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slave absconds, he will either hide in my suburban farm, or in a public house with a woman: if I fall ill, I shall have a hard time, but shall recover: if I lose anything, it will be elegant earrings, and my thief will be a 'softish womanish kind of person.'[1] In a half-hour or so of our time, we shall enter the next astrological hour, which is Mercury's, though Venus is still regent of the day. My runaway in that case will take refuge in 'the church of the martyrs': if I fall ill, I shall die: my lost property will be parchments or gilded vessels, and the thief will be an educated or literary person.
It will be seen that in all this week-lore, whether of the fantastic kind just described, the comparative lateness of which is shewn by such phrases as 'the church of the martyrs,' or in the more sober form which Valens gives it, the hour counts for as much as, if not more, than the day, and it is clear that this was the view taken in esoteric astrological circles down to the days of Chaucer. But I very much doubt whether the hour business had any hold on the popular mind. To them the week was a system of seven planetary days, not of 168 planetary hours. I judge this from the fact that the planet-hours have left no impression on language and also from the way in which Dion speaks of them. He knows that the hours are said to be dedicated to the planets, but he only knows it as a theory.
- ↑ γυναικώδης μαλακώδης.
