Taurus

Venus keeps a house here, which Lilly 1659 calls her night house, and the Moon has her exaltation. Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, gives a sky-watcher's reason: after meeting the Sun in Aries, the Moon first shows her crescent and starts to grow in Taurus. Scorpio, directly across the circle, is named as her fall. A footnote in Ashmand makes Taurus the day house of Venus instead, so even that small detail wobbles.

Ptolemy calls this class of sign fixed because the season begun in the sign before has by now taken a firm hold. Alan Leo 1899 stretches that idea into character and sets Taurus against Aries as practice against ideal. He adds a strong will, slow to stir and hard to turn once it has.

The old writers differ on the temper. Raphael 1828 finds the type dull and slow to anger, then harsh when provoked, while Alan Leo stresses steady building and faithful friendship. The 1697 English Manilius puts plowmen here. Comfort, food and money are the emphasis of modern popular columns, and they owe more to Venus and the Bull than to any of these books.