The numbered cards of the suit of cups represents a story. And I'm going to give you a brief description of that story now, but first I'm going to talk about what the suit of cups represents because it's story. It represents life, creativity, emotions. It can also represent the element of water, the season of summer, the direction of West and the zodiac signs, cancer, Pisces and Scorpio. These can be helpful in a tarot reading, and now on to the mythic story. So the cups represent the legend of arrows and psyche and it really is about a person's capacity to relate to another person.
Psyche was a princess and she was so beautiful that the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was very jealous of her. So she instructed her son arrows who was the God of love to punish her So shortly after that, her father was commanded to send her to a rock where she would become the prey of a monster. But the god arrows when he saw her, he was supposed to carry her to her death of this monster. He was so stunned by her beauty that he stumbled and picked himself on one of his own love arrows and ended up falling in love with her. So arrows rescued her. And they got married, and everything was beautiful.
The only problem was that he was a god, she was human. He told her to never try and look upon his face. And she promised not to, and they were happy, but she still wished that you know she could see him well. Friends of hers started talking and gossiping and saying he must be guilty. Monster if he won't even let you look at his face, and it really got to her, it really got her thinking, well, what if that's true? So one night, well, her and her husband were asleep.
She got up, grabbed a lamp and looked at his face. And he wasn't a hideous monster. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. But because she had not trusted him and betrayed his trust, he left he had had enough and once again, she was alone and heartbroken. She was so heartbroken. She just couldn't go on and she begged Aphrodite to let her have her husband again or let her see her husband again.
Well, because Aphrodite was so jealous of her beauty, she made her go through all kinds of trials and ordeals. One of them being having to go to the underworld as you can see the eight of cups in the end love conquers all. And she did everything Aphrodite asked you to do. And because of that she was granted immortality and was allowed to be back with her husband. They could look at each other's faces and they lived happily ever after, as you see in the 10 of cups. And now we look at the court cards of the suit of cups.
The first one is the king of cups. This is Orpheus, the singer, he was the healer and priest. The queen of cups represents Helen, daughter of Zeus. She was actually in the lovers card of the major arcana. And next the knight of cups is Perseus, son of Zeus. And the last page of cups is narcissist who fell in love with his own reflection in the water.