Death (XIII)
Death and the Skull as the central motif, with the Horse, the Sun and the Moon and the Crown in a secondary part. From The 1909 tarot.
Key · 4 motifs
Tap a motif on the picture, or a line below. Its note opens under the line, with the reading its author gave it.
- Primary motif
- Secondary motifs · 3
The picture
An armoured skeleton on a white horse carries a black banner with a white rose; a king lies fallen with his crown beside him, a child and a maiden kneel, a bishop stands with clasped hands; the sun rises between two towers, a river with a boat behind; Death as the central motif, the Horse, the Sun and the Crown by eye. By eye
Readings quoted
Waite, 1911 “The natural transit of man to the next stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress, but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor gate.”
Waite, 1911 “The existing occult explanations of the 13th card are, on the whole, better than usual, rebirth, creation, destination, renewal, and the rest.”
Decoded: every motif is marked, and each mark carries the reading its author gave it, quoted from the text, or says that it is observed on the picture and not read. The composition, the picture read whole, comes with the entry.
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye The central motif, the armoured skeleton, and the banner with the rose.
Waite, 1911 “The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from lower to higher, and this is more fitly represented in the rectified Tarot by one of the apocalyptic visions than by the crude notion of the reaping skeleton.”
Waite, 1911 “The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a prelate with clasped hands awaits his end.”
No entry yet for this motif. The wall gathers every work that carries it.
By eye A secondary motif, the white horse.
Waite, 1911 “The mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life.”
Gold, the perfected metal, and the illuminated intellect. The most overloaded symbol in the tradition.
By eye A secondary motif, rising between the two towers.
Waite, 1911 “Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality.”
Completion, and in the Kabbalistic reading the first sephirah, the point at which the work is no longer yours.
By eye A secondary motif, fallen at the king's side, lower left.
Waite, 1911 “Other heads have been swept from their place previously, but it is, in its current and patent meaning, more especially a card of the death of Kings.”
Also carrying Death and the Skull
2 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Horse
6 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Sun and the Moon
15 works. The symbol.
Also carrying the Crown
8 works. The symbol.
In the same series
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