Cancer and Virgo compatibility

Love and romance comes to 72, level with emotions. The angle has the largest weight in this facet, and the sextile has a high value in the formula.

Ptolemy says the trine and the sextile “are each called harmonious, because they are constituted between signs of the same kind”. Both signs here are feminine in his scheme: Virgo belongs to a triplicity that “consists of feminine signs”, and of Cancer’s triplicity he writes that “the signs which compose this triplicity are feminine”. Applying his rule to this pair is our step.

Alan Leo says Cancer people “love to be approved of, and always yearn for the sympathy of others”. Of Virgo he writes: “They are the most critical of all individuals, but they usually turn this criticism also upon themselves.” Placing a wish for approval next to a critical eye is our reading; he does not compare the two.

Trust is the lowest facet, 58. Steadiness has as much weight here as the angle, and with one cardinal and one mutable sign it stands at a quarter.

Ptolemy describes the bicorporeal signs, which by his ordering include Virgo, as placed “between the fixed and the tropical signs”, so that “they participate in the constitutional properties of both”. Cancer is one of his tropical signs. Neither description concerns people.

Alan Leo calls Cancer people “slow but sure”, and says Virgo people “are careful and cautious, and usually act somewhat methodically”. Our reading is that both portraits are of deliberate people, a quality the formula does not measure.

Communication is the highest facet, at 76. The element weighs most and counts for three quarters, the angle is strong, and adaptability, a quarter of the facet, is at three quarters too.

Alan Leo sums up the Virgo type as “retiring, ingenious, discriminative, active and mercurial”. He calls Cancer people “very reserved and sensitive, sympathetic and tenacious”. The word “retiring” in one chapter and “reserved” in the other suggest, on our reading, two quiet speakers.

Emotions scores 72, level with love. The element has close to half of the weight here, and water and earth meet on one quality.

William Lilly’s lines, which give qualities for judging a chart, call Cancer “Watry, Cold, Moyst, Flegmatick, Feminine, Nocturnal” and Virgo “earthly, cold, melancholly, barren, feminine, nocturnall”. Read together, which is our doing, the lines share cold, feminine and nocturnal, and part where Cancer is moist and phlegmatic and Virgo melancholy.

Alan Leo writes of Cancer: “Being exceedingly sensitive, their feelings are very easily wounded.” Of Virgo: “They are very introspective, and may be said to know themselves much better than those born under the other signs.” Sensitivity on one side and self-knowledge on the other is the contrast we see.

Values comes to 60, the second lowest. The element weighs most, but a quarter of this facet is steadiness, and here it is low.

Alan Leo has a sentence for each sign that turns on what is personal. Cancer people “are apt, however, to live more in the personal side of their nature than is good for their well-being and that of those around them”. Of Virgo: “When running along personal lines, these persons become more selfish than those of the other signs, since they are always alive to their own interests”. The two sentences share the word “personal”; seeing them as one theme is our reading.

Shared activities scores 74, the second highest. The element weighs most, and adaptability, a fifth of the facet, stands at three quarters.

Alan Leo finds tact in both chapters. Cancer people “possess a certain amount of tact, which assists them considerably”. Virgo people “have remarkable tact and ingenuity, but they are usually fully aware of all their attainments, and are inclined to be somewhat proud of them”. Noticing the shared word is ours, not his.