THE SEVEN PLANETS
There are seven planets, namely: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus,
Mercury and the Moon. These stars have a movement of their own from west
to east, but because the heavens move from east to west, they accidentally
move from east to west. And these stars are called wandering stars by astronomers
because they have no unique way of moving, as one planet moves in one way
and another planet moves in another way, and each one moves within its
own sphere
1. SATURN is of the complexion of earth, which is
signified by C, it is masculine, diurnal, bad, and rules lead and Saturdays.
It rules Capricorn and Aquarius and completes its cycle in thirty years,
as the Sun completes its cycle in one year. Astronomers attribute many
properties to Saturn in accordance with its complexion and their experience
of these things, but without offering any proof of these attributes. And
I, Raymond, intend to speak of certain properties of Saturn as I investigate
them with the principles of my Art. I will also speak of the properties
attributed by astronomers to Saturn that seem true to me and make no mention
at all of those that hold no truth in my view. And this is the process
that I propose to follow for the other planets as well.
Saturn is bad because its earthy complexion is
bad as compared to air whose sanguine complexion is good since blood is
considered a source of life, whereas melancholy is a source of death.
And people born under the influence of Saturn are melancholic and grave,
or heavy because of the heaviness they hold from water and earth which
are naturally heavy and weighty elements. And their heavy nature makes
them constant and firm in their proposals and appetites, their gaze is
naturally directed earthward and they have a good memory because water
is restrictive, stingy and impressionable. And they like fantastic and
mathematical imagery. Earth is a thick, dense subject where memorized images
can leave a lasting impression; and so melancholic people are disposed
to acquire vast scientific knowledge through the multiplication of many
imaginary species. Also, they are of a suspicious nature and rely much
on their imagination that agrees more with melancholy than with any other
complexion. The reason why melancholy has a greater concordance with earth
than with any other complexion is that the imagination considers measures,
lines, figures and colors which can best be imprinted on water and earth
whose matter is denser and thicker than the matter of fire and air.
As Saturn is of the dry and cold earthy complexion, people
born under Saturn are naturally disposed to work hard and build large
structures. Also, they naturally have more appetite for occupying positions
closer to water and earth, than to air and fire.
All the above properties, and many more, belong to people purely
and simply influenced by Saturn: but if some other planet or planets contrary
to Saturn are in the same sign with it, then the native's saturnian
nature is altered along with its conditions by the planets that are in
the same sign with it. And we intend to speak in brief about such natural
conditions, considering both the ancient opinions and the principles of
the General Table. However we do not intend to go deeply into these matters
just now, because we have not yet described the properties of the other
planets.
2. JUPITER is of the moist and warm airy complexion,
it is a good planet and rules tin and Thursdays. It rules Sagittarius and
Pisces and completes it cycle in twelve years in the same way that the
Sun runs its course in one year, it is masculine and diurnal. As
air and earth are opposed through dryness and cold opposing the moisture
and heat of air, Jupiter natives must have conditions contrary to
those of the saturnians. And thus we should not really need to describe
the properties of Jupiter as they can be deduced from what we said about
Saturn. Nonetheless we may as well say a few things about some of the conditions
that people derive from Jupiter.
Jupiter is moist and warm, not in itself, but rather because it
gives moisture and heat as it sheds its influence on things below. And
it rules blood, which is naturally moist and warm. And people born under
Jupiter must be of a happy disposition, because human life is more consistent
with moisture and warmth. They must also be generous, because fire is generous
inasmuch as it spreads and divides things out in parts, and air is filling,
and more convertible than any other element. This is why sanguine people
do not dread poverty or shortage; they are also naturally vainglorious
and love honor more than others do, because they have a nobler complexion.
And by their natural appetite for good, more than others they love
to procreate, to have children and to multiply the human species. They
are naturally more law abiding than others and put more trust in general
human nature than others do. They are not detractors, and speak no ill
of others. And they share their knowledge more generously than other people
would, as they are of a more loving nature than other people are by reason
of the liberality of fire and the abundance of air.
A sanguine person born under Jupiter without the conjunction of
any other planet must naturally have a fertile imagination, replete with
an abundance of air. And for this reason a sanguine person collects fertile
and gross species in the imagination, in the same way that a choleric person
collects thin and subtle ones; for as water restricts them, so does fire
spread them out, and as earth dries them, so does air fill them with moisture.
And we say these things to compare two different kinds of imagination,
saturnian and jovial .
And thus the scientific thinking habits of Jupiter natives give
them a law abiding approach to a science that is tangible and easy to understand,
for a sanguine person does not naturally keep secrets. However, the imaginative
organ of their scientific thinking habit is not as stable as the organ
that produces the mode of scientific thinking habitually adopted by saturnians.
And this is because the substance of their imagination is soft, as compared
to the hard and dry choleric type. And so it is said that natives
of Jupiter learn and understand things more easily than saturnian people
do, but forget things more quickly than a melancholic person would.
Jupiter natives naturally like to hold positions germane to the complexion
and other properties of Jupiter: butchers, hunters, fishermen and
men-at-arms who cause bloodshed by injuring or killing others, weavers
who consider the warmth, color and softness of textiles; or innkeepers
who consider wine for its exhilarating quality, and also painters who consider
beautiful pictures; and people who consider beautiful clothes and ornaments
and beautiful new buildings. Thus, sanguine people are more apt than others
to discover new fashions and modes whereas melancholic people stand more
firmly by old customs and habits which they prefer to new ones.
3. MARS is of the complexion of fire which is hot
and dry, it is masculine, diurnal and bad, it rules iron, Tuesdays, Aries
and Scorpio and runs its course in two years. Because Mars is of the fiery
complexion and as fire is an element that burns up and consumes individual
elemented bodies, astronomers say that Mars is bad; and so they say that
natives of Mars are evil, warlike and contentious because of their
choleric nature. And they are light in character, as fire is light and
consumes the gross, heavy matter of earth and thins out the dense
form of earth. It is said that some choleric people do not live long because
the matter of earth in them is small and very dry and heat has no sustenance
in it: like burnt coal whose matter has been reduced to ashes. However,
choleric persons who survive their youth naturally live to a ripe old age
because earthy matter becomes more dense and full through its concordance
with water giving it cold against the heat of fire. And because water agrees
with air through moisture, it gives moisture to earth to offset its great
dryness; and when earth in the choleric person is naturally gross and heavy
and full, fire cannot consume it with heat, nor can air destroy it
with moisture opposed to dryness. Such choleric people can outlive others,
because their digestion iis good due to the great heat of fire and the
full, stably founded and tempered nature of their earth.
As people born under Mars are choleric on account of Mars, so astronomers
say that they have an appetite and a liking for conditions pertaining to
Mars. And because fire is more mobile than any other element, the choleric
type gets angry sooner and more vehemently than others, but this anger
does not last because fire consumes it and the dried out earth in
the choleric is quickly consumed by the great heat of fire. And they also
say that that a choleric person is prompt to agree or to disagree without
any deliberation, and quickly accepts things as they are and quickly tires
out and is inconstant and two-faced. And this naturally occurs on account
of a great movement of fire amplified in this person by Mars with its nature
through choler, in the same way that the Sun increases the heat of fire
with its light in summertime and by day.
Mars native are subtle, learn quickly, but do not naturally
have a good memory and can forget things just as readily as they can understand
them and love them; and this happens because their imagination is too dry,
dried up by the excessive heat of fire. And so the fantastic images and
species that they accept have no foundation and moreover, because of the
great movement of choler and the nature of Mars, as the intellect transmits
its species to memory, it transmits them abruptly, and abruptly wants to
retrieve them because it has a great appetite for acquiring and multiplying
more and more species. And the memory, through this kind of sudden movement,
has no orderly deliberation for recording, conserving and retrieving old
species, and is made infirm by the excessive abundance of choler and of
Mars. And the same applies to their imagination, which has no deliberation
in imagining the figures and the habitual dispositions of corporeal substances.
And the same follows regarding the nature of the body, as the choleric
person runs about more than others, and faster, and tires out more quickly,
because through this great movement the cold complexion in earth is quickly
consumed as well as the moist complexion in water.
People born under Mars have a fiery appetite that inclines them
to become blacksmiths, they like iron, as iron is dry on account of earth;
and they naturally like to deal out hammer blows, to strike out with swords,
clubs and arrows. And so they become blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors and
warriors, due to Mars and to choler. Also, the nature of Mars makes of
them players of brass and wind instruments, forcefully blowing air, because
thay can blow more wind from the mouth than others can, being more empty
inside and less fleshed out than others. Also, choleric persons prefer
to deal with objects of the fiery complexion, and the same applies to the
various functions they might occupy. Further, choleric people have a greater
appetite for hot and dry foods than for cold and moist ones, and a greater
affinity for yellow orange colors than for other colors, and likes to wear
long clothing, to hunt, use swords, knives and other similar things that
pertain to the nature of fire. Also, choleric people dream more than others
do, but their dreams are shorter, and more quickly forgotten. They naturally
dream in a way that suits the nature of Mars and of fire.
Following what we have said about Mars and its fiery complexion,
we can speak of Mars as a masculine and nocturnal planet, with its own
day and its signs entirely in terms of the conditions it derives from fire,
which is its general instrument for transmitting its virtue to several
different species, in the same way as a hammer is the blacksmith's general
instrument for making knives, swords, nails, and other such things.
And the same process applies to other planets, following the conditions
they derive from the complexions of other elements.
4.THE SUN is hot and dry, of a fiery complexion,
masculine and diurnal. It rules gold, and Sundays. And it is neutral, in
the sense that it is good on account of heat and bad on account of dryness
because it causes generation through heat and corruption through dryness.
It rules Leo and runs its course in one year. The Sun and Mars are both
of the same fiery complexion, and thus we can say the same things about
the Sun as about Mars. But the Sun has some intense characteristics that
Mars does not have and the same can be said about people of the solar type
who have certain characteristics pertinent to the solar influence that
natives of Mars do not have through the influence of Mars.
The Sun is the greatest star in the sky with greater power over
fire than any other star. The Sun rules the day and as day is better than
night, so the Sun is a good star, bringing joy, beauty and daylight. The
Sun is good because it consumes the gross and viscous vapors that shroud
the earth by night, such as mist, heavy air and gross humors. The Sun is
also good, because it brings daylight during which men can provide for
their needs better than at night. And the Sun is good because it purifies
places and consumes the corruption in the night air. And the Sun is good
as it brings on summer when fruit and grain ripens and the Sun is good,
as it is instrumental in harvesting the fruit of herbs and plants. Moreover,
the Sun is good on account of many other properties too long to enumerate.
And, as the Sun has so many good conditions and properties, astronomers
say that its goodness does not reside as much in its hot and dry qualities
as in the purpose for which it was created, and this purpose is to light
up the day, to bring on summer and to ripen fruit. However, it is bad with
excessive heat and drought because its choler produces more searing heat
than does Mars, as it is a larger star. More people die in summer than
at any other time and this is why astronomers say, as I also believe, that
the Sun is the star that can produce both the greatest good and the greatest
evil in things here below.
It can produce the greatest good with its heat and the purpose for
which it was created; and it wreaks the greatest evil with its dryness
by drying up moisture in humans. For this reason, solar natives are
naturally better in one way, and in another way worse than those born under
the influence of some other planet. People who are naturally well influenced
by the Sun in the way described above want to be kings, bailiffs, judges,
and public persons, so they might do much good; and they desire to occupy
that kind of position because the Sun is the most common or public of all
the planets in the sky, on account of the size of its corporeal substance,
its light, movement and purpose. And so people born under the Sun's
influence have more appetite for rising to positions of honor and power
than other people and they crave all the things and all the functions that
can help their ascent. As for instance, a peasant born under the influence
of the Sun may crave to become a merchant and then a bailiff or town councilor,
next, a judge or a military officer and so on up to the rank of a count
or even a king. But as the Sun is effectively somewhat conditioned by earth,
it is bad because of Mars and Saturn. So, natives of the Sun, when evil,
are worse in their evil than others because just as their goodness and
warmth give them a greater craving for the common good than others have,
so also through their evil dryness, they have greater appetite for evildoing
than others.
Natives of the Sun are attracted to science and to virtue in the
same way that the Sun is neutral through heat and dryness, good and evil.
And so these people have one habit of scientific thinking as they incline
to goodness and warmth and a different habit of scientific thinking is
adopted by those who crave for science while dryness motivates them to
do evil. And so, good choleric people develop good scientific habits, seek
out the truth with a good intention and love the truth that they discover
and agree with the teacher who taught it to them; and they have an
immediate appetite for communicating this truth, or for learning even more.
And people of this kind are positive, learn more than others and
raise fewer objections. But natives of the Sun who are evil on account
of dryness are subject to earth and to melancholy and raise many objections
and more promptly deny than affirm the truth, in their iniquity they
refuse to concede the truth even though they understand it they do not
want to show it; they are basically scoffers and scorners. They also learn
very little, sad and puffed up with pride, inasmuch as they are opposed
to the good purpose of the Sun and of the sciences. Further, the subject
of their imagination is overly dried up by dryness, anger, sadness and
by the great vehemence with which they speak; also, speaking out against
their own conscience dries them up physically inasmuch as it oppresses
their intellect and their will, because they will not confess the truth.
Such people have little virtue in their memory, intellect and imagination
and they willingly harbor great vices. Besides, they greatly crave to rise
to the top and acquire great wealth through deceit and treachery; these
people are evil and false.
5. VENUS is of the complexion of water which is
cold and moist, it is a feminine and nocturnal planet, it rules copper
and Fridays as well as the signs of Taurus and Libra. Astronomers say that
Venus is a good planet because it offsets the malice of Saturn through
the opposition of moisture and dryness and it offsets the malice of Mars
in the same way. And Venus is a good planet near to the Sun, which is good
with its heat as we said in the chapter about the Sun. Venus is also good
because with its coldness it tempers the great influence of heat sent down
from the Sun to things below and it is good because it rules over compound
waters, whence issue rain, streams, fountains, and rivers on which plants
and animals can live.
Astronomers say that natives of Venus have a natural instinct and
appetite for conditions pertaining to Venus. And so they are temperately
phlegmatic as Venus does not have as intense a watery complexion as does
the Moon because its proximity to the Sun tones it down. And because the
Sun lights up the air, Venus has more intense virtue through moisture than
through dryness, hence they say that natives of Venus have a better complexion
than natives of the Moon.
Water with its moisture and cold occasions growth in herbs, plants
and animals and human bodies grow to fullness due to a temperate presence
of air. So, they say that Venus occasions lust, pollution and floods of
water. And as lust is a natural pleasure enjoyed with laughter, song, and
instruments, they say that natives of Venus are actors and comedians, composers
of songs and inventors of instruments, lovers of all kinds of occupations
that deal with the pleasures of sex, like barbers shaving beards, and hairdressers
arranging heads of hair, and laundrymen washing sheets, and painters painting
pictures on the walls etc. as for instance, organizers and performers of
dances and games at weddings and festivals. Venus is a planet that
engages people in idle pursuits and makes them deviate from the real purpose
of bodily things, for they have an instinct and an appetite for simply
being "somebody", that motivates them to attend to external appearances
and to vanity. Also, Venus gets women more excited about beauty and ornaments,
than about goodness. And this is due to its watery nature with its appetite
for facial lotions, hand lotions, clean sheets, clean homes, clothing
and attractive colors.
6. MERCURY is a neutral, masculine and diurnal planet,
quicksilver is its metal and Wednesday is its day and it rules the signs
of Gemini and Virgo. It is considered as a neutral planet because it runs
its course in one year with Venus and has no specific complexion of its
own. And the astronomers assert this because there must be an instrument
with which the influences of the signs and planets above can be converted,
and Mercury transmits this influence to the Moon that relays it to
the natural instincts and appetites of the elements and of elemented things.
And there must be a planet like this among the heavenly bodies
to transmit their influence in an organized way to things below which means
any planets whose influence is stronger either because of the signs they
occupies or on their own account, have Mercury as the subject that converts
their influence. This means that the influence of Mercury is more fortunate
and brings greater good fortune to its natives because of this conversion
of influences from above performed in Mercury. For instance as in pepper,
in which the virtues of the elements are converted to the purpose and intention
of fire, and in squash or pumpkins to the purpose of water, and the same
with the other elements.
Some say that Mercury is hot and dry, and because it is close to
Venus and the Moon, it tempers the abundance of moisture and cold coming
from Venus and the Moon. And this would be an obvious enough reason,
were it not for the natural conversion required by celestial nature. It
would be more plausible for Mercury to have an airy complexion which is
more easily converted than a fiery complexion that consumes and generates
things and is less convertible on account of the considerable virtue of
its heat and of the hardness of earth that gives it dryness.
Mercury can be greatly converted and altered and thus its natives
follow suit with their natural instinct and appetite, as they say
one thing now and change their mind a minute later, affirm and deny things
rather hastily, get involved in every kind of occupation and science and
are less firm and constant than most. And this is why astronomers say that
women born under Mercury are seldom chaste. They also say that mercurial
merchants do more selling and buying than others and are more often seized
by an appetite to eat, to drink, to laugh and to cry. The same applies
to other similar things, as mercurians go through frequent alternating
phases of gain and loss, health and illness, generosity and avarice,
obesity and thinness, friendship and enmity, daring and tepidity, these
people are quick to understand or misunderstand, and remember things or
forget them. And they go through all these kinds of changes because of
their natural affinity with Mercury in which the influence of the heavenly
bodies is converted. Thus, mercurial people are better organized than others
when their Mercury is good, and more disorganized than most when it is
bad.
7. THE MOON is of the complexion of water which
is cold and moist and it is both good and bad, feminine and nocturnal;
silver is its metal and its day is Monday, it rules Cancer, and runs its
course in twenty seven days and eight hours. The reason why astronomers
say that the Moon is both good and bad is mainly because it receives and
collects in its sphere the influences coming from the bodies above it,
in the same way that summer brings fruit and trees to maturity.
And when the Moon sheds a good influence on lower bodies it is good,
as the waning Moon is good for pruning trees and vines; and to the contrary,
the new moon is bad for epileptics. Also, the Moon is considered bad when
falcons refuse to hunt, and said to be good, when they are willing to hunt.
Also, the Moon is bad, in which wheat that has been sown comes up as grass,
and the same when barley comes up as oats. Also, the Moon is said to be
bad when women suffer menstrual periods; the Moon is also sometimes bad
for things such as bloodletting, navigation, and other similar things
as for instance, the Moon at a time when the weather turns to wind and
rain. The waning Moon is bad when crayfish are empty. And so they say that
the Moon is good in one way and bad in another way. And the natural properties
of the Moon that we mention are not formally its own, but it transmits
them into the sphere of fire and into the elements in accordance with the
instincts and appetites of the elements and of elemented bodies and it
relays them in the same way as it formally receives them from the signs
and from the other planets above it.
They also say that the Moon is bad because it causes phlegm that
is moist, cold and a bad complexion that makes people excessively gross,
dense, obese, slow witted and slow moving and impels them to excessive
sleeping, spitting and coughing. Astronomers also say that the Moon
is bad because it does not give as good an appetite to eat, nor does it
allow the tastes and smells of food to be appreciated as well as the other
planets do. Further, astronomers say that the Moon is bad because it is
nocturnal and night is not as good as day because the night air is heavy
and viscous. And the Moon is good when it gives light by night. And there
are many other similar conditions where the Moon is good in one way, and
bad in another way. On account of the bad characteristics of the Moon,
its natives are naturally bad and their bad nature can be recognized and
described by referring to what was said about the Sun, as it has a complexion
opposite to the Moon's complexion.
As the Sun causes summer by increasing the heat of fire, an element
similar to the Sun on account of its light, so does the Moon cause winter
by increasing the cold of water which is similar to the Moon in whiteness.
And so the Moon is a planet in which the color of water is converted into
many colors as when water receives a red color from wine and blood mixed
with it, and a black color from ink and green from herbs and so on for
the other colors. Hence, they say that as Mercury has a natural role in
converting the influences from above, likewise in the Moon the color of
water is converted into many colors.
The Moon attracts the natural instincts and appetites of its natives
to its own natural sphere in the same way that it naturally attracts watery
nature to its own natural sphere because in itself and in its own sphere
it can relay influence transmitted from the planets and the signs above
to the sphere of water. And this is why lunar people engage in occupations
with an affinity for cold and moisture and for the Moon's feminine and
nocturnal character: fishermen, launderers, bath house attendants,
gardeners who water plants, millers and mariners. And the same applies
to other similar occupations for which lunar natives have a natural appetite.
More than any other planet, the Moon has a function of filling and
emptying things and this is because water has gross matter and is restrictive,
closing up pores and blocking the exit of vapors. And air, which is the
filling element, needs empty space and cannot stand overcrowding like a
man who has had too much to eat and drink vomits through his mouth the
food he ate and the wine he drank. And once the Moon has evacuated the
substances it influences here below, it has an appetite for filling them
up again because water, being greedy, needs this and air also needs this
because it wants to fill things. And the same applies to the natural properties
of the Moon related to sunlight as the Sun gives the Moon more or
less light at different times, causing it to wax and wane.
Astronomers also say that the Moon sometimes swells the western
part of the sea, and sometimes it swells the eastern part of the sea, and
that while swelling one part, it empties the other; and it acts in the
same way upon fountains and wells and on the blood of animals and on their
natural instincts and appetites.
As they say that the Moon receives, in the dark part of its face,
influences of black, green, and blue colors in a confused mixture of gross
matter and in the other part, where there is no dark shadow, it receives
influences of a white, transparent, lucid and intense color; and in whatever
place it receives these influences transmitted to it from bodies above,
it relays the same to natural elemental instincts and appetites and to
their subjects such as plants, herbs, animals and fountains, and whenever
these things suffer from great heat and drought, they have an appetite
for rain and for the virtue of the Moon to provide them with rain. And
the same applies to other similar things, too long to enumerate here and
that can be discovered through the General Art for all sciences.
We have described the planets and signs with their conditions and
natural properties and the things that we have said indicate how judgments
are made by mixing and combining the natural conditions of the different
planets and discoursing through the houses of heaven to see which house
or planet is stronger in the combination at hand as questions are put,
or as a birth takes place and we will deal more thoroughly with this matter
in the third part of this treatise.
We have dealt with the first part of the principles of astronomy;
now we intend to treat of the second part which contains my opinion, proved
true by the principles of my General Table with which we will investigate
the secrets and natural proerties of the signs and planets.
Next to the second part of the principles of
astronomy
Previous: the twelve signs
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