Virgo

Virgo is the sixth sign of the zodiac, an earth sign, and it belongs to Mercury twice over: as his house and as the sign of his exaltation. This year the Sun is in Virgo from 23 August to 23 September 2026.

Mercury’s sign, twice

Ptolemy gives Mercury his houses last, after every other planet has been placed. Mercury, he writes, “never has greater distance from the Sun than the space of one sign, and is beneath all the other planets”, and so “the remaining two signs, Gemini and Virgo, are allotted to him”. Virgo is the one of the two that stands next to Leo, the house of the Sun.

In the chapter on exaltations Virgo is named twice more. Ptolemy first sets Venus against it: she is “of a moist nature”, and her fall is in Virgo. Then he turns to Mercury, who “is of a nature opposite to that of Venus, and is more dry”. For that reason, Ptolemy says, “he takes his exaltation in Virgo, in which sign the autumnal dryness makes its first appearance”. Autumn here is the northern autumn; Ptolemy is describing the seasons of the northern hemisphere.

So the same planet has both his house and his exaltation in Virgo. That observation is ours, drawn from the two chapters side by side. Ptolemy does not remark on it.

Between two seasons

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. Virgo follows Leo and comes before Libra, an equinoctial sign where the next season opens, so counting Virgo among them is our reading; it agrees with the modern label, mutable.

He also places Virgo in the second triplicity with Taurus and Capricorn, which “is allotted to the dominion of the Moon and Venus, since it consists of feminine signs”. These are the earth signs in our data. It is worth noticing, though the remark is ours, that Venus is given a share in ruling the group and yet has her fall in this one member of it.

The Virgo character, as the old books give it

William Lilly’s line calls Virgo “an earthly, cold, melancholly, barren, feminine, nocturnall, Southerne Signe” and “the house and exaltation of” Mercury. He is naming qualities for the judging of a chart. He is not describing people.

Alan Leo describes people, and his portrait of those born under Virgo is of a mind turned on itself. “They are the most critical of all individuals, but they usually turn this criticism also upon themselves.” He adds: “They are self-analytical, and seem to be always taking themselves to pieces.” He also says they “may be said to know themselves much better than those born under the other signs”.

He gives their working habits in two sentences. “They are careful and cautious, and usually act somewhat methodically, or with much apparent forethought.” And: “They are very industrious, persistent, and tend more toward the practical than the ideal.”

His criticism is conditional and pointed. He writes: “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”. His praise carries a condition too: “when they succeed in letting go the personal element they are really very beautiful characters”.

Earth with earth

The list of matches below puts Virgo paired with itself first, then Capricorn, then Taurus. Those are the three earth signs, the same three that Ptolemy groups in his second triplicity. Reading the top of the list as an earth group is our summary of the order; the method is on how we score.

Libra, the sign that follows Virgo in the zodiac, comes last in the list. Ptolemy has a word for signs that stand one sign apart: they are inconjunct, “because they are averted, as it were, from each other”. We set the two facts side by side and claim no more than that. Leo, the neighbour on the other side, sits a few places higher.