The Chaldaeans refuted
The Chaldeans' shortcut for the rising sign, and why Manilius thinks it is wrong.
[p. 105] I know the Method, the ¹¹Chaldaean SchoolsPrescribe, but who can safely trust their Rules?To each ascending Sign, to find their Powers,They equal time allow, that time two Hours:And then from that Degree, from which the SunBegins to start, his daily Course to run,Two Hours to each succeeding Sign they give;Still thus allowing, 'till their search arriveAt the Degree and Sign they seek, for whereThe Number ends, the Horoscope is there.
[p. 106] The first Argument against the Chaldaeans
But false the Rule; Oblique the Zodiack lies,And Signs as near, or far remov'd in Skies,Obliquely mount, or else directly rise:In Cancer, so immense his Round, the RayContinues long, and slowly ends the Day;Whilst Winter's Caper in a shorter TrackSoon wheels it round, and hardly brings it back:Aries and Libra, equal Day with Night,Thus middle ¹²Signs to the Extreams are opposite;And Signs Extream too, vary in their Light.Nor are the Nights less various than the Days,Equal their measure, only Darkness sways,In Signs ¹³adverse to those that bore the Rays:Then who can think when Days and Nights are found,In length so differing thro' the Yearly Round,There should be given to every Sign in Skies,An equal Space, an equal Time to rise?
The Second Argument
But more than this: The ¹⁴Hours no certain spaceOf time contain, but vary with the Days:Yet every Day in what e're Sign begun,Beholds six Signs above the Horizon,Leaves six below; and therefore Rules despise,Because the Hours no equal time comprise,Which give two Hours to every Sign to rise,The Hours in number Twelve divide the Day,And yet the Sun with an unequal RayNow makes a shorter, now a longer stay:
The notes
¹¹ To explain this Method which the Chaldeans us'd to find the Horoscope, Scaliger gives this instance: Let the Sun's place be the 13, 25' of Libra, let the Birth be at the end of the Seventh Hour of the Day: Now because every Sign hath thirty Degrees, and fifteen Degrees make one Hour, these Seven Hours are three Signs and an half, or one Hundred and five Degrees: Now reckon those Degrees thro' the following Signs, viz. Scorpius, Centaurus, &c. The Number ends in the 28, 25' of Capricorn, and therefore that is the Horoscope. (Creech’s note, 1697)
¹² Sic media extremis, &c. The middle Signs here are Aries and Libra, and these are said to be opposite to the Extremes, Cancer and Capricorn, because in them the Days are equal, but in the others unequal to the Nights: This I take to be the meaning of the Poet, rather than what Scaliger and other Interpreters pretend. (Creech’s note, 1697)
¹³ Thus in Cancer the Days are longest; in Capricorn, which is a Sign adverse to Cancer, the Nights are of the same length, that the Days were of in Cancer: The like holds in Leo, and Aquarius, and so in the rest. (Creech’s note, 1697)
¹⁴ The Italians divided all the time betwixt the Rising and Setting of the Sun into Twelve Hours, and all the time between the Setting and Rising of the Sun into Twelve Hours: And therefore, those times being various and unequal, the Hours must likewise be unequal. (Creech’s note, 1697)
In the app the old words open a note in the margin when you tap them, the old books read the planets of your own chart, and each book opens where you left it. Free, no account, no email.
14160+ people cast their chart here in the last 30 days.
Keep reading
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).