The 36 faces of the zodiac
Each sign is cut into three faces of ten degrees, each with a ruling planet, a nature and an image. Enter your date of birth to find the face your Sun was in.
The faces are older than the 360 degrees: the same list of rulers runs through Arabic and Latin astrology from the ninth century on. The images here are those of the 1488 edition, in the English of 1879. Like the degrees, they are fifteenth-century glosses, often blunt: they describe a picture and foretell nothing.
| Sign | Face | Ruler | Nature | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | 1 | Mars | boldness, fortitude, stoutness, and immodesty | A valiant man armed, holding out a faulchion in his right hand. |
| 2 | Sun | nobility, highness, rule and great dominion | A man in a gown like a clergyman. | |
| 3 | Venus | subtlety in every work, and of meekness, of play, mirth and beauty | A young woman sitting on a stool, and playing on a lute. | |
| Taurus | 1 | Mercury | plowing, sowing, building, peopling houses of learning and wisdom in the earth, and so learning in geometry | A book, a young man tilling of the ground. |
| 2 | Moon | power, nobility, dignity, and necessity over people | A tall man girt with a girdle, holding a key in his right hand. | |
| 3 | Saturn | misery, slavery, madness, necessity and baseness | A decrepid old man leaning on a crutch, hanging down one arm, and having a wooden leg. | |
| Gemini | 1 | Jupiter | writings, of giving and receiving money, of petition, and wisdom in unprofitable things | A young man girt with a girdle. |
| 2 | Mars | burden, pressure, labour, and getting goods by labour, and of unhonest actions | A man with an axe cutting of wood. | |
| 3 | Sun | oblivion, disdain, of mirth and jollity, and of hearing unprofitable words | A man with a hawk in his right hand, and a pipe in his left. | |
| Cancer | 1 | Venus | joy, subtlety, humanity, courtesy, and of such things as induce men to love | A beautiful woman holding a flower in her hand. |
| 2 | Mercury | jollity, mirth, of women, of riches and plenty | A man and woman sitting at a table with great heaps of money before them. | |
| 3 | Moon | hunting, pursuing fugitives, of getting goods by war, quarrels and contention amongst men | A hunter blowing a horn with a dog by his side, and a spear on his shoulder. | |
| Leo | 1 | Saturn | cruelty, wickedness and violence, of sustaining great labours, boldness and lust | A man riding on a lion, with a feather in his hat. |
| 2 | Jupiter | love, society, not parting from, not losing of one’s own, for avoiding quarrels | A man holding a hawk on his fist. | |
| 3 | Mars | wrangling, quarrelling, ignorance, necessity, of victory over the miserable and vile, through their ignorance, of occasion of drawing swords, and wars | A man holding a sword drawn over his head in one hand, and a buckler in the other. | |
| Virgo | 1 | Sun | sowing, ploughing, of planting herbs, peopling, gathering together riches and food | A man laying money into a chest. |
| 2 | Venus | gain, of getting substance, covetously taking together, and being covetous, and arising with the strength of men | Two men, one having a purse in his hand. | |
| 3 | Mercury | old age, of debility, slothfulness, and of loss of the members through infirmities, of pulling up trees, and depopulating of places peopled | A decrepid old man leaning on a staff. | |
| Libra | 1 | Moon | justice, right and truth, of succouring the weak against the strong and wicked, and of helping the poor and miserable | A student having a book open before him. |
| 2 | Saturn | gluttony […] singing and mirth, and following evil pleasures | An old man in a gown, sitting in a chair very grave. | |
| 3 | Jupiter | quietness, plenty, and of good life, quiet and secure | A young man having a cup in his hand. | |
| Scorpio | 1 | Mars | strife, sadness, deceit, detraction, perdition, and treachery | Two men a-fighting, and tearing one another by the hair. |
| 2 | Sun | affronts, detections, stirring up mischiefs and quarrels between men, and continuing that strife which it stirreth up | A man sitting on a stool, and two dogs a-fighting by him. | |
| 3 | Venus | war, drunkenness, and violence, fornication, wrath, and pride | Two women pulling one another by the hair of the head, one having a staff in her hand, striking the other on the head. | |
| Sagittarius | 1 | Mercury | boldness, freedom, and warfare | A man armed with a pole-axe in his hand. |
| 2 | Moon | fear, of lamentation, grief, and of a fearful spirit over his own body | A man sitting mourning on a stool. | |
| 3 | Saturn | wilfulness and not being persuaded from it, of contrarying, yielding, agility in evil, strife, and horrible things | A man with a feather in his hat, holding a staff on the top of his fingers. | |
| Capricorn | 1 | Jupiter | wandering, of travail, of joy, of gain and loss, with weakness and vileness | A man travelling a-foot. |
| 2 | Mars | seeking such things as cannot be known, and seeking after such things as cannot be attained to | A man reaching a bird in the air. | |
| 3 | Sun | covetousness, of governing one’s substance, of not sufficing himself, and of suspecting | A man sitting at a table telling his money. | |
| Aquarius | 1 | Venus | an anxious spirit, grieving after gain, and never resting, of labour, loss, poverty, and vileness | A woman sitting spinning on a rock. |
| 2 | Mercury | beauty, understanding, humanity, modesty, good manners, compliments, and freedom | A comely person well clothed, sitting on a stool. | |
| 3 | Moon | detection and affronts | A man having an envious look, holding his hand on his sides. | |
| Pisces | 1 | Saturn | many thoughts, of journeys, and removing from place to place, of seeking after substance and food | A man travelling, carrying a burden on his back. |
| 2 | Jupiter | praising one’s self, of a high mind, of seeking after and intermeddling with great and high things | An ancient man pointing with his hand to the sky. | |
| 3 | Mars | fornication and embraces, of great delight with women, and loving peace and quietness | A young man embracing a beautiful woman. |