Temperance

From the Latin 'temperantia', the third cardinal virtue preserved in the trumps. The virtue denotes measured balance and the harmonious mixing of opposites, and the image of a figure transferring liquid between two vessels was already conventional in medieval virtue iconography.

From early decks onward a woman holds two vessels, pouring liquid from one into the other. The Marseille tradition keeps her modestly dressed, sometimes with small wings, in a plain interior setting. She is a moral allegory of moderation, with no overt alchemical meaning.

Smith turned her into a winged angel standing on the bank of a pool, one foot in the water and one on the land. A triangle (△, fire and spirit) glows on her chest, and she pours liquid from a golden cup into a silver one without spilling a drop. A path winds up a mountain to a crown on the summit.

The two cups reconcile the conscious and unconscious, sun and moon, gold and silver. The triangle on the chest denotes fire and the spirit that oversees the mixing, while the foot in water and foot on land place her between the worlds. The winding path to the crown marks the alchemical path of transformation — 'circulatio', the continual flow that refines the self.

The Marseille Temperance is a sober virtue with small wings. Waite added the angelic form and explicit alchemical symbolism. In the Thoth deck Crowley renames the card 'Art', attributes it to Sagittarius, and depicts an androgyne figure working in an alchemical crucible — the continuation of the sacred marriage begun in the Lovers.

The card inherits the cardinal virtue of moderation and the figure of the healing angel Raphael. It also encodes the alchemical 'transmutatio', the refining of base matter into gold. Astrologically it corresponds to Sagittarius. As trump number 14 it follows Death: after the radical ending, the patient work of integration and rebalance begins.