Find out what the Fixed Stars mean in your chart - click here 
"What hogwash!" he said, only he used a different word. "When you screw up your life, you blame astrology, like you had no choice because you were born at a certain time. It's all your own fault anyway." Now he was smiling. "The reason I do drugs and can't keep my fly zipped isn't because of any stars! Like my old man knocked up my mother when Scorpio was Rising and because of that I'm going to jail? I don't think so! I'm going to jail because that's who I am. No stars made me do anything!"
This is a speech made by Edmund the Bastard in Shakespeare's play King Lear. I changed it to bring it up to date.
Here's what Edmund really said, "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion,; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major: so that it follows, I am; rough and lecherous. Tut! I should have been what I am, had the maidliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing."
Edmund plots against his half brother Edward, the legitimate son and heir of their father, the Earl of Gloucester. Edmund just told his father Edward was was plotting to kill him which wasn't true. Gloucester fell for it but rambled on about "these late eclipses in the sun and moon" as if that's what made Edward want to kill him.
Edmunc says this right at the beginning of the play. I thought 'twoud be interesting to take a closer look at this statement as a professional astrologer.
Edmund says he was born under the Dragon's tail. This means the South Node of the Moon. (The North Node of the Moon is the Dragon's Head.) That could be in any sign. Undoubtedly he's making a play on words, as Shakespeare is so fond. To be born under any animals tale is probably a slur on Edmund's mother who was not married at the time. His "nativity", he says, is under Ursa Major. His nativity is his horoscope or natal chart. Ursa Major is the constellation where the Big Dipper resides. At the time of this play, most of the stars in Ursa Major were in Virgo. (Stars moved like planets, even the so-called Fixed Stars, but of course very, very slowly. Their travel is measured in astronomical terms, hundreds of thousands of years.)
It's a funny coincidence (no such thing?) when Edmund speculates, what if he were born under "the maidliest star" -- because that's exactly when he was born. If under Ursa Major, then the influence of Virgo.
But Edmund shows a mistake people sometimes make about astrology. You can't be born "under something", you have to be born when the sun is "in something".
Edmund's character is used as a contrast (foil) to King Lear's very evil daughters, Regan and Goneril, who pretend to love their father long enough to get their inheritance and then turn him out in the cold. King Lear is emotionally and spiritually destroyed by their cruelty and hatred. He dies at the end of the play. While these girls are dark to the core, Edmund is openly, carelessly and light-heartedly villainous. We are asked to make a distinction right away. Back then as now, some people are bad but some people are really evil. M. Scott Peck wrote a good book to help us with this distinction, The Road Less Traveled.
I highly recommend this book.
Isn't it easier to sympathize with someone who did wrong or who is down on their luck if they take responsibility for it? No one likes a whiner or someone who blames others for their misfortune.
Edmund actually has a pretty good handle on an important concept in humanistic astrology, way before Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985) wrote his books. Truly, it is our character that determines our fate, not our horoscope.
Thousands of people are born the same hour, day, year and even minute of the hour all over the world; yet no two are alike. There is a soul underlying the horoscope that uses the energy according to its life plan for this incarnation. This person's soul may be a new soul with much to learn. This other person may be a master teacher who has perfected the energies and uses them for a divine purpose. The energy of the stars, however, is neutral like electricity and does not care how it is used.
Here's a most interesting example. Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. It was a good year for men!
If a bad person uses electricity, the electricity works just as well as when a good person does. Two people with the same chart, the same energies, respond very differently to the challenges and gifts within their "stars".
There's nothing
evil about being born in Virgo. In fact Virgo is the very "maidliest"
sign and many Virgos are among the most gentle of people. But there are
some malefic fixed stars in the Big Dipper in Virgo and 9 degrees of Virgo
is a degree of homicide. Alioth in Shakespeare's time was at about
7 degrees Virgo while Mizar and Alcor were at 12 degrees
Virgo.
But I think Shakespeare's speech in the mouth of Edmund the Bastard also refers to the importance Ursa Major has always had in the skies of the northern hemisphere. Let's learn more.
Ursa Major is a large sprawling constellation, the third largest in fact. There are 88. In America it's known as the home of the Big Dipper. In England, the home of the Plough. Usually it's the first thing in the sky children learn to recognize. It was the same in the time of Shakespeare.
Ursa Major isn't part of the zodiac, the belt of 12 constellations along the ecliptic which make the signs Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. So Shakespeare picked something that wasn't in the zodiac but that was obvious and visible in the sky even to a little child.
graphic by
Ms. Fenn
Ursa Major can be seen vividly at night. There are seven main stars, Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe.
NOTE: Alcor and Mizar are currently at 14 degrees of Virgo. In Shakespeare's time they were at 12 degrees Virgo. Dubhe is at 13 Leo; Merak at 18 Leo; Phecda and Megrez at 29 Leo; and Alioth at 7 Virgo.
Here is a rendering of the stars with this Greek letter indications.
The last two are special stars people use to site the North Star. Mizar, the star in the middle of the Big Dipper's handle, has a fainter companion, Alcor. If you can see these two stars, you have good eyesight.
"Follow the arc to Arcturus" and "spin on to Spica" are mnemonic devices every beginning astronomy student learns. Arcturus is the second brightest star in the spring sky while Spica is considered the luckiest star in the zodiac. Spica is now located at 23 degrees Libra. Are you lucky enough to have a planet there?
The heavens abound with fixed stars which you can learn more about if this aspect of the stars interests you. The most important are the Four Royal Stars, Regulus (the Star of Kings), Formalhaut, Aldebaran and Antares. At one time these four stars marked the cardinal points of the equinoxes and solstices.
- Regulus is the heart of Leo (29 degrees Leo)
- Formalhaut is in Pisces (now at 3 degrees Pisces; formerly in Aquarius)
- Aldebaran is the left eye of the Bull (now at 9 degrees Gemini; formerly in Taurus)
- Antares is the heart of the Scorpion (now at 9 Sagittarius; formerly in Scorpio)
Some readers will recognize these as the four beasts of the apocalyse. They are also the four images surrounding the Wheel of Fortune on the Tarot card (reading books) and also on the Judgment card in some decks. They are related to the four fixed signs of the zodiac, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.
In the Judgment card, the characters aren't reading books.
Traditionally the constellation Ursa Major is said to give a "quiet, prudent, suspicious, mistrustful, self-controlled patient nature, but an uneasy spirit and great anger when roused". Much like a bear, I suppose.
Yasser Arafat for example has Phecda conjunct his Sun in the 2nd house (also conjunct Neptune).
But the constellation has had other meanins to other cultures and times. It is associated with the Hebrew letter Zain and the 7th major arcana card of the Tarot deck, The Chariot. (The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson 1923.)
NOTE: Vivian Erwood Robson, 1890-1942, was a librarian by trade. Like many librarians he had a natural bent for research, and, in his particular case, astrology. He studied ancient authors closely, including Ptolemy & William Lilly. His books on fixed stars, electional and medical astrology are classics in the field.
In Arabic, these Mizak and Alcor have two different meanings. On the one hand they're called the horse and rider. But the rest of the constellation is also seen as a funeral procession ... perhaps because of the the slow and solemn motion of the figure around the pole.
Continuing the coincidental chariot theme, In Ireland the constellation is called King David's Chariot; in Denmark and Sweden the Stori Vagn or Chariot of Thor. Similarly the Vikings saw it as the Chariot of Wotan or Odin as did the Poles, Germans and Medieval Christians each for their own gods.
The common name, the Plough, seems to have a medieval origin. The Plough is the bucket shaped figure in the back of the Bear, outlined by the stars Merak, Dubhe, Phecda and Megrez. The Three Horses which are located in the tail; Alioth, Mizar and Alkaid.
graphics by
Ms. Fenn
There are some interesting projections into this part of the sky for northern hemisphere dwellers, aren't there? It's also called the Wain by the Welsh, short for Charlie Wain or Charlemagne, while Arcturus refers to King Arthur
Earlier yet, the Babylonians saw a chariot in these stars and the Romans, seven oxen. These oxen were the triones or teriones. Cicero calls them the Septtentriones (7 oxen) which later became a term for the north wind and everything polar.
The stars do not compel any more than there are chariots, bears and funeral processions in the skies. Most individual stars have Arabic names while the constellations in our northern hemisphere have names derived from Greek and Roman mythology. There was a time 2000 years ago when these worlds were all one -- when shepherds sat alone on hilltops at night and stared into the sky. There was a time when desert caravans followed star maps reliably across the sands and sailors cried "By Jiminy!" to the constellation of the twins to keep them safe at sea. There was a time when astrology and astronomy were twins as well and I'm one astrologer who likes to return to those times every now and then.
I love the fixed stars in astrology. If you'd like more articles, please let me know.
Other Recommended Books:
click button to order
Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation
Reinhold Ebertin
A classic for your reference library. Ebertin rules!
click to order
The Arabs and the Stars : Texts and Traditions on the Fixed Stars, and
Their Influence in Medieval Europe (Variorum Reprint, Cs307)
An expensive but wonderful resource for your reference library
Find out more about the Fixed Stars
This is also a good site.
Click here to find the Star Names
Also visit:
Here are some links to other interesting articles about Shakespeare and astrology by different authors.
Shakespeare and Astrology at ChartPlanet
Quotations from Shakespeare at AdZe
Far Out Anyara Aphorisms
Poetry of the Stars at Pagan Astronomy (*****)
Fate Extracted from Astrology at Atlantis Rising (don't go there, really!)
Shakespeare and Astrology
NATAL STAR REPORT
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