Reference · Elements
Water
Water is cold and moist and contrary to Fire.
Its two qualities, and who says so
- Cold
- Oxford translation by H. H. Joachim, Book II, chapter 3, 330a30–331a6
- Moist
- Oxford translation by H. H. Joachim, Book II, chapter 3, 330a30–331a6
- Contrary to
- Fire — the one element it shares no quality with, which is what makes them contrary rather than merely different.
There is so great a necessity of Water, that without it no living thing can live.
In plain English Agrippa's argument for Water is that nothing lives without it. He is not being poetic: the chapter goes on through seed, rotting, dew and rain, and treats the necessity as the evidence.
Thence it was that Thales of Miletus, and Hesiod concluded that Water was the beginning of all things, and said it was the first of all the Elements, and the most potent, and that because it hath the mastery over all the rest.
In plain English The oldest position in the argument, reported rather than held: Thales made Water the first of the elements and the strongest. Agrippa cites him to show the question of which element comes first was open long before he took it up.
Its letter, where it has one
Sefer Yetzirah makes Mem one of the three Mother letters and gives it to Water.
- Westcott translation, 3rd edition, 1911 (first published 1887) — Chapter II, section 1
- Westcott translation, 3rd edition, 1911 (first published 1887) — Chapter III, section 5
Its triplicity: three signs of the zodiac
The zodiac divides into four groups of three, one per element, and each of the three takes it in a different mode — cardinal, fixed or mutable. Ptolemy gives the scheme in the Tetrabiblos; this study seeds his reading and Lilly's locator beside it.
Its suit: fourteen cards
The Golden Dawn gave each suit of the minor arcana an element, and this study carries the attribution on all fourteen cards of each rather than on the suit as a label, so a single card's page can name its own source.
Water is the Cups, and all 14 cards of the suit carry the attribution.
Its weapon
Water Cup — The Golden Dawn consecration manuscript names this the Water implement in its four-weapon set. This assignment belongs to that set; it does not make every waterlike object in every grimoire equivalent.
Four of the listed implements carry an elemental assignment in the Golden Dawn material. The other implements come from sources that do not assign them to this four-element set.