King

Origin

The King is the most ancient of the court ranks. The Mamluk decks that reached Europe carried the malik, the king, as the highest court figure, and Italian and French card-makers preserved this rank without alteration. In the Visconti-Sforza tarots of c. 1450 each King appears enthroned in a vaulted chamber, dressed in elaborate Renaissance robes, holding the suit emblem with regal solemnity. The English and French playing card decks retained the king as the highest court figure to the present day, where he survives as the K of each suit.

In the Tarot of Marseille each king sits enthroned in profile or three-quarter view, the suit emblem in one hand, often a sceptre or sword in the other. Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 illustrations placed each King in a setting that reflects his elemental rule: the King of Wands enthroned with salamanders and lions on a sun-baked terrace, the King of Cups on a stone throne floating on the sea, the King of Swords on a high stone seat under a clouded sky, the King of Pentacles in a vine-grown garden among grapes and bull-emblems. These images are preserved in the Rider-Waite deck.

Meaning and function

The King represents mature masculine energy, the active and ordering power of the suit. The King of Wands rules with bold vision, the founder of enterprises, the natural leader of expeditions. The King of Cups rules with emotional intelligence, the wise counsellor, the diplomat who reads hearts. The King of Swords rules with disciplined intellect, the judge, the strategist, the editor. The King of Pentacles rules with patient prosperity, the builder of estates, the master craftsman, the patron. Each King has organised the suit's domain and now governs it from a stable seat.

Read as a person, the King often describes a mature man in your life, again not necessarily by chronological age but by quality of authority: the boss, the father, the senior colleague, the patriarch. Read as a part of yourself, the King describes the inner sovereign who is willing to take responsibility for outcomes. The King's shadow is rigidity, tyranny, the cold rule that has lost touch with feeling. When a King appears reversed, the deck may be asking whether authority has hardened into authoritarianism.

In practice

In love readings, a King often describes the established partner, the long-term commitment, the older or more authoritative figure. The King of Cups is the classical card of the emotionally mature lover. In professional readings, Kings describe employers, board members, judges, mentors of high rank. In a Celtic Cross, a King in the "outcome" position promises that the matter will resolve into a stable, governed condition; in the "obstacle" position, he points to an authority figure with whom you are in conflict.

In Rider-Waite readings, attend to how each King holds his suit emblem. The King of Wands grips his staff actively as if about to strike the ground; the King of Cups holds his chalice almost as a courtesy; the King of Swords holds his blade vertically as a token of office; the King of Pentacles cradles his disk in his lap with possessive ease. A daily Card of the Day in a King invites you to take responsibility, to make the binding decision, to act from the seat of authority you already occupy but may not have claimed.

Symbolic depth

In the Golden Dawn system the King corresponds to the Vau of the divine name and to the elemental air of each suit. (Crowley reorganised the courts so that his Knight is fire and his Prince is air, but in the older Rider-Waite-derived system the King is air.) The King of Wands is air-of-fire, the wind that fans flame; the King of Cups is air-of-water, the breath over the depths; the King of Swords is air-of-air, the pure intellect; the King of Pentacles is air-of-earth, the cultivated thought that reshapes matter. Each King is the suit's element made articulate.

Mythologically the King is the Emperor in his governing register, the Solomon of judgement, the Arthur of the round table, the Charlemagne of the renewed empire. He is also the archetypal Father in Carl Jung's typology and the Wise Old Man whose authority comes from earned mastery rather than inheritance alone. Joseph Campbell's "Atonement with the Father" stage of the hero's journey often involves a King figure. To work with the four Kings is to learn that authority is a service, not a possession. Visit the glossary to compare with Queens, Knights, and Pages.

Also known as

• Re
• Roi
• Rey
• Sovereign
• Monarch