Four of Swords definitions
The Four of Swords is a time of rest and recuperation so that you can assimilate those potential hurts and loss experienced in the Three of Swords. Time spent away from your situation on holiday. Deciding you require friends rather than lovers or partners for the time being. Finding people with similar interests and ideas. Solace in the group.
Rider-Waite: Four of Swords
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
Additional Meanings: A bad card, but if reversed a qualified success may be expected by wise administration of affairs.
Reversed Four of Swords
Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.
Additional Meanings: A certain success following wise administration.
Book of Thoth - Truce - Four of Swords
The Four of Swords is called Truce. This seems rather on the lines of "the strong man armed, keeping his house in peace". The masculine nature of air makes it dominant. The card is almost a picture of the formation of the military clan system of society.
The Four Swords shows a time peace, away from struggle.
Golden Dawn: Four of Swords
Lord of Rest from Strife
Quiet in the presence of real or implied threat; trust that matters will turn out for the best.
Mathers: Four of Swords
Solitude, Retreat, Abandonment, Solitary, Hermit.
Reversed Four of Swords
Economy, Precaution, Regulation of Expenditure.
Etteilla: Four of Swords
Solitude, Desert, Retreat, Hermitage.—Exile, Banishment, Ostracism. Uninhabited, Remote, Abandoned, Given Up. Tomb, Sepulcher, Coffin.
Reversed Four of Swords
Economy, Good Management, Wise Administration. Foresight, Direction, Household Management, Savings, Avarice. Order, Arrangement, Relationship, Agreement, Concord, Accord, Concordance, Harmony, Music, Disposal. Testament, Reserve, Limitation, Exception. Circumspection, Constituency, Discreet, Wisdom, Sympathy, Care, Precaution.
Thierens: Four of Swords
- TRADITION
- Solitude, retreat, hermitage, exile, isolation, inhibited condition, abandonment. Tomb and coffin. Reversed: Economy, good conduct, circumspection, precaution, wise administration, testament, avarice, household, savings, order, etc.
- THEORY
- The element of Earth on the Fourth house, house of the home and the sign Cancer. This immediately explains why this card has been said to stand for economy, savings, even avarice and household affairs as well as for many things in connection with the end of life, since the fourth house in the horoscope relates to the end of life, and to the inner side of life as long as this lasts. Tradition is once more very correct in this case. When it enumerates "concord, harmony, etc.," amongst the synonyms of this card, however, there is some discrepancy, because the only thing that can be meant here is 'repose' or the condition of rest, as that of the grave, in which external differences are lost. So taken in the strictly etymological sense of the words, 'concord,' etc., have nothing to do with it. If in any case this card should relate to business, it certainly does not mean that anything like accord has been or will be reached, but that one of the parties retires or takes his proposals back. It may also relate to the condition of the soul, in which one harvests the results of material life in the world, whether spiritually, by meditation, or materially, by economy. In any case it points to a stillness and heavy condition of the mind. Further, to the tendency of collecting, gathering.
- CONCLUSION
- Solitude, repose, retreat, retiring from the world, "hermit's repose" (W.); gathering, collecting, taking home one's savings or impressions, meditation, economy, avarice, precaution, testament, and the place occupied at the end of life, hermitage, grave, coffin. The place of the card in the horoscopic scheme indeed suggests the idea of being buried under the earth.
