Six of Pentacles
The six of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a merchant weighing money in scales and giving it to the needy. A. E. Waite read it as gifts, gratification and present prosperity.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart."
What does the Six of Pentacles mean?
Waite's meanings are "presents, gifts, gratification another account says attention, vigilance now is the accepted time, present prosperity, etc"; reversed, "desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion". His list of additional meanings adds "the present must not be relied on", and reversed, "A check on the Querent's ambition".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is danari, money: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Waite noted that "in many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers". Papus reads it as "realization of the opposition; ruin".
See also
The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant.
Sources
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A. E. Waite, William Rider & Son, London, 1910 (the sacred-texts.com transcription, on the Internet Archive), The Lesser Arcana; Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
- The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, Chapman & Hall, London, 1896, translated by A. P. Morton (scan on the Internet Archive), The Divining Tarot, second lesson: the minor arcana
- A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, by W. H. Willshire, Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1876 (scan on the Internet Archive), General history: the marks of the suits
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research