Ten of Cups is a Minor Arcana

Minor Arcana

|thumb|[[King of Swords]] card from a Minor Arcana deckThe Minor Arcana of occult or divinatory tarot refers to the portion of a Tarot deck that consists of 56 cards. The Minor Arcana are roughly similar to the cards found in a common deck of playing cards...

 tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

 card.

Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 to play Tarot card games.

In English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards came to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes.

Divination usage

In many decks, the Ten of Cups appears in the form of a series of ten cups arranged in a rainbow, being contemplated by a young couple, their arms raised in wonder. Nearby, two young children are seen playing. In other decks, the rainbow image is removed and the children are not evident, but in most cases, the cups are arranged upright and a young happy couple is pictured.

The divinatory message is evident in this image, in that it represents fortunate marriage, contentment of the heart, and the perfection of human love and friendship. It can also refer to the town or country where the querent lives. This is one of the most positive cards in the entire Tarot deck. Reversed, it can refer to quarreling, violence, and a troubled heart.

Other divinatory meanings include a peaceful environment and (reversed) a disrupted routine, and selfish exploitation.

Within some esoteric disciplines, such as the Order of the Golden Dawn, each of the forty pip cards of the Tarot deck is assigned and attributed to one of the four letters of the tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...

 and one of the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life

Tree of Life

The tree of life in the Book of Genesis is a tree planted by God in midst of the Garden of Eden , whose fruit gives everlasting life, i.e. immortality. Together with the tree of life, God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . According to some scholars, however, these are in fact...

. In the case of the Ten of Cups, this attribution is to the tenth sephirah of Malkuth and the letter ה (Heh

He (letter)

He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician , Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic . Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ....

). The correlation between the two terms in this combination leads to a symbolic title for each card. In the case of this card, that key name is Perpetual success.

Rider-Waite symbolism

• The image appears remarkably idyll
  Idyll
  An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
  
  ic, rustic.
• Besides the Seven of Cups
  Seven of Cups
  Seven of Cups is a Minor Arcana tarot card of the suit of Cups.Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play tarot card games.In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards came to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes.-Rider-Waite...
  
  , this is the only card in the suit where the cups are up in the air and not physically supported. This may show contentment which is not based on material circumstance, or a lack of material consideration.