Taurus Considered

 Taurus by Erté

In his book, Astrology (pub.1964) Louis MacNeice, not an astrologer, but a poet and scholar, gathered together much of interest from a variety of sources, ancient and modern. On zodiac sign Taurus, through which the Sun is beginning to travel as I type, he wrote the paragraphs below, often quoting from a variety of professional astrologers. The extract was copy-typed by my own fair fingers, by the way, not copied and pasted from elsewhere. As some of the astrologers mentioned may be unfamiliar, at the end of the extract I've added some links to relevant websites for each named astrologer.

To the layman it may seem comic that Taurus should be feminine, but the horned moonface of its hieroglyph certainly looks less aggressive than Aries' hieroglyph, which is almost all horns and nothing else. Moreover, Taurus is a fixed and earthy sign, and is ruled by the opposite of Mars, the gentle Venus. It is not surprising that Taurus is slow and long-suffering, in fact "bovine"; the hostile Robert Eisler even suggests that he was never a bull, only an ox, and quotes the ancient Roman champion of astrology Firmicus Maternus to the effect that this sign is responsible for the birth of important people and perverts. But most astrologers have been insulting. A slow sign, yes, but a sure sign certainly. Nor is the Taurus type traditionally a sissy: Pearce writes that he is "slow to anger but, when provoked, furious."

Just as Aries was connected with both Mars and the Sun, so Taurus is connected with the Moon as well as with Venus. Barbault describes the Taurus type as essentially "ruminant", a creature of a leisurely rhythm who tends to walk slowly looking at the ground, obedient to the law of his sheer weight. The physiognomists, of course, make him look like a bull: thickset, thick-necked, and thick-lipped, with a broad forehead, wide nostrils and a tuft of hair on the forehead. Countess Wydenbruck notes that he is "not very intelligent", but everyone agrees that he can be a tower of strength. Barbault, in discussing Freud (whom he makes a Taurus type) and his Taurine psychological universe, moves from the love of the child for its mother to the conclusion that "we are here at the heart of Taurus, which represents the meat-safe of the Zodiac...and, through displacement of the oral tendency, the strong-box of the Zodiac".

Working on the same strong-box lines, Tucker finds in Taurus a symbol of the Golden Calf; but he concedes that the Taurus man worships money not for itself but for the pleasure and ease it will bring him. He adds that, if the Taurus man does have enough money to eat well, he should cut down on the carbohydrates. He is a reliable husband and family man, pays his debts, and enjoys a joke; but too much of the "ruminant" quality can make him slothful.

The two points to remember are that Taurus is essentially fixed and essentially earthy. Gleadow instances as Taurus types George Washington and Arnold Bennett. Barbault gives Balzac and Karl Marx as well as Freud. Marx had Taurus as his Sun-sign and it contained at his birth both the Taurine females, the Moon and Venus. Dialectical materialism, Barbault says, falls naturally under this sign. The next, the first of the airy signs, is a very different kettle of flying fish.

Astrologers mentioned:
André Barbault
A.J. Pearce
Countess Wydenbruck
Robert Eisler
Dr. W.J. Tucker
Rupert Gleadow

My own experience of persons with Sun in Taurus, when comparing flesh and blood with the above descriptions, is mixed. My maternal grandmother and my late partner both had Sun in late Taurus (19 and 20 May). There were some basic similarities in their natures, but wide differences too, due of course to the rest of their natal charts. The nature of one of them was far more in line with textbook Gemini than textbook Taurus. There was great warmth and capacity for love and loyalty in them both, and roiling anger if provoked too...but those attributes could equally apply to other zodiac signs, even to my own - Aquarius!

It's not easy to pinpoint something peculiar to Taurus (the sign, not the person). Steadfast and stubborn applies to the other Fixed signs, Aquarius, Scorpio and Leo. Earthy equally applies to Capricorn and Virgo. Venus-ruled also applies to Libra.

What is exclusive to Taurus then? Well...there are the neighbouring signs. Taurus is flanked by Aries and Gemini. One or more personal planets, especially Mercury and Venus, will often be found in one of those adjacent signs for a person born with Sun in Taurus. That exact same trio cannot apply elsewhere. It's very likely that a person with Sun in Taurus will display characteristics of textbook Aries or textbook Gemini - maybe even both - or of all three signs.