Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, 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 · 2 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LII, Section 1b
Jupiter signifies a man to be of a pale color, darkish red, a handsome body, good stature, bold, of great eyes (not black altogether) with large pupils, short nostrils not equal, great teeth before, curled hair, of good disposition and manners.
Mars makes a man red, with red hair, a round face, yellowish eyes, of a terrible and sharp look, jocund, bold, proud and crafty.
The Sun makes a man of a tawny color, betwixt yellow and black dashed with red, of a short stature yet of a handsome body, without much hair and curly, of yellow eyes, wise, faithful and desirous of praise.
Venus signifies a man to be tending towards blackness, but more white, with a mixture of red, a handsome body, a fair and round face, fair hair, fair eyes, the blackness whereof is more intense, of good manners and honest love; also kind, patient and jocund.
Mercury signifies a man not much white, or black, of a long face, high forehead, fair eyes, not black, to have a straight and long nose, thin beard, long fingers, to be ingenious, a subtile inquisitor, a turncoat, and subject to many fortunes.
The Moon signifies a man to be in color white, mixed with a little red; of a fair stature, a round face, with some marks in it; eyes not fully black, frowning forehead, and kind, gentle and sociable.
The Signs, also, and the faces of Signs, have their figures and shapes which, he that would know, must seek them out in books of Astrology.
Lastly, upon these figures and gestures, both Physiognomy and Metoposcopy, arts of divination, do depend; also Chiromancy, foretelling future events, not as causes but as signs, through like effects, caused by the same cause.
And although these divers kinds of divinations may seem to be done by inferior and weak signs, yet the judgments of them are not to be slighted or condemned when prognostication is made by them, not out of superstition but by reason of the harmonical correspondency of all the parts of the body.
Whosoever, therefore, doth the more exactly imitate the celestial bodies, either in nature, study, action, motion, gesture, countenance, passions of the mind, and opportunity of the season, is so much the more like to the heavenly bodies and can receive larger gifts from them.
Themes
◆Correspondencecosmology
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text explicitly states that 'judgments of them are not to be slighted... by reason of the harmonical correspondency of all the parts of the body'.
All passages →◆Microcosm Macrocosmcosmology
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The text argues that the human body imitates celestial bodies and can receive gifts from them, reflecting the cosmos within the individual.
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