Minor Arcana · Cups · Water
Knight of Cups
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)
Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.
In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)
A BEAUTIFUL, winged, youthful Warrior with flying hair, riding upon a white horse, which latter is not winged. His general equipment is similar to that of the Knight of Wands, but upon his helmet, cuirass and buskins is a peacock with opened wings. He holds a cup in his hand, bearing the sigil of the scale. Beneath his horse's feet is the sea. From the cup issues a crab.
Graceful, poetic, Venusian, indolent, but enthusiastic if roused.
Ill dignified, he is sensual, idle and untruthful.
He rules the heavens from above 20 Degree of Aquarius to 20 Degree of Pisces, thus including the greater part of Pegasus.
Fire of Water
King of Undines and Nymphs.
Golden Dawn Rank
Book T — Golden Dawn, c. 1888 · the deck's native system (predates this imagery)
RWS Knight of Cups = Golden Dawn Knight of Cups — Fire of Water.
Editorial note · where Book T's figure and the picture differ. The picture is Pamela Colman Smith's (1909); Waite's words are from The Pictorial Key (1911).
Both ride, and both wear a winged helmet. Book T's Knight rides a white horse over the sea, and a crab issues from his cup. In Book T the mounted figure is the senior court of the suit, the old King (the 1912 printing: "the horsed figures refer to the Yod"); in the picture's deck the Knight ranks below the King.
Correspondences
Rules 21° Aquarius – 20° Pisces. As Fire of Water, this court is the fire aspect of a tender and dreaming suit.
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.