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Strength

MAJOR ARCANA · VIII

Strength is card VIII of the major arcana. A woman in white gently rests her hands on a lion's mouth. Upright, it stands for inner strength, patience and compassion; reversed, for a lack of confidence and being ruled by emotion.

Name and number

Upright meaning

Keywords: inner strength, patience, courage, compassion, self-control

If the Chariot's strength is will turned outward, the strength of this card lies within. The woman is not fighting the lion. She neither fears it nor forces it down; she calms it with gentle hands.

Upright, Strength stands for the power to bring what is wild under control through kindness and patience: getting along with the lion inside you, such as anger or anxiety, and facing difficult people and situations with persistence and compassion. It is a quiet encouragement when you are keeping up an effort that will not pay off right away.

Reversed meaning

Keywords: lack of confidence, timidity, ruled by emotion, brute force

Reversed, the hand that calms the lion is read as not working well.

Doubting yourself and losing heart, backing down just when it matters. Or being swept along by the lion of emotion, carried off by anger or desire. It can also show the opposite: forgetting gentleness and trying to hold things down by force. It is read as a time to recover your inner calm.

What the picture shows

• The lion: the wild forces within us: instinct, passion, anger.
• The woman's gentle hands: mastery not by force but by a calm heart and love.
• The infinity sign (∞) above her head: the same sign as the Magician's, an unending strength of spirit.
• The garland of flowers: the garland that joins the woman and the lion is said to stand for a bond made through gentleness.
• The white robe: a sign of a pure heart.

History

Strength originally stood for Fortitude, one of the four "cardinal virtues," with Prudence, Justice and Temperance, handed down from antiquity.

In the fifteenth-century Italian Visconti–Sforza deck, a young man raises a club to strike a lion, a scene taken to be the Greek hero Heracles slaying the Nemean lion. This card also appears on the history of tarot page.

In the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tarot of Marseille, it became a woman in a hat opening (or closing) a lion's jaws with both hands. Its number was 11.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the Golden Dawn swapped Strength, linked with Leo, into place 8, and Justice, linked with Libra, into place 11, to follow the order of the zodiac. The Rider–Waite–Smith deck kept this order and drew not a hero using force but a woman gently calming a lion.

Correspondences

Previous and next cards

• Previous: 7 The Chariot
• Next: 9 The Hermit
• The major arcana

Lucky colors for Strength