Illustration by Pamela Colman Smith, 1910. Public domain in the US since 1966 and in the UK since 2021. Vector digitisation of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck by OpenClipart contributor "klaatu-tarot", released public domain.
The Lovers
Harmony, Alignment, and Choices
Waite's 1911 account replaces the older choice between vice and virtue with Adam and Eve in paradise.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part II, 6. The Lovers; Part III, section 3, item 6; Global Grey 2017 transcription.
A naked couple stand beneath a winged figure, with trees behind them and a mountain between.
More context
A naked man and woman stand below a winged figure beneath the sun. Waite places the Tree of Life behind the man and the Tree of Knowledge, with its serpent, behind the woman. His 1911 account presents human love and innocence before gross material desire. He explicitly replaces earlier marriage imagery and the man choosing between vice and virtue. His separate divinatory list gives attraction, love, beauty and trials overcome; reversed meanings include failure, foolish designs and frustrated marriage.
Light
Waite gives attraction, love, beauty and trials overcome, alongside innocence and human love in his symbolic account.
Shadow
His reversed list gives failure and foolish designs; another reading names frustrated marriage and contrarieties.