Of the Moon, her Properties and Significations
Quick, changeable and fond of anything new. The Moon’s chapter moves house a lot.
[p. 50] Name.—The Moon we find called by the ancients Lucina, Cynthia, Diana, Phoebe, Latona, Noctiluca, Proserpina;* she is nearest to the earth of all the planets.
Motion.—She terminates her course through the whole twelve signs in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 5 seconds; her mean motion is 13 degrees, 10 minutes, and 36 seconds; but she moves sometimes less and sometimes more, never exceeding 15 degrees and 12 minutes in 24 hours' time.
Latitude.—Her greatest north latitude is 5 degrees and 17 minutes. Her greatest south latitude 5 degrees and 12 minutes. She is never retrograde; but when she is slow in motion, and goes less in 24 hours than 13 degrees and 11 minutes; she is then equivalent to a retrograde planet.
[p. 51] Nature.—She is a feminine, nocturnal planet; cold, moist, and phlegmatic.
Manners when well placed or dignified.—She signifies one of composed manners, a soft tender creature, a lover of all honest and ingenious sciences, a searcher of and delighter in novelties, naturally inclined to flit and shift his habitation; unsteadfast, wholly caring for the present times; timorous prodigal, and easily frightened; loving peace, however, and to live free from the cares of this life. If a mechanic, the man learns many occupations, and frequently will be tampering with many ways to trade in.
When ill.—A mere vagabond, idle person, hating labour; a drunkard, a sot, one of no spirit or forecast, delighting to live beggarly and carelessly; one content in no condition of life, either good or ill.
Corporature.—She generally presents a man of fair stature, whitely coloured; the face round, grey eyes, and a little lowering; much hair both on the head, face, and other parts; usually one eye a little larger than the other; short hands and fleshy; the whole body inclining to be fleshy, plump, corpulent, and phlegmatic. If she be impedited of the ☉ in a nativity or question, she usually signifies some blemish in or near the eye; a blemish near the eye, if she be impedited in succeedent houses; in the sight, if she be unfortunate in angles, and with fixed stars called nebulæ.
Qualities of Men and Women.—She signifies queens, countesses, ladies, all manner of women, as also the common people, travellers, pilgrims, sailors, fishermen, fishmongers, brewers, tapsters, publicans, letter carriers, coachmen, huntsmen, messengers, mariners, millers, maltsters, drunkards, oysterwives, fishwomen, charwomen, tripewomen, and generally such women as carry commodities in the streets; as also midwives, nurses, &c.; hackneymen, watermen, water-bearers.*
[p. 52] Sickness.—Apoplexies, palsy, the cholic, the stomach-ache, diseases in the left side, the bladder and members of generation; the menstrues and liver in women, dropsies, fluxes of the belly, all cold rheumatic diseases, cold stomach, the gout in the wrists and feet; sciatica, worms, hurts in the eyes, surfeits, rotten coughs, convulsive fits, the falling sickness, king's evil, abscess, smallpox, and measles.
Orb.—Is 12 degrees.
Years.—Her greatest years are 320, greater 108, mean 66, least 25.
Countries.—Holland, Zealand, Denmark, Nuremberg, Flanders.
The notes
* These names prove the various mythological fables to have had their origin in the ancient astrology of the Egyptians. (a note, p. 50)
* Generally, all persons who are connected with liquids in their occupation. (a note, p. 52)
Old words on this page
- nocturnal
- of the night. A nocturnal planet or sign belongs to night-time.
- phlegmatic
- one of the four temperaments: cool, slow and watery (phlegm). The Moon's.
- dignified
- well dignified means the planet is somewhere it is strong, at home or exalted. Ill dignified: in exile, or fallen.
- corporature
- the body: build, height, face. Lilly describes what each planet's person looks like.
- succeedent
- a house that follows an angle: the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th.
- nativity
- a birth chart, or the birth itself.
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The text is the 1852 edition by Zadkiel, checked word by word against the 1898 printing of the same plates. Pages are cited as the 1852 printing numbers them. The portrait is William Marshall’s engraving of Lilly from the front of the 1659 printing (Wellcome Library, public domain).