Minor Arcana · Swords · Air
Queen of Swords
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)
Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair; the left hand is extended, the arm raised; her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.
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 GRACEFUL woman with wavy, curling hair, like a Queen seated upon a Throne and crowned. Beneath the Throne are grey cumulus clouds. Her general attire is as that of the Queen of Wands, but she wears as a crest a winged child's head. A drawn sword in one hand, and in the other a large, bearded, newly severed head of a man.
Intensely perceptive, keen observation, subtle, quick and confident: often persevering, accurate in superficial things, graceful, fond of dancing and balancing.
If ill dignified, cruel, sly, deceitful, unreliable, though with a good exterior.
Rules from 20 Degree Virgo to 20 Degree Libra.
Water of Air
Queen of the Sylphs and Sylphides.
Golden Dawn Rank
Book T — Golden Dawn, c. 1888 · the deck's native system (predates this imagery)
RWS Queen of Swords = Golden Dawn Queen of Swords — Water of Air.
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 are a crowned queen on a throne, holding a sword. Book T's holds in her other hand "a large, bearded, newly severed head of a man"; in Waite's, "the left hand is extended, the arm raised".
Correspondences
Rules 21° Virgo – 20° Libra. As Water of Air, this court is the water aspect of a keen and restless 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.