Mars in Cancer

Fall is the name for the sign opposite a planet's exaltation, and Cancer holds that position for Mars. Lilly 1659 sets the exact point at 28 degrees, while Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, names only the sign. Both statements locate Mars relative to Capricorn and say nothing yet about a person.

Cancer also shows how the old tables can pull against themselves. Lilly gives Mars the whole watery group of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces by day and by night, so the same sign is both his fall and part of his triplicity, the set of three signs a planet helps govern. Mars in Lilly's scheme is hot and dry and Cancer is cold and moist, a mismatch on both qualities.

Raphael's Guide of 1877 is openly hostile in the entry its list order assigns to this pair, and its language about appearance and conduct is nothing anybody should carry over to a living person. Lilly's allotment is plainer: the first six degrees of the sign as terms of Mars. Modern popular astrology usually speaks of energy driven by feeling and by loyalty to home, and that reading is modern, with no support in the sources used here.