Aries and Capricorn compatibility

Love and romance is the lowest facet by a small margin, at 39. The angle has the largest weight in it, and the square is a weak angle in our formula.

Ptolemy gives the reason the square was thought difficult: “The opposition and quartile are considered to be discordant, because they are configurations made between signs not of the same kind, but of different natures and sexes.” Aries is one of his masculine signs, and Capricorn belongs to the triplicity which, he says, “consists of feminine signs”.

Alan Leo wrote a chapter on each sign, and the passages we use do not compare the two. Of Capricorn people he says “when fully individualised they are very contemplative, reserved, deep and profound”. Aries people are “fond of constant change, loving novelty, romance and speculation”. Reserve beside a taste for novelty: the pairing of the two sentences is ours.

Trust is the joint highest facet, level with values, at 42. It counts steadiness, and two cardinal signs give exactly half of what two fixed signs would.

William Lilly marks both signs as cardinal in his quality lines: Aries is “movable, Cardinall, Equinoctiall” and Capricorn “Solsticiall, Cardinall, Moveable”. He is listing qualities for judging a chart, not describing people.

Alan Leo’s Capricorn portrait has steadiness in it: “The Capricornians, when individualised, are impartial, just and accurate, aiming to be precise, exact and constant”. He is harder on Aries here, under a condition: “Their greatest fault when perverting their gifts is deception”. Each sentence carries its own proviso, and reading one against the other is our choice.

Communication scores 41. Elements weigh most in this facet and count only in part; adaptability, at half, neither helps nor hurts much.

According to Alan Leo, Capricorn people are “ever enduring with a calm, earnest patience, and a grave reflective demeanour”. Aries people “are never at a loss for a word”. Our reading of the two chapters: one portrait is grave and slow to speak, the other quick.

Emotions comes to 40, and the elements carry the largest weight in it.

Lilly’s lines show both the gap and the overlap. Aries is “hot and dry, cholericke”. Capricorn is “Nocturnal, Cold, Dry, Melancholly, Earthly, Feminine”. Hot against cold, but dry in both, which is the one shared quality the formula counts. Ptolemy describes the two rulers in the same opposed terms: Saturn “is cold and inimical to heat”, while Mars “possesses a fiery nature”.

Alan Leo calls Aries people “headstrong and impulsive”. Of those born under Capricorn he says “their virtue lies in patience, contemplation and reflection”. Impulse and patience, set side by side by us.

Values scores 42, level with trust, for the same reasons in a different mix.

Alan Leo says Capricornians “possess both ambition and endurance” and “can build while others are dreaming of the work”. His Aries chapter says its people “nearly always live in a world of theory” and are “more ideal than practical”. He never puts the builder and the theorist in one sentence; the contrast is our reading.

Shared activities comes to 41. Adaptability counts here, and two cardinal signs sit at its midpoint.

Ptolemy says of the equinoctial signs, Aries among them, that “from them proceed the principal variation, and most powerful agitation, of all things”. Capricorn is one of his two tropical signs, where the Sun appears to turn; in the northern hemisphere that turn brings winter. Both signs open a season.

Alan Leo’s portraits are of two independent people. Of Capricorn: “They are always more or less ambitious, and in some way or other are ever seeking to display their independence.” Aries people are “very self-willed and often self-opinionated”. Our reading is that each portrait shows someone who would want to set the course.