Sagittarius

Sagittarius is the ninth sign of the zodiac, a mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter. This year the Sun is in Sagittarius from 22 November to 21 December 2026. It is the sign just before Capricorn, where Ptolemy puts the winter solstice of the northern hemisphere, and our reading of Ptolemy starts from that in-between position.

Between a fixed sign and a tropical one

Ptolemy’s name for signs of this kind is bicorporeal. They “severally follow the fixed signs”, he writes, and “being thus intermediately placed between the fixed and the tropical signs, they participate in the constitutional properties of both, from their first to their last degrees”. He does not name the four bicorporeal signs in that chapter. Sagittarius stands after Scorpio and before Capricorn, one of his two tropical signs, so the description fits it; that placing is our reading. Modern astrology says mutable where Ptolemy says bicorporeal.

On gender he does name the sign. His first triplicity “is formed by three masculine signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius”.

The house of Jupiter

Ptolemy gives Sagittarius to Jupiter in one sentence: “Jupiter has a favourable temperament, and is situated beneath the sphere of Saturn; he therefore occupies the next two signs, Sagittarius and Pisces.” He continues: “These signs are airy and fruitful, in consequence of their trinal distance from the houses of the luminaries, which distance harmonises with the operation of good.” The houses of the luminaries are Leo for the Sun and Cancer for the Moon. By our count Sagittarius is the one that stands at a trine from Leo.

The word “airy” may surprise a reader who knows Sagittarius as a fire sign. Ptolemy’s stated reason is the trinal distance. We note only, as our own remark, that he elsewhere calls Jupiter “fruitful and airy”. In the chapters we draw on he numbers the triplicities and does not attach an element to them. Among the books quoted here it is Lilly who calls this one fiery.

Jupiter also has a part in the triplicity. Its lords are the Sun and Jupiter, and Ptolemy divides the day between them: “By day, therefore, the Sun claims the principal co-regency of it, and Jupiter by night.” His chapter on exaltations gives Sagittarius no planet, neither exalted nor in its fall.

The Sagittarius character, as the old books give it

William Lilly’s line on the sign reads “of the fiery triplicity, East, in nature fiery, hot, dry, Masculine, Cholericke, Diurnall, Common, bycorporall or double bodied”. “Common” is his word for what is now called mutable. He is setting out the qualities of a sign for use in judging a chart, and says nothing here about people.

Alan Leo writes about people. “They are always looking forward with a bright, hopeful, and happy disposition, which makes them full of hope and full of joy for the future.” He measures the sign against the other two of its triplicity himself: “Although not so demonstrative as the Aries, or as steady and fixed as the Leo, still the Sagittarian is expressive in his feelings.”

Liberty, in our reading, is the thread in his portrait. “The Sagittarians make splendid characters when allowed perfect freedom.” He gives the reverse as well: “when bound or placed under any restraint, they become fretful, irritable and rebellious, and it is then difficult to restrain or pacify them”. Of their tongue he says: “They will never willingly hurt, but when pushed to extremes are inclined to say much more than they mean.”

Fire, and the two signs that share it

Aries and Leo are the other fire signs, and by our formula they stand level at the head of the list of matches below. Sagittarius paired with itself comes next, then Libra and Aquarius, also level. Scorpio, the sign before Sagittarius, is last. The method behind the order is on how we score.

Alan Leo’s chapter on Sagittarius has no sentence on marriage. His chapter on Aries has one that names this sign: “The Aries types would marry well with those born in Sagittarius”, he writes, adding the proviso “provided the planetary indications on the joint horoscopes were harmonious”. That is a nineteenth-century astrologer’s view of signs, quoted as history, and not advice about a relationship.