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The Lovers

MAJOR ARCANA · VI

The Lovers is card VI of the major arcana. An angel spreads its arms wide above a man and a woman who stand facing each other. Upright, it stands for love, harmony and choice; reversed, for indecision, misunderstanding and temptation.

Name and number

Upright meaning

Keywords: love, harmony, choice, bonds, shared values

The Lovers has two main meanings. One, as the name says, is love; the other is choice.

Upright, it stands for a relationship of true understanding. That includes not only romance but the feeling of sharing values completely with a friend or colleague. At the same time, the card often appears at moments of important choice: choosing not by gain or loss but by what you truly want to hold dear, and being deeply bound to the path or the person you choose.

Reversed meaning

Keywords: indecision, misunderstanding, temptation, imbalance

Reversed, love and choice are read as failing to mesh.

Going back and forth without being able to decide, being swept along by passing pleasures and temptations, feelings or values falling out of step with someone. In love it can point to one-sided feelings or a relationship out of balance. It is also read as a question: have you made a choice that goes against your own heart?

What the picture shows

• The angel: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, said to be Raphael, the archangel of healing, blessing the pair.
• The man and the woman: Adam and Eve from the Old Testament. The man looks at the woman, and the woman looks up to the angel.
• The fruit tree with the serpent: behind the woman is the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) with the serpent of temptation.
• The tree of flames: behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve flames in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck.
• The mountain and the sun: the mountain rising far off between them is read as a height the two will climb together.

In the picture above, the serpent's tree stands behind the man and the fruit tree behind the woman: the two sides are reversed.

History

The scene on the Lovers card changed greatly over time.

In the fifteenth-century Italian Visconti–Sforza deck, a blindfolded Cupid flies above a man and a woman holding hands. It looks like a wedding portrait: a blessed couple.

In the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tarot of Marseille, a young man stands between two women while Cupid takes aim from above with his bow. Because one woman looks young and the other older, the card came to be read as "which of the two to choose," or "a choice between virtue and vice." This is where the Lovers' meaning of choice comes from.

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck redrew the scene as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and turned Cupid into an angel. A picture of a young man torn between two became a picture of one couple, and of a love joined with heaven.

Correspondences

Previous and next cards

• Previous: 5 The Hierophant
• Next: 7 The Chariot
• The major arcana

Lucky colors for The Lovers