Four of Swords, the Rider-Waite-Smith card drawn by Pamela Colman Smith (1909)
Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Minor Arcana · Swords · Air

Four of Swords

UprightVigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
ReversedWise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.

Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.

In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.

In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)

Lord of Rest from Strife

TWO White Radiating Angelic Hands, each holding two swords; which four cross in the centre. The rose of five petals with white radiations is reinstated on the point of their intersection. Above and below, on the points of two small daggers, are Jupiter> and Libra, representing the Decanate.

Rest from sorrow; yet after and through it. Peace from and after war. Relaxation of anxiety. Quietness, rest, ease and plenty, yet after struggle. Goods of this life; abundance; modified by dignity as is usual.

Chesed of ו (Convalescence, recovery from sickness; change for the better).

Herein do לאויה and כליאל bear rule.

Correspondences

Decan: Jupiter in Libra (the 3rd decanate of its sign).

Sephirah: Chesed in Yetzirah (the Formative World).

Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.

Images: Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951), public domain. Texts: Waite (1911) and Book T (1912), public domain. Selection and arrangement CC-BY-SA-4.0 (PlayfulProcess). Data: github.com/PlayfulProcess/recursive-tarot.