Justice · La Justice

Justice is the eleventh trump in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and the number is a quarrel: Marseille seats her at eight, Waite moved her to eleven and swapped Strength into her old place to line the sequence up with the zodiac.

Pamela Colman Smith drew her enthroned in grey stone, frontal, looking straight out at the reader. Two plain pillars stand either side, a crimson veil hung between them, closing off what is behind; above it the sky is flat yellow, XI inked into it. Her crown is gold and crenellated, one small square turquoise at the front; a red robe under a green mantle, clasped by a white square with a red stone in it. Her right hand raises a straight sword, point up, the fist closed below a plain crossguard. Her left holds gold scales, the pans hanging even. Under the hem, one white shoe tip has slipped into view: there is a body inside the robe, and she can rise.

The sword cuts both ways, and one of the edges faces the hand that holds it.

The hands are read together: the scales weigh, the sword acts. Judgment that never lands is sentiment; a blow struck without weighing is just a blow. Libra, air: the tradition reads it as a matter between parties, both sides on the beam.

Upright, accountability taken up before anyone imposes it; the clear call where a vaguer one would sit easier.

Reversed, the instruments get misused: a thumb on the scales, the sword out for other people and sheathed for oneself, the ledger left open. The correction is in the picture: weigh honestly, act once, set the sword down.