Strength
Trump VIII in Waite's deck and XI in older ones: a woman closing a lion's jaws. A. E. Waite read it as power, energy and courage.
Meaning
Waite's card shows a woman, with the sign of infinity above her head, closing the jaws of a lion that she leads by a chain of flowers. The older name is Fortitude, one of the cardinal virtues. In the version Court de Gébelin printed, Waite noted, she is opening the lion's mouth rather than closing it.
Why Strength is number 8
Waite swapped Strength and Justice: "for reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of justice, which is usually numbered eight." He gave no reason. In older orders, such as the Milanese pack in the British Museum and Papus's system, Justice is 8 and La Forza is 11.
Waite's meanings
Waite gave Fortitude "power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity"; reversed, "despotism, abuse if power, weakness, discord". Papus joined the card to the eleventh Hebrew letter, Kaph.
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsThe HermitTrump IX of the tarot: a cloaked figure holding up a lantern. A. E. Waite read it as prudence and circumspection.
- The same shape in Angel numbers000 angel numberThree zeros, read by angel-number writers as a message about God and wholeness. Doreen Virtue’s 1999 list called 000 a reminder that “you are one with God” and a sign that a situation has come full circle.
See also
Justice, The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor.
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 Trumps Major; The Greater Arcana and their Divinatory Meanings
- The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, Chapman & Hall, London, 1896, translated by A. P. Morton (scan on the Internet Archive), The Symbolical Tarot
- 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), Italian tarots, second quarter of the nineteenth century, Milan
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 27, 2026. How we research
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