Three of Pentacles

Minor Arcana · Pentacles · number 3 · Tre di Denari

Three of Pentacles, plate by Pamela Colman Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1910

Upright

The Three of Pentacles is a sculptor at work in a monastery, while a monk and an architect study his drawings: craft, skilled labour, and with them nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory. It is the card of someone who knows how to do one thing well and is recognised for it. If these days your work draws attention, a promotion, praise, an important commission, it is no accident: competence shows. It applies to joint projects too, in the family or among partners. The practical advice: accept the collaboration and the criticism of those who know, and ask for a fee that matches the quality, without selling yourself short.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«Métier, trade, skilled labour; usually, however, regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory.»

Reversed

Reversed, the Three of Pentacles loses its craft: mediocrity, at work and elsewhere, puerility, pettiness, weakness. Work done just to get it done, a team quarrelling over details, ambition shrinking into spite. If these days you notice you are cutting corners, or nobody around you makes an effort and everyone complains, it is no accident: a project worth the trouble is missing. Be careful not to settle, and not to belittle other people’s work to feel better. It is not a sentence. The practical advice: choose one task and do it with care to the very end, as if it had to stand for a hundred years.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.»

Source

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) Part III, § 2, The Lesser Arcana, Three of Pentacles https://archive.org/details/a.-e.-waite-the-pictorial-key-to-the-tarot