Chapter LII, Section 1a

CHAPTER LII. Of the Countenance and Gesture, the Habit and the Figure Of The Body, and to What Stars Any of These Do Answer—Whence Physiognomy, and Metoposcopy, and Chiromancy, Arts of Divination, Have Their Grounds . The countenance, gesture, motion, setting and figure of the body, being accidental to us, conduce to the receiving of celestial gifts and expose us to the superior bodies, which produce certain effects in us, like unto the effects following the methods of gathering hellebore, which, if thou pullest the leaf upward when gathering it, draws the humors upward and causeth vomiting; if downward, it causeth purging, drawing the humor downward. How much also the countenance and gesture of one person doth affect the sight, imagination and spirit of another no man is ignorant. So they that are parents discover those impressions in their children of their previous conditions, and that which they did then do, form and imagine. So a mild and cheerful countenance of a prince in the city makes the people joyful; but if it be fierce or sad doth terrify them. So the gesture and countenance of any one lamenting, doth easily move to pity. So the shape of an amiable person doth easily excite to friendship. Thou must know that such like gestures and figures as harmonies of the body, do expose it no otherwise to the celestials, than odors, and the spirit of a medicine, and internal passions, also, do the soul. For as medicines and passions of the mind are by certain dispositions of the heaven increased, so also the gesture and motions of the body do get an efficacy by certain influences of the heavens. For there are gestures resembling Saturn which are melancholy and sad, as are beating of the breast or striking of the head; also such as are religious, as the bowing of the knee, and a fixed look downwards, as of one praying; also weeping, and such like, as are used by the austere and Saturnine man; such an one as a satirist describes: With hang’d down head, with eyes fixed to the ground, His raging words bites in, and muttering sound He doth express with pouting lips. A cheerful and honest countenance, a worshipful or noble gesture or bearing, clapping of the hands as of one rejoicing and praising, and the bending of the knee with the head lifted up, as of one that is worshiping, are ascribed to Jupiter. A sour, fierce, cruel, angry, rough countenance and gesture are ascribed to Mars. Solary are honorable and courageous gestures and countenances; also, walking abroad, a bending of the knee, as of one honoring a king with one knee bent. Those under Venus are dances, embraces, laughters, and those of an amiable and cheerful countenance. Those Mercurial are inconstant, quick, variable and such like gestures and countenances. Those Lunary, or under the Moon, are such as are movable, poisonous, and childish and the like. As we have spoken above of gestures so, also, are the shapes of men distinct, as follows: Saturn bespeaks a man to be of a black and yellowish color, lean, crooked, of a rough skin, great veins, the body covered with hair, little eyes, of a frowning forehead, a thin beard, great lips, eyes intent upon the ground, of a heavy gait, striking his feet together as he walks, crafty, witty, a seducer and murderous.