Daughter of the Flaming Sword

Courage, strength, fortitude, power passing on to action. Obstinacy.

No. 65 of Book T's 78 titles · Fortitude, Key 11 · letter ט Teth · Leo

Book T numbers Justice 8 and Fortitude 11, and seats Fortitude on Leo, the letter Teth, in the eighth place among the Keys.

Read it on the 1912 page

Hebrew letter: ט (Teth, 'serpent') — path 19 on the Tree of Life.

On the Tree: path 19 joins Chesed and Geburah · see it on the map

Attribution: Leo.

(Classical Golden Dawn / Book T attribution. Modern decks add an outer planet — Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto — to the three elemental trumps.)

A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's

A woman, over whose head there broods the same symbol of life which we have seen in the card of the Magician, is closing the jaws of a lion. The only point in which this design differs from the conventional presentations is that her beneficent fortitude has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a chain of flowers. For reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight. As the variation carries nothing with it which will signify to the reader, there is no cause for explanation. Fortitude, in one of its most exalted aspects, is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union; the virtue, of course, operates in all planes, and hence draws on all in its symbolism. It connects also with innocentia inviolata, and with the strength which resides in contemplation.

These higher meanings are, however, matters of inference, and I do not suggest that they are transparent on the surface of the card. They are intimated in a concealed manner by the chain of flowers, which signifies, among many other things, the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. The card has nothing to do with self-confidence in the ordinary sense, though this has been suggested— but it concerns the confidence of those whose strength is God, who have found their refuge in Him. There is one aspect in which the lion signifies the passions, and she who is called Strength is the higher nature in its liberation. It has walked upon the asp and the basilisk and has trodden down the lion and the dragon.

Paul Foster Case, in An Introduction to the Study of the Tarot (New York, 1920), Chapter III, on the letter Teth · public domain in the US · the whole booklet

Serpent: wisdom, subtlety, secrecy; regeneration; Eliphas Levi's “Astral Light.” Taste: refinement; experience; enduring. patience, fortitude.

North-above: combines North (Peh) and Above (Beth) ; opposite of South-above (Tzaddi) ; complement of North-below (Yod).

Leo: diurnal and nocturnal house of the sun (Resh).

Intelligence of the Secret: joins Chesed to Geburah.