise be tempted to leave?

Sit with this

Each meaning is written by us and grounded in A. E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), which is in the public domain. Nothing appears here until a person has read it.

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Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), public domain. Eight of Cups (p. 74). Knowledge version 0.1.0.