The Minor Works of Marsilio Ficino

...does not step back: so neither does the Moon retreat, for the velocity of the epicycleA small circular orbit whose center moves along the circumference of a larger circle. This was used in pre-Copernican astronomy to explain why planets sometimes appear to move backward. prevents her departure from being a backward movement. Finally, by solar power, when the Moon seeks the north in the path of the Sun, where the great Head of the Dragon original: "Draconis capite." This refers to the North or Ascending Node, the point where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic (the Sun's path) moving northward. Historically, nodes were imagined as a giant dragon swallowing the Sun or Moon during eclipses. is established, she provides an increase in the signs. Where indeed she seeks the south, there is a decrease, the Tail original: "Cauda." The South or Descending Node. being cast out.

All planets made oriental by the Sun Rising before the Sun in the morning., or occidental Setting after the Sun in the evening., change their condition and their name in both cases. All indeed respect the path of the Sun, which they name the ecliptic. The inferior planets Planets closer to the Sun than the Earth: Mercury and Venus. do so more and more in turn. Finally, the feminine planets—namely, the Moon and Venus—do so most of all: therefore they deviate most into the side This refers to celestial latitude, or the distance a planet moves north or south of the Sun's central path.. Finally, all whether placed in this path or having deviated from here, proceeding meanwhile again to the north or south, are thought to change their condition everywhere.

The Moon, lady of generation, has no manifest light except from the Sun. And from a perfect aspect of the Sun, she receives the powers of all celestial bodies: as Proclus Proclus Lycaeus (412–485 AD), a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher who wrote extensively on the divine nature of the cosmos. says, it is as if they were all in the Sun: and she sends down similar powers to our world.

The power of the Sun in generations and times. In nativity and in all things.

Chapter V.

Finally, in the birth of every man, the position of the Moon itself declares the lord of the birth and the moment of conception. And the conjunction or opposition of the Moon with the Sun made before the man's birth This refers to the "Prenatal Syzygy," the New or Full Moon immediately preceding birth, which was used to rectify the birth chart and determine life expectancy. opens the truth of the birth and its fortune.

And in the present figure A horoscope or astrological chart., that portion of the heaven in which the "Part of Fortune" of the birth falls is called the Daemon original: "Dæmon." In this context, it refers to a guiding spirit or a lot of destiny, rather than an evil entity. by the ancients: it portends or leads (as the Egyptians please) the course of the whole life. Indeed, the Part of Fortune designates the space observed first between the Sun and the Moon, then projected from the ascending degree A technical description of the calculation for the Part of Fortune: Ascendant + Moon - Sun.. Hence, astronomers, through the already discovered motion of the Sun, the planets...