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Zodiac   Listen
noun
Zodiac  n.  
1.
(Astron.)
(a)
An imaginary belt in the heavens, 16° or 18° broad, in the middle of which is the ecliptic, or sun's path. It comprises the twelve constellations, which one constituted, and from which were named, the twelve signs of the zodiac.
(b)
A figure representing the signs, symbols, and constellations of the zodiac.
2.
A girdle; a belt. (Poetic & R.) "By his side, As in a glistering zodiac, hung the sword."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Zodiac" Quotes from Famous Books



... the most magnificent king of Dilli, of the race of Taimur, Sahib Kiran was one of his titles, and means, Prince of the Happy Conjunction; i.e. the conjunction of two or more auspicious planets in one of the signs of the Zodiac at the hour of birth. Such was the case at the birth of Taimur, who was the first we read of as Sahib-Kiran. As a contradistinction, Shahjahan is generally called Sahib Kirani Sani, or the second Sahib Kiran. It never waw ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... powerful and intelligent beings that managed these things, we would accuse them of being the authors of all the sufferings of Chrisna. And as they and the constellation of Leo were below the horizon, and consequently cut off from the end of the zodiac, there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac to be seen; the three at the end were wanted, but those three would be accused of bringing Chrisna into the troubles which at last ended in his death. All this would be expressed in the Eastern language by saying that Chrisna was persecuted ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... moved away towards the companion stairs, "after all, if you find the United States, or even the Planet Terra, too small for you, we've always got the fields of Space open to us. We might take a trip across the Zodiac or down ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... graine Of Sarra, worn by Kings and Hero's old In time of Truce; Iris had dipt the wooff; His starrie Helme unbuckl'd shew'd him prime In Manhood where Youth ended; by his side As in a glistering Zodiac hung the Sword, Satans dire dread, and in his hand the Spear. Adam bowd low, hee Kingly from his State Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declar'd. 250 Adam, Heav'ns high behest no Preface needs: Sufficient that thy Prayers ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... which the confirmation of the Mosaic account of the primitive world is justly insisted on as the most important; and enlarges on the philosophy of the Asiatics. Besides several other essays, particular dissertations are allotted to the subjects of the Indian chronology; the antiquity of their zodiac, which he maintains not to have been formed from the Greek or Arabs; the literature of the Hindus; and the musical ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... shrine that cast a dazzling light, Sat, fix'd in thought, the mighty Stagyrite; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crown'd, And various animals his side surround; His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Superior worlds, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... observatories of Egypt and Chaldea before those countries were conquered and laid waste by the Persians. Pliny (L. 11) says that 1600 stars had been counted in the 72 constellations, and by this expression I can only understand him to mean the 72 dodecans into which the Egyptians and Chaldeans divided the zodiac. Now this number of stars could never have been counted in the zodiac without the assistance of glasses. Ptolemy reckoned a much less number for the whole heavens The missionaries found many more stars marked in the Chinese charts of the heavens than formerly existed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... fortune-teller was a rogue of a sham astrologer known to have foretold to certain tender ladies things they were only too desirous to imagine predestined by an extraordinary indication of the course of planets through the zodiac, thus causing them to sin by the example of celestial conjunctions—a piece of wanton impiety. The beau took high ground in his objections to the adventure. Nevertheless, Duchess Susan did go. She drove ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... drinking and ablutions. At four o'clock in the afternoon, should you visit Fort Smith forty years from now, you will see the same daily procession of women and kiddies bearing buckets,—the Aquarius sign of the Fort Smith zodiac. A scoffer at my elbow grins, "Why should they bother to dig wells? It's cheaper to bring out Orkney-men in sail-boats from Scotland to tote their ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... the particular star in this artistic zodiac was Therese Romain, dazzling chiefly on account of her ethereal beauty. She had a voice, which did not amount to much, and she had done a little acting on the stage and for the screen, but without conspicuous success. She had devoted years to war-work, and there were tears in her beautiful eyes ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... to those beautiful cameo figures on the burnt orange ground at the entrance to the colonnades, and you will be carried in thought to the Zodiac, that great imaginary belt thru which ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James

... ordinary among its quaint kind! As I picked out the design of the gold-work, that fact was borne in upon my mind. Here was no pattern of scroll or blossom or cupids and hearts. The small sphere was belted with the signs of the Zodiac, beautiful in minute perfection. All the rest of the globe was covered with lace-fine work repeating one group of characters over and over. I was not learned enough to tell what the characters were, but the whole plainly belonged to those strange, ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... neither one thing nor the other, according to accepted definition, but rather a group of a dozen dependent pavilions distributed around a central edifice, the whole straggling off into infinite and manifestly unlovely proportions. It was as the sun surrounded by the zodiac. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... of the heavens, and that they should have divided the stars of the firmament into more or less arbitrary groups or constellations. That they did so is evidenced by various sculptured representations of constellations corresponding to signs of the zodiac which still ornament the ceilings of various ancient temples. Unfortunately the decorative sense, which was always predominant with the Egyptian sculptor, led him to take various liberties with the distribution of figures in these representations of the constellations, so that the inferences drawn ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Set within this zodiac and spaced at mathematically regular intervals were nine ovoids of intensely living light. They shone like nine gigantic cabochon cut sapphires; they ranged from palest, watery blue up through azure and purple and down to a ghostly mauve shot with sullen undertones ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... is the perfection of decoration, with the subject well subdued, yet so subtly placed that notwithstanding its modesty, the eye promptly seeks it. The castle in the distance, the motive holding aloft the sign of the Zodiac, are seen even before the splendid columns and the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... young man goes to see a girl for the first time, and the signs of the zodiac are in the heart, they will ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... Swithin, by the scribe Walstan. He calls it "a cock of elegant form, and all resplendent and shining with gold who occupies the summit of the tower. He regards the world from on high, he commands all the country. Before him extend the stars of the North, and all the constellations of the zodiac. Under his superb feet he holds the sceptre of the law, and he sees under him all the people of Winchester. The other cocks are humble subjects of this one, whom they see thus raised in mid-air above them: he scorns the winds, that bring the rains, and, turning, he presents to them his back. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... sphere. Astronomy is fully discussed. The planets are "moving stars." Mercury is "the star"; Venus, "splendor"; Mars, "redness"; Jupiter, "rightness"; Saturn, "the Sabbath star." The signs of the Zodiac have the same names as are now used. The Galaxy is "the river of light." Comets are "burning arrows." And it is said that when a comet passes through Orion it will destroy the world. A certain Ishmaelite merchant is related to have invited Rabba to come and see where the heavens and the earth ...
— Hebrew Literature

... the spirits associated with the solstitial worship, whose intercession was thus secured, "I, the emperor of the Great Illustrious dynasty, have respectfully prepared this paper, to inform the spirit of the sun, the spirit of the moon, the spirits of the five planets, of the constellations of the zodiac, and of all the stars in all the sky," and so on: and the professor adds: "This paper shows how there had grown up around the primitive monotheism of China the recognition and worship of a multitude of celestial and terrestrial spirits." [166] This is ample ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... unsigned, ^{8}2[bullet]-3[bullet]^{8}4[bullet]^4A-2B^{8}2C^4, folios numbered. Wanting 2C 4 (? blank). Table of contents. Calendar. Almanack for 24 years. Rules for terms, signs of the Zodiac, dog-days, divisions of the year, Vigils, number of days in the months. Epistle dedicatory to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Grafton's address to the reader. Alphabetical table of contents. At the end: list of Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... nearest the earth, is that of Venus (called in Greek [Greek: Phosphoros]). Before the rising of the sun, it is called the morning-star, and after the setting, the evening-star. It has the same revolution through the zodiac, both as to latitude and longitude, with the other planets, in a year, and never is more than two[134] signs from the sun, whether it precedes ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... The village spire Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance; The painted walls Whereon it falls Transfigured stand in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the zodiac from his observatory in Palermo, in the early hours of that first night of the century, noticed a hitherto unobserved star, which under higher power proved to be a planet. It presented a small irregular disc, and a few additional observations showed that it was progressing in the ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... for the denial of the Maker, the Creator, extolled be His might and exalted be He! Indeed, God is exalted and magnified above the speech of the deniers. He avouched that it is the planets[FN79] that order the affairs of all creatures and he set down twelve mansions to twelve signs [of the Zodiac] and made each sign thirty degrees, after the number of the days of the month, so that in twelve mansions there are three hundred and threescore [degrees], after the number of the days of the year; and he wrought a scheme, wherein he lied and was an infidel ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... up she saw through the glass roof the flickering of stars in the summer sky. In the centre of the room, immediately under the dome, stretched a billiard-table, and near it was a circular one of black marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis lazuli, which formed a miniature zodiac similar to that at Denderah, while in the middle of this table sat a small Murano hour-glass, filled with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plaster Trimurti stood close to the wall, on a triangular pedestal ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... the round arch. The scallop also is a pretty radiant form, and mingles well with other symbols when it is needed. The crab is always as delightful as a grotesque, for here we suppose the beast inside the shell; and he sustains his part in a lively manner among the other signs of the zodiac, with the scorpion; or scattered upon sculptured shores, as beside the Bronze Boar of Florence. We shall find him in a basket at Venice, at the base of one of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... an ancient observatory of more than ordinary interest, erected by a famous Hindoo patron of science, Rajah Manu. Though it is now quite neglected and in partial ruins, a sun-dial, a zodiac, meridian lines, and astronomical appliances are still distinctly traced upon heavy stones arranged for celestial observations. This proves that astronomy was well advanced at Benares hundreds of years before Galileo was born, and it will be remembered that ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... of vice? How could Charity ever have appeared in the world, were there no dark ways to be trodden by its bright feet, and no suffering and sadness to require its aid? I look at these asylums, these hospitals, these ragged schools—a zodiac of beautiful charities, girdling all this selfishness and sin—I look at these monuments which humanity will honor when war shall be but a legend, and laurels have withered to dust; and when I think what they ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... Pausanias, a similar heap of stones, on the road from Thebes to Elissonte, was called "the serpent's head," and especially because the rows of stones at Carnac present the sinuosities of a serpent. People fond of cosmography discovered a zodiac, like M. de Cambry, who recognised in those eleven rows of stones the twelve signs of the zodiac, "for it must be stated," he adds, "that the ancient Gauls had only eleven signs ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... sun rises from a point on the horizon, where the four great circles, namely, the horizon, the zodiac, theequator, and the equinoctial colure, meet, and, cutting each other, form three crosses. The sun is in the sign of Aries, "a better star," because the influence of this constellation was supposed to be benignant, and under it the earth ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new! Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run: And, as it works, th' industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon'd, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hidden as with stone, And the face of the deep is frozen. Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the Zodiac in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... suited for the work, because, through precession, the stars are all out of place as respects R.A. and Dec. Even the Society's maps, constructed so as to be right for 1830, are beginning to be out of date. But a matter of 20 or 30 years either way is not important.[10] My Maps, Handbook and Zodiac-chart have been constructed for the year 1880, so as to be serviceable for the next fifty ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor

... Zodiac signs, aspects and symbols of the planets have been replaced by their names ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... knot Of jangling wedlock not to be dissolv'd; Worried all day by loud Xantippe's din, Who fails not to exalt him to the stars, And fix him there among the branched crew (Taurus, and Aries, and Capricorn, The greatest monsters of the Zodiac), Or for the loss of anxious worldly pelf, Or Delia's scornful slights, and cold disdain, Which check'd his amorous flame with coy repulse, The worst events that mortals can befall; By cares depress'd, in pensive hippish ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... pomegranates, the lightning. The ephod, by its many colors, signified the starry heaven; the two onyx stones denoted the two hemispheres, or the sun and moon. The twelve precious stones on the breast are the twelve signs of the zodiac: and they are said to have been placed on the rational because in heaven are the types (rationes) of earthly things, according to Job 38:33: "Dost thou know the order of heaven, and canst thou set down the reason (rationem) thereof ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... 31.—A circular and brazen table, sculptured with strange characters and mysterious figures; near it was a couch on which lay several volumes. A cabalistic table, perhaps a zodiac. The books were doubtless Sepher Happeliah, the Book of Wonders; Sepher Hakkaneh, the Book of the Pen; and Sepher Habbahir, the Book of Light. This last unfolds the most ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... to have undergone every figure, size and shape of geometrical invention: It has passed through every form in the whole zodiac of Euclid. The large square buckle is the ton of the present day. The ladies also, have adopted the reigning taste: It is difficult to discover their beautiful little feet, covered with an enormous shield of buckle; and we ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... gave to the sextant. He was on this occasion conducted further into the interior of his residence, than on his two former visits. Clapperton first exhibited a planisphere of the heavenly bodies. The sultan knew all the signs of the zodiac, some of the constellations, and many of the stars by their Arabic names. The looking glass of the sun was then brought forward, and occasioned much surprise. Clapperton had to explain all its appendages. The inverting telescope was an object of intense astonishment, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... and make me there Many a less and greater sphere: Make me the straight and oblique lines, The motions, lations and the signs. Make me a chariot and a sun, And let them through a zodiac run; Next place me zones and tropics there, With all the seasons of the year. Make me a sunset and a night, And then present the morning's light Cloth'd in her chamlets of delight. To these make clouds to pour down rain, With weather foul, then fair again. And when, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... varied by the introduction of dots, and, in some cases, by the insertion of minute sketches of animals, birds, arrows, signs of the zodiac, etc., with here and there one of a ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... a fanciful present from an admiring Marchesa, curiously embroidered with algebraic figures like a conjuror's robe, and with a skull-cap of black satin on his hive of a head, the man of gravity was seated at a huge claw-footed old table, round as the zodiac. It was covered with printer papers, files of documents, rolls of manuscript, stray bits of strange models in wood and metal, odd-looking pamphlets in various languages, and all sorts of books, including many presentation-copies, embracing history, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... calendar, and the possibility of its foreign origin, should not have perceived the intimate relation between that calendar and the whole ceremonial system of the Brahmans. Dr. Haug is, no doubt, perfectly right when he claims the invention of the Nakshatras, or the Lunar Zodiac of the Brahmans, if we may so call it, for India; he may be right also when he assigns the twelfth century as the earliest date for the origin of that simple astronomical system on which the calendar of the Vedic festivals is founded. He calls the theories of others, who ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... not been held in the highest esteem among the ancients the astrologers would not have called the signs of the zodiac by their names in describing the heavens: and they not only did not hesitate to place them there but many even begin their enumeration of the twelve signs with these animal names, thus giving Aries and Taurus ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... Jacob's star which made the sun To dazzle if he durst look on, Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, Borrowed a star to show Him light! He that begirt each zone, To whom both poles are one, Who grasped the zodiac in His hand And made it move or stand, Is now by nature man, By stature but a span; Eternity is now grown short; A King is born without a court; The water thirsts; the fountain's dry; And life, being born, made apt ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... amulets,[69] and I know not what preparations to fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit, and it was to be kept off with crossings,[70] signs of the zodiac,[71] papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written on them, as particularly the word "Abracadabra,"[72] formed in triangle ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... plainly of a stellar character. The accompanying representation, taken from a conical black stone in the British Museum [PLATE XX., Fig. 2.], and belonging to the twelfth century before our era, is not perhaps, strictly speaking, a zodiac, but it is almost certainly an arrangement of constellations according to the forms assigned them in Babylonian uranography. [PLATE XXI.] The Ram, the Bull, the Scorpion, the Serpent, the Dog, the Arrow, the Eagle or Vulture may all be detected on the stone in question, as may similar ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... Palingenius Stellatus employed a similar artifice in his ZODIACUS VITAE, "The Zodiac of Life:" the initial letters of the first twenty-nine verses of the first book of this poem forming his name, which curious particular was probably unknown to Warton in his account of this work.—The performance ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... the signs of the zodiac: [Greek: aster] differs from [Greek: astron], the former signifying a single star, the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... manifest that, at no day and hour, will all of these signs conspire at their greatest potency. For clearly, for instance, the Lion and the Scorpion, being both in the Zodiac, and being separated in the Zodiac by the interposition of two entire constellations, can never be in the ascendant at one and the same time, nor can one be near the ascendant when the other is in that position. Yet there are times when a majority of them all exert ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... month, and the hour of the day, for each of these spaces of time are under the influence of a star which must support or weaken the action of the medicine. Besides, it is needful to remember what star and what sign of the Zodiac rules the sick person. Only when the leech considers all these can he prescribe an ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... is curious, though very much defaced: in the sacristy is a circular-arched door, elaborately sculptured with the signs of the Zodiac; but the formerly-existing stones on which the effigy of the fairy appeared have ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Olympia were of Egyptian original, is manifest from Eusebius; who tells us, that in Egypt the moon was called Olympias; and that the Zodiac in the heavens had antiently the name of Olympus. [Greek: He gar Selene par' Aiguptiois kurios Olumpias kaleitai, dia to kata mena peripolein ton Zodiakon kuklon, on hoi palaioi auton OLYMPON ekaloun.] Chronicon. p. 45. l. 9. The reason given ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... of the Norse, and the Yule of the Anglo-Saxons, terms applied to Christmas-tide, but which properly mean the circular journey which the sun has completed at that season: for what are Jol and Yule but the Ygul of the Hebrews? who call the zodiac 'Ygul ha mazaluth,' or the circle of the signs. It is, moreover, related to the German Jahr and the English Year, radically the same words as Jol, Yule, and Ygul, and of the same meaning—namely, the circle travelled by the sun through ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... Latin for a crab. Likewise it is the name of a painful disease. It is also a sign of the Zodiac.' ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... collective methods for homely and individual ones as, under existing conditions, inevitable—inevitable. It's the phase we live in, it's to this we have to adapt ourselves. It is as little under your control or mine as the movement of the sun through the zodiac. Practically, that is. And what we have to do is not, I think, to sigh for lost homes and the age of gold and spade husbandry, and pigs and hens in the home, and so on, but to make this new synthetic life tolerable for the mass of men and women, hopeful for the mass of men and women, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... the early Babylonians in mathematics and astronomy were far beyond those of the Egyptians. They divided the year into twelve months, and arrived at the signs of the ecliptic or zodiac. The week they fixed at seven days by the course of the moon. They divided the day into twelve hours, and the hour into sixty minutes. They invented weights and measures, the knowledge of which went ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... at the entrance represent the twelve signs of the Zodiac. These are suddenly and equally opened by ropes let down by the Hermulae (little pilasters)[310]. The four colours worn by the four parties of charioteers denote the seasons: green for verdant spring, blue for cloudy winter, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... this Power was symbolized in many ways, notably by the passage of the sun through the zodiacal signs * (centres in the psychic body) [* "The twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden in his body."—-Secret Doctrine, II, 619] A stone serpent was found a little while ago in Ireland marked with twelve divisions. The archaic verses alluded ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... on American astronomy and his results coincide with those on antiquity to make the American systems quite different from the oriental, Hindu, Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Celtic systems of days, months, zodiac, and cycles; while they are more like those of Thibet, China, Japan, Lybia, Etruria, &c. At any rate the American systems were anterior to the admission of the week of seven days, being the fourth of a lunation, each day dedicated to a planet, ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque

... what means her father might be saved from the peril impending over him. So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the Zodiac,—the Hwang-tao, or Yellow Road,—and consulted the table of the Five Hin, or Principles of the Universe, and the mystical books of the alchemists. And after a long silence, he made answer to her, saying: "Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is derived from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face of man but what is under the peculiar influence or government, not only of the seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac; and the dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man or woman are plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the knowledge thereof be an artist, which, that my readers may hereby attain it I shall set these things in ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... the upper half containing the couches and tables, the other reserved for the service and the entertainments that follow, the ceiling was met by columns, the walls hidden by panels of gems. On a frieze twelve pictures, surmounted by the signs of the zodiac, represented the dishes of the different months. Beneath the bronze beds and silver tables mosaics were set in imitation of food that had fallen and had not been swept away. And there, in white ungirdled tunics, the head and neck circled with coils of ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... to her the theory of the souls that descend upon the earth, following the same route as the sun through the signs of the zodiac. With outstretched arm he showed the gate of human generation in the Ram, and that of the return to the gods in Capricorn; and Salammbo strove to see them, for she took these conceptions for realities; she accepted pure symbols and even manners of speech as being true in themselves, a ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... Lady, Star of the Sea, Queen of Heaven, Mother of God. We see her in pictures standing on the crescent moon, star-crowned; she nurses her child Horus, and the cross appears on the back of the seat in which he sits on his mother's knee. The Virgo of the Zodiac is represented in ancient drawings as a woman suckling a child—the type of all future Madonnas with their divine Babes, showing the origin of the symbol. Devaki is likewise figured with the divine Krishna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also with the recurrent crown of ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... older than the bride. Matches are arranged by the parents, the horoscopes of the children being compared among the well-to-do. The zodiacal sign of the boy's horoscope should be stronger than that of the girl's, so that she may be submissive to him in after-life. Thus a girl whose zodiac sign is the lion should not be married to a boy whose sign is the ram, because in that case the wife would dominate the husband. There is no special rule as to the time of the betrothal, and the ceremony is very simple, consisting in the presentation of a cocoanut by the bride's ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... temple. Only the portico was visible under piled houses and a triumphant mosque; but once we were down in the entombed temple itself, it gave a sense of secrecy, and mystic rites, to look up from under the dark roof of heavy stone with its painted zodiac, out from hidden halls of carving and colour, to the clustered houses of dried brick built before the temple was uncovered. There was a sense of tragedy and failure, too, toiling up the steep slope to the town level, and ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... make haste. "In less than nine moons," says James I.'s private secretary, James Howell, "this great matter was proposed, prosecuted, and accomplished; whereas the sun might, for as many years, have run his course from one extremity of the zodiac to the other, before the court of Spain would have arrived at any resolution and conclusion. That gives a good idea of the difference between the two nations—the leaden step of the one and the quicksilver movements of the other. It ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... purple robe; holds in her left hand the hollow globe with golden zodiac and meridians: lifts her ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... especially poems, though nothing corresponding to the Egyptian novel has been met with. The epic of Gilgames, composed by Sin-liqi-unnini, has already been referred to. Its twelve books answered to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the eleventh accordingly contains the episode of the Deluge. Gilgames was the son of a royal mother, whose son was fated to slay his grandfather, and who was consequently confined in a tower. But an eagle carried him to a place ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... bid the wand'ring star Within the zodiac move; 'Twere task more hard by far To guide ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... shalt be invoking Ilithyia,[30] who presides over the trembling parturient women; her whom the influence of Juno rendered inexorable to myself. For, when now the natal hour of Hercules, destined for so many toils, was at hand, and the tenth sign {of the Zodiac} was laden with the {great} luminary, the heavy weight was extending my womb; and that which I bore was so great, that you might {easily} pronounce Jupiter to be the father of the concealed burden. And now I was no longer able to endure my labours: even ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... and especially an admirable portrait of Washington. An ancient observatory was of more than ordinary interest to us, erected by a famous Hindoo patron of science, Rajah Manu. Though now quite neglected and in partial ruins, a sun-dial, a zodiac, meridian line, and astronomical appliances are still distinctly traced upon heavy stones, arranged for celestial observations. This proves that astronomy was well advanced at Benares hundreds of years before Galileo was born, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... myself with marrow from a bull, Since, at the lowest point of Zodiac, Phoebus well loves to ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... hard," said the Big Boy. "I don't know what 'Zodiac' means." "I will hunt up the words for you in the dictionary," said the Little Girl. And when they came to the next story the Boy took pleasure in doing his own hunting ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... handwriting was on their walls; landscapes to display the influence of Nature upon the customs, creeds, and philosophy of men,—here showing how the broad Chaldean wastes led to the contemplation of the stars; and illustrations of the Zodiac, in elucidation of the mysteries of symbol-worship; fantastic vagaries of earth fresh from the Deluge, tending to impress on early superstition the awful sense of the rude powers of Nature; views of the rocky defiles of Laconia,—Sparta, neighbored by ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... others woven in various designs. Most gorgeous of all were two great plates as big as carriage wheels, one of gold and one of silver, wrought with various devices of plants and animals rather like the figures of the zodiac. The wildest tales of the most imaginative adventurer never pictured such magnificence. If Moteczuma's plan had been to induce the strangers to respect his wishes and go home without visiting his capital, it was a complete failure. After ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... wherefore do you bring round continually your signs, and seasons, and revolving hours, that still point and barb the anguish of local recollections, telling me of this and that celestial morning that never shall return, and of too blessed expectations, travelling like yourselves through a heavenly zodiac of changes, till at once and for ever they sank into the grave! Often do I think of seeking for some quiet cell either in the Tropics or in Arctic latitudes, where the changes of the year, and the external signs corresponding to them, express ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... man looked at the boy with an air of vexation. "Tell me, you bold son of man, under what sign of the zodiac were you born?" ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... Phoebus, Father of bright Days, Must needs bestow on you both good and many, Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any. ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... the measurement of time upon earth. They were made for more: not only for seasons, for days, and for years, but for SIGNS. Signs of what? It may be that the word, in this passage, has reference to the signs of the Egyptian zodiac, to mark the succession of solar months; or it may indicate a more latent connection between the heavens and the earth, of the nature of judicial astrology. These relations are not only apparent to the most superficial observation of man, but many ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... spiritualists, that Vera projected the ghosts of the departed. Hanging inside the cabinet was a silver-gilt crown and a cloak of black velvet, lined with purple silk and covered in gold thread with signs of the zodiac. ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... east to west in four-and-twenty hours upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motions upon the poles of the zodiac. ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... the white band supposed by the ancients to circle the earth and called the zodiac. He may here mean the Milky Way as part ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... Ahmed do? He was no astrologer, but he was dotingly fond of his wife, and he could not bear the idea of losing her. He promised to obey, and having sold his little stock, bought an astrolabe, an astronomical almanac, and a table of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Furnished with these, he went to the marketplace, crying, "I am an astrologer! I know the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the twelve signs of the zodiac; I can calculate nativities; I can foretell everything that is to happen." No man was better ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country: she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the tremendous comet of the Sibyl, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... resembled the earth, which has the middle place in the world. The girdle signified the sea, which goes around the world. The sardonyxes declared the sun and moon. The twelve stones are the twelve months of signs of the zodiac. The mitre is the heaven, because above all. The seven lamps upon the golden candlesticks represent the seven planets, and so on every article had a reference to some particle of the Egyptian Deities. But the time came when man understood better ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... three letters to Tiro and one to M. Cicero. Quintus' poetry is now represented only by twenty hexameters on the signs of the zodiac; but he wrote an epic poem, Annales (ad Att. ii. 16, 4 [Quintus] 'ita remittit ut me roget ut annales suos emendem et edam'), and composed tragedies with great rapidity (ad Q.F. iii. 6, 7, 'quattuor tragoedias xvi. diebus absolvisse cum scribas, tu quidquam ab alio mutuaris?'). ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... to say, and after the venerable wizard had repeated it, he was obliged to rest for several hours. Then he rose again and drew pentagons on the rocky floor of his cave, and crossed triangles and circles bordered with all the signs of the Zodiac. And he stood in the middle of the pentagons and the crossed triangles and the circles and went through all sorts of strange and secret rites, but all ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans

... Zeal fervoro. Zealot fervorulo. Zealous fervora. Zebra zebro. Zenith zenito. Zephyr venteto. Zero nulo. Zest gusto. Zigzag zigzago. Zinc zinko. Zinc-worker zinkisto. Zodiac zodiako. Zone terzono. Zoology zoologio. Zoophyte ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... light is a peculiar brightness, pyramidal or wedge-like in form, seen at certain periods of the year in the eastern or western sky, before sunrise and after sunset. Its direction is in the line of the zodiac, whence its name—not perpendicular to the horizon, but at a varying angle, being in the spring from 60 to 70 degrees. The base of the wedge, which has a breadth generally of from 10 to 12 degrees, is below, and the sides rise in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... science. As soon, however, as it was observed that the stars retained their relative places—that the times of their rising and setting varied with the seasons—that sun, moon, and planets moved among them in a plane, and the belt of the Zodiac was marked out and divided, then a new order of things began. Traces of the earlier stage remained in the names of the signs and constellations, just as the Scandinavian mythology survives now in the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... period. These fragments occupy no less than twenty-four cases (77-102). In the first case (77) the visitor should notice the coffin of the mummy Cleopatra, ornamented on the outside with ordinary emblematical drawings and on the inside with a Greek zodiac. The three next cases (78-80) are filled with sepulchral tablets representing various Egyptian divinities, among which the embalmer of the dead, Anubis, ever figures prominently. The cases marked 81, 82, are filled with a collection of ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... serpent—"inculcabis supra leonem et aspidem"); secondly, the Lion of St. Mark, the power of the Gospel going out to conquest; thirdly, the Lion of St. Jerome, the wrath of the brute creation changed into love by the kindness of man; and, fourthly, the Lion of the Zodiac, which is the Lion of Egypt and of the Lombardic pillar-supports in Italy; these four, if you remember, with the Nemean Greek one, five altogether, will give you, broadly, interpretation of nearly all Lion ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin

... left our heroes and our heroines In that fair clime which don't depend on climate, Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs, Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at, Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines, Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at, Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun— Whether a sky's or tradesman's is ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... existence of seven planets is one of the oldest records of antiquity; but the earth of course would not be counted one, and therefore in after times, the sun was included to make up the number; just as the signs of the Zodiac have been explained in accordance with the seasons of far later times than we can possibly assign for the invention of this division of the heavens. Let those who have the leisure, try how far the contraction and dilation of the asteroidal orbits, to some average mean distance, will restore them ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... in our wish to seek and find allegory everywhere, undertook with keen subtlety to prove that the great personality of Napoleon I. was altogether allegorical and represented the sun. Napoleon was born in an island, his course was from west to east, his twelve marshals were the twelve signs of the zodiac, etc. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... Greater faith! I have the greatest faith; for I believe Victorian is her lover. I believe That I shall be to-morrow; and thereafter Another, and another, and another, Chasing each other through her zodiac, As ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... placed in the times of the Emperor Hau, and the legend seems to have originated in Setchuan. The stallion is the sign of the zodiac which rules the springtime, the season when the silkworms are cultivated. Hence she is called the Goddess with the Horse's Head. The legend itself tells a different tale. In addition to this goddess, the spouse of Schen ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... your tractates musty, Dry, cadaverous, and dusty, One, on the sound of mammoths' bones In motion; one, on Druid-stones: Show designs for pipes most ghastly, And devils and ogres grinning nastily! Show, show the limnings ye brought back, Since round and round the zodiac Ye galloped goblin horses which Were light as smoke and black as pitch; And those ye made in the mouldy moon, And Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune, And in the planet Mercury, Where all things living and dead have an eye Which sometimes opening ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... bring water from the fountain at the foot of the hill on which Baux stands. At the inner end, right hand, is a torse of Mithras of white Pharos marble, 3 ft. 2 inches high, found in 1598 on the site of the Roman Circus. Aserpent is coiled round the body, and between the coils are the signs of the Zodiac. In the opposite corner is an altar in Carrara marble to the good goddess "Bonae-Deae," found under the church La Major. On the front face is a garland of oak leaves and acorns, and 7 inches distant from each other two human ears. Near it is a good head of Augustus, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... be divided into two great classes—the consular and the imperial; both are numerous and valuable. In the cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany is a set of twelve medals of Antonius Pius, each with one of the signs of the Zodiac on the reverse, and part of another set, eight in number with as many of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... entered by the middle arch, the side shafts of which have fine and elaborate capitals, while the arch itself is richly sculptured and has elaborate zigzag and other mouldings. The panels round it are said to contain representations of the twelve signs of the zodiac, but all the carved work here (general in Caen stone) is so worn and decayed that it is impossible, in most cases, to feel sure of what was intended. The damaged state of all the carved work is possibly to some extent a result of the great fires of the twelfth century. Ernulf's ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... hushed at His first word: Then shall be seen Apollo's car Blaze headlong like a banished star; And the Queen of heavenly Loves Dragged downward by her dying doves; Vulcan, spun on a wheel, shall track The circle of the zodiac; Silver Artemis be lost, To the polar blizzards tossed; Heaven shall curdle as with blood; The sun be swallowed in the flood; The universe be silent save For the low drone of winds that lave The shadowed great world's ashen ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... I must have my court scholar explain that to me. You are probably a neighbor of the North Pole or Zodiac, or something like that, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... mysteries of Persia, the temple of initiation was circular, being made so to represent the universe; and the sun in the east, with the surrounding zodiac, formed an indispensable part of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... the reins or throw them loose; he forgot the names of the horses. But when he beheld the monstrous forms scattered over the surface of heaven,—the Scorpion extending two great arms, his tail, and his crooked claws over the space of two signs of the zodiac,—when the boy beheld him, reeking with poison and menacing with fangs, his courage failed, and the reins fell from his hands. The horses, unrestrained, went off into unknown regions of the sky in among the stars, hurling ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... man's heart a new code of moral distinctions, all modifying—many reversing—the old ones. What would have been thought of any prophet, if he should have promised to transfigure the celestial mechanics; if he had said, I will create a new pole-star, a new zodiac, and new laws of gravitation; briefly, I will make new earth and new heavens? And yet a thousand times more awful it was to undertake the writing of new laws upon the spiritual conscience of man. Metanoeite (was the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... the great planets move through the heavens coincide very nearly with the path which the sun appears to follow among the stars, and which is known as the ecliptic. It is natural to assume that the small planets also move in the same great highway, which leads them through all the signs of the zodiac in succession. Some of the small planets, no doubt, deviate rather widely from the track of the sun, but the great majority are approximately near it. This consideration at once simplifies the search for new planets. A certain zone ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... patience and skill with which astronomy had been cultivated in Mesopotamia, and that, with very inadequate instrumental means, it had reached no inconsiderable perfection. These old observers had made a catalogue of the stars, had divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they had parted the day into twelve hours, the night into twelve. They had, as Alistotle says, for a long time devoted themselves to observations of star-occultations by the moon. They had correct views of the structure of the solar system, and knew the order of the emplacement ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... matter, because they reflect the sun's light (lumen), and, when seen through the telescope, appear, not as stars shining from their flame, but as earths (terrae) variegated with dark spots. Like our Earth, they are carried round the sun and advance progressively through the path of the zodiac, which motion causes years, and seasons of the year, which are spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They likewise rotate upon their own axis, just as our Earth does, and this rotation causes days, and times of the day, that is, morning, ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg

... every human feeling that sighs, or smiles, or curses, or shrieks, or groans, should bring all their innumerable images, such as come with every hurried heart-beat,— the epic which held them all, though its letters filled the zodiac, would be but a cupful from the infinite ocean of similitudes and analogies that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... diversity in the seasons, and wishing to know the cause, began at length to perceive that the distance or proximity of the sun occasioned the various operations of nature; but it was long before the space of time, wherein that luminary performs his course through the zodiac, and returns to the point from which he set out, was called a year. The great year (annus magnus), or the PLATONIC YEAR, is the space of time, wherein the seven planets complete their revolutions, and all set out again ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... planets and their periods. They could predict eclipses of the sun and moon, and knew that the orbit of the sun and planets was through a belt in the heavens, of a few degrees in width, which they called the Zodiac. They did not know, indeed, the difference between real and apparent motion, nor the distance of the sun and stars, nor their relative size and weight, nor the laws of motion, nor the principles of gravitation, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... very beautiful, Antipas with melancholy retrospection reflected; and he fancied her more luminous than the twelve signs of the zodiac, lounging nonchalantly in a palanquin that a white elephant with swaying tail balanced on his painted back. And even as she returned, with a child perhaps, to the griffons of the fabulous Yemen whence she ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... amount of unfinished trial calculations, which took nearly a whole summer, he convinced himself that success did not lie that way. In July, 1595, while lecturing on the great planetary conjunctions, he drew quasi-triangles in a circular zodiac showing the slow progression of these points of conjunction at intervals of just over 240 deg. or eight signs. The successive chords marked out a smaller circle to which they were tangents, about half the diameter of the zodiacal circle as drawn, and ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... anew; forms such as never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like; so as he goeth hand in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. {13} Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too- much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... octahedron; thirdly, the icosahedron; and from the isosceles triangle is formed the cube. And there is a fifth figure (which is made out of twelve pentagons), the dodecahedron—this God used as a model for the twelvefold division of the Zodiac. ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... of Buonamico to set himself to make a God the Father five braccia high, the hierarchy, the heavens, the angels, the zodiac, and all the things above to the sky of the moon, and then the element of fire, the air, the earth, and finally the centre. For the two lower corners he did a St Augustine and a St Thomas Aquinas. At the top of this Campo Santo, where the marble tomb of the Corte now is, Buonamico painted the Passion ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... the months and of "St. Dionysius in Prison;" the central doorway a "Last Judgment," and the "Wise and Foolish Virgins;" while the north portal depicts "St. Dionysius on His Way to Martyrdom," and "The Signs of the Zodiac." ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... ashes. I, an orphan, then remained Carefully and kindly guarded By a very holy matron, Underneath whose rule I hardly Had completed one brief lustrum — Five short years had scarce departed — Five bright circles of the sun Wheeling round on golden axles, Twelve high zodiac signs illuming And one earthly sphere, when happened Through me an event that showed God's omnipotence and marvels; Since of weakest instruments God makes use of, to enhance his Majesty the more, to show That for what men think the grandest And most ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... But I must now confess that it was in a spirit of profane curiosity that I walked up towards its courts and closes. And when I saw the notices of the Societies for Ethical Culture and Handicrafts and Child Study, the lectures on Reincarnation, the Holy Grail, the Signs of the Zodiac, and the Teaching of the Holy Zoroaster, I am afraid I laughed. But how shallow, how thin this laughter soon sounded amid the quiet amenity, the beautiful distinction of this pretty paradise! It was an afternoon of daydreams; the autumnal light under the ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... and not much beneath the dignity of a philosopher, to stand bawling before his own door?—— Alive! Alive ho! The famous Dr. Partridge! No counterfeit, but all alive!—— As if I had the twelve celestial monsters of the zodiac to shew within, or was forced for a livelihood to turn retailer to May and Bartholomew Fairs. Therefore, if Her Majesty would but graciously be pleased to think a hardship of this nature worthy her ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift

... chosen gondola melody police tobacco composition licorice open potato trophy coquet location opponent promotion zodiac cupola locust ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The name of each planet is expressed by its mythological representative; the Sun by Apollo, the Moon by Diana: and over each presides a grand colossal-winged spirit, seated or reclining on a portion of the zodiac as on a throne. I have selected two angels to give an idea of this peculiar and poetical treatment. The union of the theological and the mythological attributes is in the classical taste of the time, and ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... territories spread from the Equator northward and southward through all the signs of the Zodiac far into the temperate zone. Thence came gold and silver to be coined in all the mints, and curiously wrought in all the jewellers' shops, of Europe and Asia. Thence came the finest tobacco, the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the fourth century, Attis bears the cognomen of menotyrannus. At that time this name was undoubtedly understood to mean "lord of the months," because Attis represented the sun who entered a new sign of the zodiac every month.[25] But that was not the original meaning of the term. "Men tyrannus" appears with quite a different meaning in many inscriptions found in Asia Minor. Tyrannos ([Greek: Turannos]), ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... great strength enabled him to perform them. This entire fable of Hercules is generally believed to be merely a fanciful representation of the sun in its passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac, in accordance with Phoenician mythology, from which the legend is supposed to be derived. Thus Hercules is the sun-god. In the first month of the year the sun passes through the constellation Leo, the lion; and in his first labor the hero slays the Nemean lion. In the second ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... however, that the apparent position of a planet depends on the varying position of the earth, and that an inferior planet may be in exactly the same point of space, and yet be seen from the earth in every sign of the zodiac; though, according to the astrologers, it would in that same place have very different powers! This doctrine was admissible when the earth was considered as the centre of the universe; when the geocentric phenomena were considered as absolute; and when the apparently quick and slow motions, the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... — N. outline, circumference; perimeter, periphery, ambit, circuit, lines tournure[obs3], contour, profile, silhouette; bounds; coast line. zone, belt, girth, band, baldric, zodiac, girdle, tyre[Brit], cingle[obs3], clasp, girt; cordon &c. (inclosure) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... text "Darajah"an instant; also a degree (of the Zodiac). We still find this division of time in China and Japan, where they divide the twenty-four hours into twelve periods, each of which is marked by ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... it would be rather better, if he can manage it, to make it look a little like Paradise;— stretches his canvas right over the wall, and his clouds right over his canvas; brings the light through his clouds—all blue and clear—zodiac beyond zodiac; rolls away the vaporous flood from under the feet of saints, leaving them at last in infinitudes of light—unorthodox in the last degree, but, on ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... soldiers in the war with Ahriman—was divided into four troops, with each its appointed leader. Twelve companies were arranged in the twelve signs of the zodiac. All these were grouped into four great divisions, in the east, west, north, and south. The planet Tistrya (Jupiter) presides over and watches that in the east, and is named Prince of the Stars; Sitavisa (Saturn) presides over the western division; Vanant (or Mercury) over ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... it was not reasonable to disturb for so little, and launched innumerable reproaches at them, since without their invention of arms a penknife would never have been made. If the heavens cleared up after a long rain, all the signs of the zodiac were laid under contribution and charged to give an account of their performance. If somebody died, he instantly poured forth rivers of tears in company with the nymphs of Eridanus and the Heliades; he upraided ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... treasures—for he was a collector in his way—were brought to the hammer, the scraps and odds and ends it contained were found classified in groups under such headings as these—Garlands of Gravity, Poverty's Pot Pourri, Wallat of Wit, Beggar's Balderdash, Octagonal Olio, Zany's Zodiac, Noddy's Nuncheon, Mumper's Medley, Quaffing Quavers to Quip Queristers, Tramper's Twattle, or Treasure and Tinsel from the Tewksbury Tank, and the like. He edited reprints of some rare books—that is to say, he saw them accurately reprinted letter by letter. Of these one has a name which—risking ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... richly adorned with costly hangings and pictures, ablaze with lights, and presently, after various masqueraders have appeared dressed as the astronomers Keplair and Galileus, as the different signs of the zodiac, and in other fantastic garbs, Cinthio and Charmante are seen in a silver chariot like a half-moon, attended by a train of heroes and amorini. There is no delay, the lovers are united in matrimony, Baliardo being overwhelmed at the honour done his house. But when Scaramouch ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... the room—the heavy drapes, the signs of the zodiac in gold and silver, the big, over-stuffed chairs, all designed to make the "clients" feel comfortable and yet slightly awed by the ancient atmosphere of mysticism. In the dim light, they looked fairly impressive, ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... had made much progress in the tabulation of material. The apparent orbits of the sun, moon, planets, and stars had been correctly observed, so that eclipses might be predicted, conjunction of planets calculated, and that {617} gradual movement of the sun through the signs of the zodiac known as the precession of the equinoxes, taken account of. To explain these movements the ancients started on the theory that each heavenly body moved in a perfect circle around the earth; the fixed ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... thinking that the sun, which hid his face at noonday, must at that time have been in Aries, the Ram. Find me the signs of the Zodiac." Thora did so. "Now look well at Aries the Ram. What month of our year is ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... moon; those, I mean, that were in the nature of buttons on the high priest's shoulders. And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning. And for the mitre, which was of a blue color, it seems to me to mean heaven; for how otherwise could the name of God be inscribed upon it? That it was also illustrated with a crown, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... of them." Even Copernicus himself, knowing the power of custom, and unwilling to create confusion in our comprehension, continues to talk of the rising and setting of the sun and stars and of variations in the obliquity of the zodiac. Whence it is to be noted how necessary it is to accommodate our discourse to our accustomed manner ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... are thirty Gods of Counsel, half below and half above the Earth; every ten days a Messenger or Angel star passes from above below and another from below above. Above these gods are twelve Masters, who are the twelve signs of the Zodiac; and the planets pass through all the Houses of these twelve in turn. The Chaldaeans have made prophecies for various kings, such as Alexander who conquered Darius, and Antigonus and Seleucus Nikator, and have always been right. And private persons ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... hillocks never stumbled, And late or early never grumbled?— O had I power like inclination, I'd heeze thee up a constellation, To canter with the Sagitarre, Or loup the ecliptic like a bar; Or turn the pole like any arrow; Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow, Down the zodiac urge the race, And cast dirt on his godship's face; For I could lay my bread and kail He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.— Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, And sma', sma' prospect of relief, And nought ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... accession of the emperors of the Han dynasty, 206 B.C., the civil year of the Chinese has begun with the first day of that moon in the course of which the sun enters into the sign of the zodiac which corresponds with our sign Pisces. From the same period also they have employed, in the adjustment of their solar and lunar years, a period of nineteen years, twelve of which are common, containing twelve lunations each, and the remaining seven intercalary, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... moon, and the telescopes of the town are busy observing my phenomena; after which it is as though I had rolled over on my dark side, there to lie forgotten till once more the sun entered the proper side of the zodiac. But let me except always the few steadily luminous spirits I know, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. If any one wishes to become famous in a community, let him buy a small farm on the edge of it and cultivate fruits, berries, and flowers, which ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen

... greatest admiration for the clock placed in the tower bearing its name, and the mechanism of which shows the progress of the sun and moon through the twelve signs of the zodiac. In a niche above the dialplate is an image of the Virgin, which is gilded and lifesize; and it is said that on certain fete days, each blow of the pendulum makes two angels appear, trumpet in hand, followed by ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike,—but such as sisters' ought to be. [Footnote: See Proverbial Expressions.] The earth had its towns and forests and rivers and rustic divinities. Over all was carved the likeness of the glorious heaven; and on the silver doors the twelve signs of the zodiac, six on each side. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... earliest details given by Bartlett concerns his arrival, October 14, 1850, at the village of Zodiac, in the valley of the Piedernales River, near Fredericksburg, about seventy miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. Zodiac he found a village of 150 souls, headed by Elder Wight, locally known as "Colonel," who acted as host. That the settlement, even ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... hide itself.' This remedies the defect of our too great nearness to ourselves. This throws our actions into perspective; and as crabs, goats, scorpions, the balance and the waterpot lose their meanness when hung as signs in the zodiac, so I can see my own vices without heat in the distant persons of Solomon, Alcibiades, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... curfew bell, or paced in storm the forest of Ravenna, always, beyond and behind the urgency of business, the chances of war, the bitterness of exile, aware of the march of the sun about the earth, of its station in the Zodiac, of the solemn and intricate wheeling of the spheres. Aware, too, of the inner life of those bright luminaries, the dance and song of spirits purged by fire, the glow of Mars, the milky crystal of the moon, and Jupiter's intolerable blaze; ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... translated into eternity by thought; the bright signs they left hang in the heavens, as single stars or constellations, and, already, a thickly sown radiance consoles the wanderer in the darkest night. Other heroes since Hercules have fulfilled the zodiac of beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire without a murmur; while no God dared deny that ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... were ranged against the walls, and ebony cabinets inlaid with ivory were set between them at intervals, supporting rare specimens of glass and earthenware. Opposite the fireplace, stood a large clock, curiously painted and decorated with emblematical devices, with the signs of the zodiac, and provided with movable figures to strike the hours on a bell; while from the centre of the roof hung a great ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... first principles laid down by them have come down to us as finally adopted facts, confirmed by later science. Thus, the division of the year into twelve months corresponding to as many constellations, known as "the twelve signs of the Zodiac," was familiar to them. They had also found out the division of the year into twelve months, only all their months had thirty days. So they were obliged to add an extra month—an intercalary month, as the scientific term is—every six years, to start even with the sun again, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... little closed curves, always a quadrant in advance of the earth, completing their orbits once a year. Those near the pole of the ecliptic will describe circles, being always at right angles to the motion. Those in the plane of the ecliptic (near the zodiac) will be sometimes at right angles to the motion, but at other times will be approached or receded from; hence these will oscillate like pendulums once a year; and intermediate stars will have intermediate motions—that is to say, will describe ellipses of varying excentricity, but all completed ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... is two hundred and fifty-six feet long, and eighty-six broad; the form, of it a rhomboid: the walls richly ornamented by Pietro d'Abano, who originally designed, and began to paint the figures round the sides: they have however been retouched by Giotto, who added the signs of the Zodiac to Peter's mysterious performances, which meant to explain the planetary influences, as he was a man deeply dipped in judicial astrology; and there is his own portrait among them, dressed like a Zoroastrian priest, with a planet in the corner. At the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... either better than Nature bringeth forth or quite anew, as the Heroes, Demi-gods, Cyclops, Furies and such like so as he goeth hand- in-hand with Nature, not inclosed in the narrow range of her gifts but freely ranging within the Zodiac of his own art—her world is brazen; the poet only delivers a ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... halo of mystery—he must ride in an equipage of opinion—he must walk with a train of self-conceit following him—he must not strip himself to a buff-jerkin, to the doublet and hose of his real merits, but must surround himself with a cortege of prejudices, like the signs of the Zodiac—he must seem any thing but what he is, and then he may pass for any thing he pleases. The world love to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive every thing but the plain, downright, simple ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... something, to turn about, to make a bow, to sit, or to stand, or walk, and the like. Then I took down the sentence in writing. He showed me also, in one of his books, the figures of the sun, moon, and stars, the zodiac, the tropics, and polar circles, together with the denominations of many plains and solids. He gave me the names and descriptions of all the musical instruments, and the general terms of art in playing on each of them. After he had left me, I placed all my words, with their interpretations, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift



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