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Which are Aries, or the sign of the Ram; Taurus, or the sign of the Bull; Gemini, or the sign of the Twins; Cancer, or the sign of the Crab; Leo, or the sign of the Lion; Virgo, or the sign of the Virgin; Libra, or the sign of the Ballance; Scorpio, or the sign of the Scorpion; Sagittarius, or the sign of the Archer; Capricor∣nus, or the sign of the Goat; A∣quarius, or the Sign of the Skink∣er;
Pisces, or the sign of the Fi∣shes. Their Characters be these,
These twelve Constellations are set about the Firmament like a girdle; through which the Sun maketh his way every year; and since the Creation of the world it is the only road in the starry frame which all the Planets do move in.
The Sun enters the Ram in March, and makes his progress through the Bull in April; and he perambulates the Twins in May, and so in order bestoweth a whole months time upon eve∣ry Sign; journeying from one to another, he goeth round thorow all the Signs, until he come to the Ram again, and thence begin his travels for the next year. If you would know the Sign where a Planet hath taken up his quar∣ters any time, you must procure the book of the motions of the
Planets for that year, common∣ly called Ephemerides.
The twelve Signs are divided into four sorts; for some be earthy, others watery, a third sort aery, and the fourth sort is fiery.
There be three of each sort: the earthy, which are so named, because like the earth they are cold and dry; namely, the Bull, the Virgin, the Goat: the watery are apt for rainy aspects, being cold and moist; and they are the Crab, the Scorpion and the Fishes. If any great Eclipse of the Sun or great Conjunction or Aspect of ♄ and ♃ do happen in them, we have store of rains. The three aery are the Twins, the Ballance, and the Skinker, which are tem∣perately warm and moist, and hugely windy, and chiefly for Westerly winds.
Jupiter in the Skinker opposed by Saturn in the Lion, did raise
mighty South-west winds. So Jupiter lately in the Twins, being in a trine-Aspect of Saturn in the Skinker, did bring us mighty winds from the South-West. The three fiery signs, which be most apt to thunder, are the Ram, the Lion, the Archer, moderately dry, but sensibly hot; they stir up heats, and so make the Pla∣nets very active, while they re∣side in them. When Saturn with∣out mixture of other Planets is in them, we have excessive droughts. So then, to judg upon the Signs: Observe when a Pla∣net is in an earthy Sign, he was lately dried up by perambula∣ting a fiery Sign, and after that immediately having made his progress in an earthy Sign, he is quite bound up from moi∣sture. So the Sun in the Bull is dry, and Jupiter having but a temperate moisture of himself, becometh sapless in an earthy
Sign; and Saturn in them is dry and cold, except in the first 15 degrees of Capricorn he is moist. Then if there be an Aspect with Jupiter in an earthy Sign, the season is at least dry. In like manner, when a Planet hath been somewhat moistned in an airy Sign, and after that ha∣ving made a pretty progress in a watery Sign, he is pretty well sap'd. So Jupiter in the watery Signs or Triplicity occasioneth a wet time.
When a Planet is in the be∣ginning of one Sign, and in the end of another, he is indifferent to either of them two Signs: but when he is in the middle of any Sign, he is then well ac∣quainted with the nature of that Sign. Mars in the midle of Leo, is hot; but in the midle of Can∣cer he is moist, and a little aba∣ted of his heat; but in the end of Leo, and the beginning of Virgo
he is neither much heightned, nor much abated in his heat; yet he is purely dry: for both the Lion and the Virgin are dry Signs. So Venus in the begin∣ning of the Ram, differeth not much from Venus in the end of the Fishes; and Venus in the end of the Ram is almost of the same temper with Venus in the begin∣ning of the Bull.