Why is Virgo a bi-corporeal sign? What are its two bodies?

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My understanding of bi-corporeal signs is that when the Sun is in them, humans experience both the effects of the current season and the next season. Hence, the bi-corporeal signs have images with two bodies, to reflect the seasonal effects.

With the exception of Virgo, it is clear that all of the bi-corporeal signs have two bodies in their images: Pisces the two fishes, Gemini the twins, while Saggitarius is an archer riding a horse.

What about Virgo?





This inquiry will also inevitably bring up the question of "what is so fixed/solid about the Bull, the Lion, the Scorpion and the Water Pourer?" and similarly with the moveable signs...

I think I can explain the solid part a bit...the Bull and the Lion are both four-footed and so they are more stable when they move. The Scorpion has eight limbs and a low centre of gravity, so again we get the notion of stability of movement. We stand still when pouring water from a vase.

This could turn into a complicated discussion, so let's start with Virgo first.
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With the exception of Virgo, it is clear that all of the bi-corporeal signs have two bodies in their images: Pisces the two fishes, Gemini the twins, while Saggitarius is an archer riding a horse.

What about Virgo?
A maiden and a bird - hence the ancient depictions of the woman with wings.

It is convenient that the mutable or 'common' signs have duality built into their symbolism, but the influence of the seasons, as marked by the definitions of moveable (anciently, the 'tropical' and 'solistical' signs), fixed and common, isn't dependent on the symbolism of the creature of each sign. Early references to this scheme appear in the text of Geminos, who talks about the change of seasons brought by the squares (i.e, quadruplicities) of Aries, Taurus and Gemini.

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Going further back in time to Babylonia. Our Virgo corresponded to two distinct Babylonian asterisms - The furrow was a goddess with a barley head and Erua was another goddess with a palm frond (or sometimes a whip). The other bi-corporeal signs follow suit. The Babylonian Pisces was figured as a fish and a bird, Gemini was still a pair of twins, and Sagitarrius was a composite creature with two heads (human and dog) and two tails (of a scorpion and a horse).

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I see. Now the zodiacal glyph makes a little more sense (the part on the right are the wings.) Interestingly Valens described Virgo as being 'winged' (Schmidt translation). Do we have any Greek sources that describe Virgo as being a 'virgin/maiden and a bird'?


I was not trying to imply that the influence of the seasons were dependent on the images, but rather the other way around. I was saying that the images were dependent on the influence of the seasons. People made the images to reflect the seasonal effects.

Can you direct me to the text by Geminos?
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5
Larxene wrote:
I was not trying to imply that the influence of the seasons were dependent on the images, but rather the other way around. I was saying that the images were dependent on the influence of the seasons. People made the images to reflect the seasonal effects.
This is totally in line with Ptolemy (at least in my German translation) stating that the mutable signs are "mediating", right before he calls them "bi-corporeal".

Regards
Michael

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Michael Sternbach wrote:Larxene wrote:
I was not trying to imply that the influence of the seasons were dependent on the images, but rather the other way around. I was saying that the images were dependent on the influence of the seasons. People made the images to reflect the seasonal effects.
This is totally in line with Ptolemy (at least in my German translation) stating that the mutable signs are "mediating", right before he calls them "bi-corporeal".
Yes, Ptolemy and Geminus (about 100-200 years apart; Geminus is earlier, but difficult to date) represent the same sort of naturalistic/'scientific' approach. They are both far removed, however, from the people who 'made the images', so some caution is advisable in attributing the world-view of the former to the latter. (Geminus did not write on astrology at all, only on astronomy.)
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Hi Larxene

The text is Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena, translated by James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren (Princeton University Press, 2006).

The relevant text, where he is talking about the influence of the quadruplicities is II.6 (p.126).
  • ?Called the first square is the one starting from Aries, in which the [the beginnings of the] seasons occur ? spring, summer, fall and winter. Called the second square is the one starting from Taurus, in which the seasons have a midpoint ? of spring, of summer, of fall, of winter. Called the third square is the one starting from Gemini, in which the seasons end their times?.
Although an astronomical work, the translators point out that the astronomy of that period could not be separated from the view that the planets were divine, and so there is a great deal within the text that is of direct relevance to astrology, astrological symbolism, and our understanding of aspectual influences.

I agree we need to be cautious in assuming that all sign symbolism will work to this scheme. I am sure a great deal of it did originate out of seasonal associations, but as Gavin has shown, older constellations got merged as the number of constellations along the ecliptic became reduced to twelve, so not everything may fit to what we'd expect if a 12-sign zodiac was invented without need to accommodate the older legacy of constellation imagery.

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Marcus Manilius in his Astronomica, Book II, Verses 175-177, refers to the seasons when he states Virgo to be a double sign not because of her appearance but because in or under her middle the summer comes to its end and the autumn is about to begin.

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Yes, the Manilius reference is very interesting in suggesting that the vernal point was originally expected to be in the middle of the signs rather than the beginning; especially combined with his reference to the shifting position of the vernal point at the end of his third book, and details provided by Goold (p.lxxxi) which shows how older accounts placed it at the 15th degree of the signs. That makes a lot of sense to me, given our knowledge of the history of the zodiac and how long it was employed before the period when the 1st degree of the constellation Aries coincided with the VP.

10
This hint is very interesting. Manilius stresses only one day alone [una dies] to be decisive within each of the tropical (and equinoctial) signs [in tropicis]. And without giving his own opinion he refers to other not nominated authors, who allot the 8th, 10th or even the 1st (indeed the First!) degrees to these days of equinoxes and solstices. M. Manilius, Astronomica, Book III., Verses 680-682.

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Deb wrote:Yes, the Manilius reference is very interesting in suggesting that the vernal point was originally expected to be in the middle of the signs rather than the beginning;...
That would make sense of how the "seeing" and "hearing" signs are paired, as shown by Dykes in "Hephaistion".

This is in contrast to signs that "behold" each other, which is related to the Vernal Points at the beginnings of Cancer and Capricorn - and so are related to the antiscia and contra-antiscia, which has come down to us as a aspect relationships

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Geoffrey wrote:
That would make sense of how the "seeing" and "hearing" signs are paired, as shown by Dykes in "Hephaistion".
I did not see that when I read it so thank you for pointing it out

As an aside it bugs me when people outside astrology say spring starts on the 21st March at the equinox even if you tell them the date can vary anyway and the daffodils are already blooming. Next year I hit them with Manilius
:brows
Matthew Goulding