Virgo Constellation

Constellation Virgo the Maiden, is an ecliptic constellation laying between constellation Leo and constellation Libra. Virgo spans over 50 degrees in the Zodiac in the Signs Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, and contains 12 named fixed stars.

Virgo Constellation Stars

Virgo Constellation Astrology

The Virgo constellation is said to represent Erigone, daughter of Icarius, who hanged herself through grief at the death of her father (Bootes). According to other accounts it is Astraea, daughter of one of the Titans, who sided with the Gods against her own father.

Ptolemy makes the following observations; “The stars in the head of Virgo, and that at the top of the southern wing, operate like Mercury and somewhat like Mars (exaggerative, argumentative, unreliable, unscrupulous, given to invective, mechanical ability, very quick mind, great talker); the other bright stars in the same wing, and those about the girdle, resemble Mercury in their influence, and also Venus, moderately (courteous, affable, orderly, elegant, sweet-tempered, lovable, refined, artistic, honor and riches, If rising, love of poetry, painting and teaching, quick mind. If culminating, success in literary and legal professions); those at the points of the feet and at the bottom of the garments are like Mercury, and also Mars, moderately.” By the Kabalists it is associated with the Hebrew letter Gimel and the 3rd Tarot Trump “The Empress.” [1]

Virgo, the Virgin… generally has been figured with the palm branch in her right hand and the spica, or ear of wheat, in her left. Thus she was known in the Attic dialect as Kore, the Maiden, representing Persephone, the Roman Proserpina, daughter of Demeter, the Roman Ceres; while in the Ionic dialect Nonnus, of our 5th century, called her stakhuodes Koure (Stachyodes Koure), the Wheat-bearing Maiden, spicifera Virgo Cereris, the Virgo spicea munera gestans of Manilius. When regarded as Proserpina, she was being abducted by Pluto in his Chariot, the stars of adjacent Libra; and the constellation also was Demeter herself, the Ceres spicifera dea, changed by the astrologers to Arista, Harvest, of which Ceres was goddess. Caesius had it Arista Puellae, that would seem more correct as Aristae Puella, the Maiden of the Harvest…

Virgo also was Erigone, — perhaps from the Homeric Erigeneia, the Early Born, for the constellation is very old, — a stellar title appearing in Vergil’s apotheosis of his patron Augustus. This was the maiden who hung herself in grief at the death of her father Icarius, and was transported to the skies with Icarius as Bootes, and their faithful hound Maira as Procyon, or Sirius; all of which is attested by Hyginus and Ovid…

Thus she is the oldest purely allegorical representation of innocence and virtue. This legend seems to be first found with Hesiod, and was given in full by Aratos, his longest constellational history in the Phainomena, Other authors mentioned her as Eirene, Irene, the sister of Astraea, and the Pax of the Romans, with the olive branch; as Concordia; as Parthenos Dios, the Virgin Goddess; as Sibulla, the Singing Sibyl, carrying a branch into Hades; and as Tukhe, the Roman Fortuna, because she is a headless constellation, the stars marking the head being very faint…

In Egypt Virgo was drawn on the zodiacs of Denderah and Thebes, much disproportioned and without wings, holding an object said to be a distaff marked by the stars of Coma Berenices; while Eratosthenes and Avienus identified her with Isis, the thousand-named goddess, with the wheat ears in her hand that she afterwards dropped to form the Milky Way, or clasping in her arms the young Horus, the infant Southern sun-god, the last of the divine kings. This very ancient figuring reappeared in the Middle Ages as the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus, Shakespeare alluding to it in Titus Andronicus as the

Good Boy in Virgo’s lap;

and Albertus Magnus, of our 13th century, asserted that the Savior’s horoscope lay here. It has been said that her initials, MV, are the symbol for the sign ♍; although the International Dictionary considers this a monogram of Par, the first syllable of Parthenos, one of Virgo’s Greek titles; and others, a rude picturing of the wing of Istar, the divinity that the Semites assigned to its stars, and prominent in the Epic of Creation.

This Istar, or Ishtar, the Queen of the Stars, was the Ashtoreth of the 1st Book of the Kings, xi, 5, 33, the original of the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome; perhaps equivalent to Athyr, Athor, or Hathor of the Nile, and the Astarte of Syria, the last philologically akin to our Esther and Star, the Greek Aster. Astarte, too, was identified by the Venerable Bede with the Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, at whose festival, our Easter, the stars of Virgo shine so brightly in the eastern evening sky; and the Sumerians of southern Babylonia assigned this constellation to their sixth month as the Errand, or Message, of Istar…

In astrology this constellation and Gemini were the House of Mercury, Macrobius saying that the planet was created here; the association being plainly shown by the caduceus of that god, the herald’s trumpet entwined with serpents, instead of the palm branch, often represented in her left hand. But usually, and far more appropriately, Virgo’s stars have been given over to the care of Ceres, her namesake, the long-time goddess of the harvest. For her astrological colors Virgo assumed black speckled with blue; and was thought of as governing the abdomen in the human body, and as bearing rule over Crete, Greece, Mesopotamia, Turkey, Jerusalem, Lyons, and Paris, but always as an unfortunate, sterile sign. Manilius asserted that in his day it ruled the fate of Arcadia, Caria, Ionia, Rhodes, and the Doric plains. Ampelius assigned to it the charge of the wind Argestes, that blew to the Romans from the west-southwest according to Vitruvius, or from the west-northwest according to Pliny.

But all these figurings, ancient as some of them may be, are modern when compared with the still enduring Sphinx generally claimed as prehistoric, perhaps of the times of the Hor-she-shu, long anterior to the first historical Egyptian ruler, Menes; and constructed, according to Greek tradition, with Virgo’s head on Leo’s body, from the fact that the sun passed through these two constellations during the inundation of the Nile [2]

spicifera est Virgo Cereris… Virginis in propriam descendunt ilia sortem… At her rising Erigone, who reigned with Justice over a bygone age and fled when it fell into sinful ways, bestows high eminence by bestowing supreme power; she will produce a man to direct the laws of the state and the sacred code; one who will tend with reverence the hallowed temples of the gods… The temperaments of those whose span of life she pronounces at their birth Erigone will direct to study, and she will train their minds in the learned arts. She will give not so much abundance of wealth as the impulse to investigate the causes and effects of things. On them she will confer a tongue which charms, the mastery of words, and that mental vision which can discern all things, however concealed they be by the mysterious workings of nature. From the Virgin will also come the stenographer: his letter represents a word, and by means of his symbols he can keep ahead of utterance and record in novel notation the long speech of a rapid speaker. But with the good there comes a flaw: bashfulness handicaps the early years of such persons, for the Maid, by holding back their great natural gifts, puts a bridle on their lips and restrains them by the curb of authority. And her offspring is not fruitful. [3]

VIRGO is represented as a woman with a branch in her right hand, and some ears of corn in her left hand. Thus giving a two-fold testimony of the Coming One. The name of this sign in the Hebrew is Bethulah, which means a virgin, and in the Arabic a branch. The two words are connected, as in Latin–Virgo, which means a virgin; and virga, which means a branch (Vulg. Isa 11:1). Another name is Sunbul, Arabic, an ear of corn.

It is difficult to separate the Virgin and her Seed in the prophecy; and so, here, we have first the sign VIRGO, where the name points to her as the prominent subject; while in the first of the three constellations of this sign, where the woman appears again, the name COMA points to the child as the great subject. Virgo contains 110 stars, viz., one of the 1st magnitude, six of the 3rd, ten of the 4th, etc.

Thus the brightest star in VIRGO (α) has an ancient name, handed down to us in all the star-maps, in which the Hebrew word Tsemech is preserved. It is called in Arabic Al Zimach, which means the branch. This star is in the ear of corn which she holds in her left hand. Hence the star has a modern Latin name, which has almost superseded the ancient one, Spica, which means, an ear of corn. But this hides the great truth revealed by its name Al Zimach. It foretold the coming of Him who should bear this name. The same Divine inspiration has, in the written Word, four times connected it with Him. There are twenty Hebrew words translated “Branch,” but only one of them (Tsemech) is used exclusively of the Messiah, and this word only four times (Jer 33:15 being only a repetition of Jer 23:5)…

The star β is called Zavijaveh, which means the gloriously beautiful, as in Isaiah 4:2. The star ε, in the arm bearing the branch, is called Al Mureddin, which means who shall come down (as in Psa 72:8), or who shall have dominion. It is also known as Vindemiatrix, a Chaldee word which means the son, or branch, who cometh… The Greeks, ignorant of the Divine origin and teaching of the sign, represented Virgo as Ceres, with ears of corn in her hand.

In the Zodiac in the Temple of Denderah, in Egypt, about 2000 BC (now in Paris), she is likewise represented with a branch in her hand, but ignorantly explained by a false religion to represent Isis! Her name is called Aspolia, which means ears of corn, or the seed, which shows that though the woman is seen, it is her Seed who is the great subject of the prophecy. [4]

References

1. Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p.66,67.
2. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Richard H. Allen, 1889, p.460-465.
3. Astronomica, Manilius, 1st century AD, p.117,119,237,239,265.
4. The Witness of the Stars, E. W. Bullinger, 1. Virgo (the Virgin).