Cancer

Summer begins the logic of this sign. Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, calls it tropical because the Sun at its first point seems to turn and head back toward the south. He then awards Cancer and Leo to the two lights as the most northerly signs, Leo to the Sun and Cancer to the Moon. Lilly 1659 repeats that this is the Moon's only house.

Two planets have opposed standings here. Jupiter takes his exaltation in Cancer on Ptolemy's account, since he is then most northerly, and Mars has his fall, which marks the point across from his own exaltation in Capricorn. Those labels describe seats on the circle and carry no verdict on anyone born with such a placement.

Alan Leo 1899 builds his portrait on the crab's grip and on a long memory for small events. The 1697 English Manilius goes elsewhere and lists covetous fellows and usurers. Modern popular astrology dwells on home and mood. Ptolemy's reasoning belongs to the northern sky, and in Australia or New Zealand the same thirty degrees arrive in midwinter.