How Days encrease from Capricorn to Cancer
How the days grow longer from the Goat to the Crab.
[p. 115] By what advance the Winter Months encrease,(For they advance not by the same DegreesThro' every Sign, till on the Ram they light,Which equals Time, and Day adjusts to Night)Must next be shewn to all that press to learn,Short are the Rules, but yet of great Concern.
[p. 116] First take the measure of the shortest DayAnd longest Night, when with unequal RayThro' Caper Phoebus drives the narrow way.Then count the ²²Hours which Day must yield to Shade,And in three Portions let the Sum be laid;One of these Parts to th' Middle Sign apply'dShews the Increase of Day on either side:For as the First is by the Midst surpass'dOne Half, so that's exceeded by the last.Thus thro' Three Signs the Day's Increase is shown,The following takes what to the Last was grown,And adds an equal Portion of its own.
For Instance: To the Conquest Night assignFull Fifteen Hours, and give the Day but Nine:Three Hours the difference. Now the Goat hath PowerTo lengthen Day the space of half an Hour,One Hour Aquarius adds, the Fishes joynAs much as Both, and with the rest combine;Thus three Hours fill'd, adjusted Time they bringTo Aries; and he equals Day and Night in Spring.
The Sixth part of the Time, or more or less,Whate're it proves, is the first Sign's Increase;The Second doubles what the First surpass'd,And gives it to be trebled by the last.But from the ²³Equinoctial point the DayReceives increase, but in another way;For Aries takes as many Hours from Night,As Pisces seiz'd before in their own Right;And to compleat the Rapine Taurus joinsOne Hour, one Half is added by the Twins;Thus whilst these Signs the Time to Day restore,Night justly loses, as it gain'd before.
From Caper thus Decreasing Nights appear,And Heaven turns up the right side of the Year,The Day proceeds to lengthen all the way,Till high in Cancer rais'd it finds a Stay;The Solstice then: when Day and Night are foundEqual to Night and Day that drove the Winter round.Then by the same degrees again the LightDecreasing, what it took returns to Night.
The notes
²² The Example which Manilius himself gives, sets this Doctrine in its true Light. Let the longest Night in Capricorn be of 15 Hours, the Day consequently must be of 9. Thus the Night exceeds the Day by 3 Hours. Divide these 3 Hours into 3 Parts, give one Part, that is, 1 Hour to the Middle Sign, viz. Aquarius, and thence conclude that in Capricorn the Day encreases half an Hour, and in Pisces an Hour and half; Aquarius being the Middle Sign in which the Days encrease one Hour. (Creech’s note, 1697)
²³ According to the Doctrine of Manilius (let the Example be the same with that in the preceding Note) in Aries the Day encreases one Hour and half, in Taurus one Hour, in Gemini half an Hour. (Creech’s note, 1697)
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The text is Thomas Creech's 1697 verse translation, checked word by word between three scans of the same type (the 1697 printing, the 1700 printing and a third copy). The long s is printed as s; every other spelling is Creech's. Pages are cited as the 1697 printing numbers them. The portrait is William Marshall’s engraving of Lilly from the front of the 1659 printing (Wellcome Library, public domain).