De cometis

NB

It also signifies the material cause from which it is generated and the multitude of other materials from which it is separated, that is, exhalations and dry fumes and ignited impressions. It also signifies those things which are effected by such materials; for just as in the extraction of silver from mines, or copper, there will be many more superfluities than what is extracted, some of which are harmful to the human body, such as arsenic by its sharpness [which is] a poison. Thus it is hardly possible that in the segregations of comets, many poisonous superfluities should not be made, infecting the air, with the comet's substance itself also being very venomous. For this reason, all the wise men said that individual species of comets signify mortality, except for two, to which they did not ascribe the significations of mortality, one of the nature of Jupiter, the other of the nature of Venus. They are experienced until now, [though] not learnedly, although it might still happen. It also signifies the effects of its causes, coeval and co-alternate to itself, just as lightning and thunder signify [the storm], which are made at the same time from the same cause. By this signification, it signifies a multitude of winds, earthquake, asubub a type of sudden windstorm or whirlwind, and other impressions of the air, which for the most part precede, occur at the same time, or follow immediately, because the matter of comets cannot be sublimated without the commotion of other inflammable exhalations and dry fumes, and other less digested materials. Wherefore, in the egress of such, by their multitude, they split the earth, causing it to move, or otherwise make it tremble; also, remaining around the earth, they cause impulses of winds. Other parts, oily and inflammable, are carried to different places and are ignited, the effects of which are in many things similar to the effects of the comet, to which the last word of Ptolemy sounds.

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It also signifies the deprivation of itself and of things similar to it from that in which they were contained; just as many expenses signify a diminution of riches, thus comets signify a diminution of waters, and of rivers and streams. It also signifies dryness following, and serenity. By this signification, Haly intended [to comment] upon the last word of Ptolemy, and he declares his example through the Nile of Egypt. They distinguish these [things] when the dissolving virtue, which is dominant in the supercelestial exhalations, does not reach the interiors and the depths of the earth. Whence it would dissolve the dry fume or the oily humid one, unless it first makes the superficial and as-yet-unmixed aqueous humidities, which are of easier evaporation, fly away, whence the earth would be moistened. Wherefore, the earth is left dry, and the air serene by the deprivation of clouds, and thence the streams and rivers, not nourished by rains and snows, are diminished. Whence it signifies the sterility of lands following, especially those to which dryness and heat are accustomed to do harm, and even of temperate lands, but less so. To lands, however, to which humidity was harmful, it signifies fertility and abundance. There is, however, much, because the destruction of germinating things occurs not only because of the primary qualities, but because of the disagreeableness of the foreign substances irrigating the air, which insert corruptive qualities into the fruits, whence they also infect and destroy the bodies of animals, and not only the fruits. Sometimes also, with dryness, because of the root of the constellations, an agreeable quality is inserted into the germinating things, promoting abundance. Whence augmentation and improvement are provided to the fruits. It also signifies the effects proper to itself and to its cause that are to come, such as a hot and serene summer signifies dryness; by this signification, comets signify [these things].