King of Swords
Minor Arcana · Swords · Air · 20 Taurus - 20 Gemini
Upright
Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connexions-power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth.
Reversed
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.
The picture
He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.
Correspondences
Astrology
20 Taurus - 20 Gemini
Elemental formula
Fire of Air
Golden Dawn name
Knight of Swords
Meanings quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), public domain. Correspondences follow the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's Book T.