How to find the Horoscope
Finding the rising sign, and why it is harder than it looks.
[p. 105] Perhaps these Precepts may appear too nice,For who can find the Horoscope in SkiesImmense, still circling with impetuous force,In Motion restless, and so swift in Course?Yet this not rightly fixt, our Art can boastNo certainty, and all our Labour's lost:As wretched Travellers are doom'd to stray,When those mistake, who should direct the Way.Because the Points which all the rest controul,Misplac'd at first, must influence the whole,And since the rouling Skies move swiftly on,A different Face is every moment shown,The Scheme must be uncertain, and the Birth unknown.
Yet tho' of greatest Vse, 'tis hard to gainThis Knowledge; and our Search is oft in vain:For who can in his narrow Breast compriseThe World immense, and who observe the Skies,Which with eternal Revolutions move,And Circling, measure the vast Orb above?What Diligence can e're describe its Face,What Art can fix in so immense a space?Those Points where East and West exactly fall,Which Crowns the Top, and which supports the Ball?
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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).