The Minor Works of Marsilio Ficino

...descend. The OCR "erpat" likely completes the word "descendunt" from the previous page, referring to the descent of souls through the celestial gates. Indeed, the order of celestial things is so wonderful that it declares the world was established not by fortune, but by providence. And a certain observance of all things toward the one Sun shows him to be the moderator of all; it shows that the angelic minds and all celestial things obey completely the one supreme being above the heavens, and that our souls ought to obey the same even more.

Planets in harmony with the Sun and Moon are fortunate; those in discord are the opposite. Also, how they salute the Sun and Moon. Chapter VIII.

Ptolemy considers the Sun and Moon the authors of life: the latter the Moon, indeed, provides what pertains to growth and vegetation; the former the Sun, however, provides what belongs to the senses. Furthermore, he considers Jupiter and Venus to be beneficial to life for this reason: that they harmonize with the Sun and Moon in a certain harmonic proportion. Jupiter, indeed, harmonizes mostly with the Sun, and also somewhat with the Moon; Venus, however, vice versa. Saturn and Mars, on the other hand, are adverse because they are in dissonance with the Sun and Moon. Saturn is more distant original: "diffidet" from the Sun, while Mars is more distant from the Moon. But Jupiter is more nourishing than the others: because if the lights of the Sun and Moon were perfectly fused, Jupiter would be formed from both.

Nor indeed should it be overlooked that when the planets revisit the face of the Sun or Moon as if with a certain salutation, they suddenly acquire a new power, which the Arabs have called almugea: An astrological condition where a planet is at the same distance from the Sun or Moon as its own zodiacal "house" is from the Sun’s house (Leo) or the Moon’s house (Cancer). This happens, for instance, when those following the Sun are distant from him by as much space as their own house is distant from the house of the Sun; or when those preceding the Moon approach the Moon by the same interval as their own domicile is near to the domicile of the Moon.

Thus, therefore, Saturn will salute the Sun whenever it is western—that is, rising after the Sun—and is in the sixth sign from the Sun's sign. Jupiter, indeed, will revisit the Sun when it is in the fifth sign; Mars in the fourth; Venus in the third; Mercury in the second. Similarly, they will salute the Moon when they are eastern to the Moon—that is, rising before her—and look upon her across these same intervals.