The Empress is an Arcana in the Persona series. It is the third numbered card in the Major Arcana, numbered III3, following the Priestess and preceding the Emperor.
A Tarot de Marseille Empress cardA Rider-Waite-Smith Empress card
In tarot, the Empress is the third of the 21 trump cards, which are called "Major Arcana" in esoteric usage. The imagery originates from Italian tarocchi decks. The Empress card typically features a seated crowned woman holding a scepter. The Holy Roman Empire was a significant political entity in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, and most historical Empress cards feature an eagle coat of arms like the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor, though the colors do not always match.
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck replaces the eagle on her shield with the symbol of Venus (♀), and she wears a diadem of twelve stars in a cluster. Ripening grain is in the foreground, and trees and a waterfall are present in the background. Waite says that the Empress is "the inferior Garden of Eden".[1]
Arthur Edward Waite lists the following divinatory meanings in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot: "Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation."[2]
↑The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1922), Arthur Edward Waite. Published by William Rider & Son Limited. (2nd ed.) pp. 80-83.
↑"The Greater Arcana and Their Divinatory Meanings", The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1922), Arthur Edward Waite. Published by William Rider & Son Limited. (2nd ed.) p. 283.
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