ASTROLOGIA MUNDA - Classical Astrologer Weblog

Book IV – Astrologia Munda
Section IV – Chapter VI
Chapter VI
Of Comets and Blazing-Stars, what they are, the many sorts thereof, their
portences, and how long they appear at any time
[What a Comet is]
Elsewhere you may remember you have been shown what a Comet is, i.e. in the
16 th Chapter of the 3 rd Section of this book, it being no other that a dry
exhalation, viscous and slimy, exhaled by the Sun and power of the stars by
degrees into the upper region of the air; for by how much dryer or moister are
the vapours whereof they are composed, the higher or lower are they placed and
drawn up.
[The name thereof]
The word comet we borrow from the Greeks, who call it cometes quasi, cometa
stella, an hairy star, as the word signifies in English, where the Latines call it
crimita, because many times they appear like the hair made of fire, or fire in the
manner and form of a man’s head, or an horses main, and we in England do
vulgarly call them comets or blazing-stars, of which there are divers sorts, as
mentioned Pliny, Lib. 2. Cap.25. de nat. and others.
[Divers sorts of Comets, or Blazing-stars]
The first by the Greeks called a barba, resembling a beard, because it has a
circle about it of that form or shape, I mean about the nether part thereof.
The second they call, id est ajaculo, because it is shaped in form of a dart or
spear.
The third, which is the same as the former, save only they are shorter and
sharper pointed at the top than the other, and pale like a sword and without rays.
The fourth, discus id est; a dish or platter; this comet is so called for that it is
round resembling a dish, yet now and then it puts forth one of the brims thereof.
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