~ 71 ~
In this case it will be observed that we have a sort of combination of astrology proper with week-lore. No universal rules are laid down for Wednesdays, but the observer is bidden to remember that Mercury is paramount in the first hour of Wednesday and then to note the positions of Mercury on that particular Wednesday and to shape his course accordingly, and this is the line taken by our earliest authority Valens. This is perhaps a trifle more rational than what we find in other authorities, who seem to hold that the laws for each hour of each day in the week are irrevocably fixed and have no reference to what may be the particular position of the paramount planets on any particular hour or day. One specimen of this stuff will, I think, be enough[1]. I will take the hour at which I am writing, namely, about 12.30 midday of Friday, November 20th, 1925. As the sun rises about 7.30 a.m. and sets shortly after 4 p.m., the dayhours are about 43 minutes each, and we are now in the eighth of them according to the western astrological reckoning. Venus is therefore regent of both the day and the hour. The authority before me gives me advice as to four contingencies and four only. My slave may run away (this is a possibility the astrologers seem regularly to provide for): I may fall ill: I may lose or break something, or I may have a thief. During this particular hour, I find that if the
- ↑ Cat. Cod. Astr. Graec. VII, pp. 88 ff.
