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< Zodiacus Vitae >

The Zodiac of Life. An old school book by Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus, which was extensively used in England in Shakespeare's time. The earliest edition extant is that in the British Museum, dated 1574, issued by the Stationers' Company in 1620. A modern edition with annotations by Foster Watson, M.A., Professor of Education in the University College of Wales, was published by Philip Wellby in 1908. In an Appendix to his work one reads this: "Palingenius understood at least as much as was current teaching among astrologers of his day in regard to the twelve divisions of the Houses of the Horoscope, and probably he knew something more.... The twelve signs of the zodiac were for him something more than mere pegs on which to hang an argument or elaborate a discourse.... Mystically considered, the purport of the twelve chapters of Palingenius will find their parallel in the twelve labours of Hercules, and thus will typify the evolution of the human soul through successive stages of mental and spiritual enlightenment."