aepor. "I should never have known of Hedulio's horoscope
if his uncle had not shown me a copy. Caius has never mentioned it, unless
one of us talked of it first."

"What's the point of the horoscope?" Tanno queried.

"Why you see," Naepor explained. "Hedulio was born in the third watch of
the night on the Ides of September.

"Now it is well known that persons are likely to be competent trainers of
animals if they are born under the influence of the Whale or of the
Centaur or the Lion or the Scorpion or when the Lesser Bear rises at dawn
or in those watches of the night when the Great Bear, after swinging low
in the northern sky, is again beginning to swing upwards, or at those
hours of the day when, as it can be established by calculations, the Great
Bear, though invisible in the glow of the sunlight, is in that part of its
circle round the northern pole.

"It is disputed which of these constellations has the most powerful
influence, but it is generally reckoned that the Whale is most
influential, next the Centaur, next the Lion, and the Scorpion least of
all, while the dawn rising of the Lesser Bear and the beginning of the
upward motion of the Great Bear are held to have merely auxiliary
influence when the other signs are favorable. If two or more of these are
at one and the same time powerful in the sky at the moment of any one's
birth, he will be an unusually capable animal-tamer, the more puissant
according as more of the potent stars shine upon his birth.

"It is manifest that, at no day and hour, will all of these signs conspire
at their greatest potency. For clearly, for instance, the Lion and the
Scorpion, being both in the Zodiac, and being separated in the Zodiac by
the interposition of two entire constellations, can never be in the
ascendant at one and the same time, nor can one be near the ascendant when
the other is in that position. Yet there are times when a majority of them
all exert their most potent or nearly their most potent influence, there
are some moments when their possible combination of influences is nearly
at its maximum potency.

"Now the day, hour, and moment of Hedulio's birth is, as astrologers
agree, precisely that instant of the entire year when the stars combine
their magic powers with their most puissant force to produce their
greatest possible effect on the nature of a child born at that instant, in
order that he may have irresistible sway over the wills of all fierce,
wild and