Sun in Cancer

The Sun reaches its northern limit at the first point of Cancer and seems to turn back, and Ptolemy (Ashmand's 1822 translation) calls the sign tropical because of that turn. His reasoning is written from the northern half of the world. Under Tropical reckoning a late June birth in Sydney has the same Sun sign, although it falls in winter there.

Cancer is the only house of the Moon in Lilly 1659, so the Sun stands in the sign of the other luminary. Ptolemy pairs Leo for the Sun with Cancer for the Moon as the two most northerly signs. Lilly lists no dignity for the Sun here, and he makes the Sun hot and dry where the sign is cold and moist.

Alan Leo 1899 puts memory first, with family feeling so strong that it can slow a person's own progress. Heindel 1918 uses this placement as a worked example of mixing planet and sign. The book argues that the heat of the Sun adds ambition and pride to a watery sign.