Mercury

So far 2008 has not been the best of years. January was bedevilled by distracting computer problems; much of February was spent trying to catch up with work that should have been done in January; then towards the end of the month my partner fell off a stepladder and broke her ankle. The hospital tells us it is healing well and straight, but she’ll be in plaster for several more weeks. A great deal of March has been spent running up and down stairs; also relearning to cook. (Left to my own devices, I tend to live on sandwiches, so usually my partner does the cooking.)

A friend tells me that the trouble has all had something to do with Mercury turning retrograde in the early part of this year, and that things should be starting to look up. I guess I can see that if there is a god, or planet, in charge of computers it would be Mercury. I don't know about falling off ladders.

Of Mercury, and his signification, nature and property.

He is called Hermes, Stilbon, Cyllenius, Archas.

…

We may not call him either Masculine or Feminine, for he is either the one or other as joyned to any Planet; for if in Conjunction with a Masculine Planet, he becomes Masculine; if with a Feminine then Feminine, but of his own nature he is cold and dry, and therefore Melancholly; with the good he is good, with the evil Planets ill: in the Elements the Water; amongst the humours, the mixt, he rules the animall spirit: he is author of subtilty, tricks, devices, perjury, &c.

Being well dignified, he represents a man of a subtill and politick brain, intellect, and cogitation; an excellent disputant or Logician, arguing with learning and discretion, and using much eloquence in his speech, a searcher into all kinds of Mysteries and Learning, sharp and witty, learning almost any thing without a Teacher; ambitious of being exquisite in every Science, desirous naturally of travell and seeing foraign parts: a man of an unwearied fancy, curious in the search of any occult knowledge; able by his own Genius to produce wonders; given to Divination and the more secret knowledge; if he turn Merchant, no man exceeds him in a way of Trade or invention of new wayes whereby to obtain wealth.

[Manners when ill placed or dignified.] A troublesome wit, a kinde of Phrenetick man, his tongue and Pen against every man, wholly bent to foole his estate and time in prating and trying nice conclusions to no purpose; a great lyar, boaster, pratler, busibody, false, a tale-carrier, given to wicked Arts, as Necromancy, and such like ungodly knowledges; easie of beleef, an asse or very ideot, constant in no place or opinion, cheating and theeving every where; a newes-monger, pretending all manner of knowledge, but guilty of no true or solid learning; a trifler; a meer frantick fellow; if he prove a Divine, then a meer verball fellow, frothy, of no judgment, easily perverted, constant in nothing but idle words and bragging.

…

He generally signifies all literated men, Philosophers, Mathematicians, Astrologians, Merchants, Secretaries, Scriveners, Diviners, Sculptors, Poets, Orators, Advocates, School-masters, Stationers, Printers, Exchangers of Money, Atturneys, Emperours Embassadours, Commissioners, Clerks, Artificers, generally Accomptants, Solicitors, sometimes Theeves, pratling muddy Ministers, busie Sectaries, and they unlearned; Gramarians, Taylors, Carriers, Messengers, Foot-men, Userers.

[Sicknesse.] All Vertigoes, Lethargies or giddinesse in the Head, Madnesse, either Lightnesse, or any Disease of the Brain; Ptisick,* all stammering and imperfection in the Tongue; vaine and fond Imaginations, all defects in the Memory, Hoarcenesse, dry Coughs, too much abundance of Spettle, all snaffling and snuffling in the Head or Nose; the Hand and Feet Gout, Dumnesse, Tongue-evil, all evils in the Fancy and intellectual parts.

[Colours and Savours.] Mixed and new colours, the Gray mixed with Sky-colour, such as is on the Neck of the Stock-dove, Linsie-woolsie colours, or consisting of many colours mixed in one: Of Savours an hodg-podge of all things together, so that no one can give it any true name; yet usually such as doe quicken the Spirits, are subtill and penetrate, and in a manner insensible.

Herbs attributed to Mercury, are known by the various colour of the flower, and love sandy barren places, they bear their seed in husks or cods, they smell rarely or subtilly, and have principall relation to the tongue, brain, lungs or memory; they dispel winde, and comfort the Annimall spirits, and open obstructions. Beanes, three leaved grasse, the Walnut and Walnut-tree; the Filbert-tree and Nut; the Elder-tree, Adders-tongue, Dragon-wort, Twopenny-grasse, Lungwort, Anniseeds, Cubebs, Marioran. What hearbs are used for the Muses and Divination, as Vervine, the Reed; of Drugs, Treacle, Hiera, Diambra.

[Beasts.] The Hyaena, Ape, Fox, Squirrel, Weasel, the Spider, the Grayhound, the Hermophradite, being partaker of both sexes; all cunning creatures.

[Birds.] The Lynnet, the Parrot, the Popinian,** the Swallow, the Pye, the Beetle, Pismires, Locusts, Bees, Serpent, the Crane.

[Fishes.] The Forke-fish, Mullet.

[Places.] Tradesmens-shops, Markets, Fayres, Schooles, Common Hals, Bowling-Allyes, Ordinaries,*** Tennis-Courts:

[Minerals.] Quicksilver.

[Stones.] The Milstone, Marchasite or fire-stone, the Achates, Topaz, Vitriol, all stones of divers colours.

[Winds and Weather.] He delights in Windy, Stormy and Violent, Boistrous Weather, and stirs up that Wind which the Planet signifies to which he applyes; sometimes Raine, at other times Haile, Lightning, Thunder and Tempests, in hot Countries Earthquakes, but this must be observed really from the Signe and Season of the yeere.

*Ptisick: phthisis, a wasting disease

**Popinian: see below

***Ordinaries: eating-houses or taverns where meals were provided at a fixed price; men often met in them to do business, and/or engage in gambling games, both of which activities pertained to Mercury

William Lilly (1602–1681)

from Christian Astrology (1647)

‘Popinian’ is interesting. OED gives one citation only, from 1613: ‘I was loath such rare creatures should be ouer gudgeoned by so foule Popinians’, from an anti-Catholic polemic by Sir Edward Hoby, A counter-snarle for Ishmael Rabshacheh, a Cecropidan Lycaonite. OED declares that it is an obsolete nonce-word developed from ‘pope’ and meaning ‘A Roman Catholic’. The appearance in Lilly’s work shows it is not a nonce-word, and suggests that it is a name for some kind of bird, or, perhaps, insect. To ‘gudgeon’ is to cheat, defraud, trap; a creature that traps or tricks its victims would naturally be assigned to Mercury. Beyond this, I cannot go.


tag: astrology

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