Minor Arcana, Swords
Ten of Swords
ending, pain, sadness, exhaustion
Upright
Ten swords pin a figure face down under a black sky, with a band of light low on the horizon. Waite names pain, tears and desolation, and says plainly this is no special sign of violent death.
Read it as the low point of something: a role you lost, a relationship that has clearly finished. Stop trying to rescue what is over. Rest, let friends help with practical things, and look for the first small task you can manage tomorrow.
Reversed
Waite's reversed reading offers advantage, profit, success and favor, and warns that none of these last. Things may ease after a bad stretch, and the relief can be real while still being temporary.
When a setback starts to lift, use the better days well. Repair one friendship and update your plans. Keep your footing modest, because a run of favor at work can change as quickly as it came.
A card is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
In Waite's words
Upright: Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.
Reversed: Advantage, profit, success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part 3, on Wikisource. The meanings above are by Cast & Chart.
Card art by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.