The Empress

  • Arcana Major
  • Number III
  • Figure on this site Frigg, keeper of the hearth
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

The Empress belongs to the trump cards (trionfi) that were added to ordinary four-suit Italian card packs in northern Italy, where the earliest documented tarot decks date from about 1440 to 1450. Her Italian name is L’Imperatrice. One site that catalogues the card describes the earliest Empress as one from a deck made for Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, around 1442: a crowned woman in a fur-lined gown, attended by four young women, holding a sceptre and a shield with the imperial eagle. A Visconti-Sforza deck of about 1450 is also said to show a similar figure, and Bianca Maria Visconti is often suggested as her model, but that identification is debated.

The pattern of an enthroned, crowned woman with an eagle shield and a sceptre carried on into later decks. In the Tarot de Marseille family the design settled in the 17th century. In Jean Dodal’s Lyon deck of the early 1700s she is labelled L’Impératrice, and the numerals are additive, so she is numbered III while the Emperor is IIII. She holds the eagle shield in the crook of one arm and a sceptre topped with an orb and cross; the folds of her throne curtains were sometimes mistaken for wings. In the French Besançon pattern, the Emperor and Empress were replaced during the Revolution by a Grandfather and Grandmother.

These were card-game decks. Nothing in these sources ties the Empress to divination before the late 18th century.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

Pamela Colman Smith drew all 78 cards of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck from instructions by A. E. Waite, and William Rider & Son first published it in December 1909. Smith’s Empress keeps the seated woman with a sceptre but changes much of what surrounds her.

According to one catalogue of the card, Waite kept the crown of twelve stars that Oswald Wirth had already given her, replaced the eagle on the shield with the symbol of Venus, and added wheat and pomegranates. Waite’s own text mentions the twelve-star diadem, the Venus symbol on the shield, a ripening field of corn, a fall of water beyond her, and a sceptre topped with a globe. He does not mention pomegranates, so that detail rests on the catalogue alone.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The sceptre which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation. […]

Myth and literature · Context

Later meanings

The tarot’s occult meanings were added long after the cards were made. In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed the cards came from ancient Egypt, a claim later historians found unsupported. Writers after him, including Paul Christian, linked the Empress with Isis, and one catalogue reports that Éliphas Lévi and Oswald Wirth called her “Venus-Urania, Queen of Heaven.” Michael Dummett’s research found no solid evidence of significant divinatory use of tarot before the late 18th century.

The link to Venus, and in modern esoteric systems to the Kabbalistic path between Binah and Chokmah, is also a later addition. Waite put the Venus symbol on her shield, yet he writes that most old attributions of the card, such as the Word, Divine Nature or the Triad, are “completely wrong on the symbolism.” None of this comes from the Italian decks.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the meaning used for readings here. Using the tarot to divine is a modern practice, and the Norse figure shown for each card is this site’s own association; the tarot began as an Italian card game. A short history is on the Tarot page.

Upright

Keywords: nurturing, abundance, fertility, domestic strength, patient growth

Not all power announces itself. Frigg's domain was the hearth, the household, the slow accumulation of care that holds a whole realm together without ever needing to raise its voice. This card is abundance through tending — through showing up, again and again, for something that doesn't pay off immediately. What you've been quietly nurturing, whether a relationship, a skill, or a piece of yourself, is closer to bearing fruit than you think. Keep watering it.

In general: Something you've invested steady care into is ready, or nearly ready, to give something back. Don't abandon it right before the harvest.

In love: A relationship strengthened by consistent small acts rather than grand gestures. The unglamorous tending is the romance.

In work: A project or team that thrives because someone is quietly handling the details no one else wants to. That someone may be you, and it matters more than it's being credited.

Reversed

Keywords: overprotection, smothering, stunted growth, codependence

Care has a saturation point, and past it, nurturing starts to look like control with better branding. Smothering isn't the opposite of love; it's love that's forgotten the other person needs room to make their own mistakes. If you find yourself managing someone's growth instead of supporting it, or unable to let a project run without your hand directly on it, the hearth has gotten too warm. Step back far enough that what you're tending can actually breathe.

In general: Something or someone in your care needs less of you, not more, in order to actually develop. That's a hard kindness to offer.

In love: Affection that's tipped into control — checking in too often, deciding for the other person what they need. Loosen the grip.

In work: Inability to delegate, or a team member who can't grow because every decision still routes back through you. Let something fail a little; it'll survive.

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