Gemini

Twins give this sign its double-bodied label in Lilly 1659, who also names it the day house of Mercury. Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, reasons differently: such signs stand between a fixed sign and a turning sign, so they share the properties of both. The same class is called common by Lilly, mutable by Alan Leo 1899 and flexed by Sepharial 1920, and the group is one idea under three names.

Adams 1928 says the type shifts so easily that a pure example is hard to find. Alan Leo describes people who like two tasks at once and who leave work half done, though he also calls them the ones to rely on in an emergency.

Raphael 1828 makes the boldest claim and credits this sign with more intellect and invention than any other on account of its many bright fixed stars. That reason sits awkwardly with counting from the equinox, because the stars drift against those thirty degrees over the centuries. The 1697 English Manilius lists musicians and astronomers. Modern popular astrology settles on the talker, a narrower figure than either.