ForScorpion Mars; for Sagittarius faire
Diana cares; for Capricorn doth care
Vesta; Aquarius Juno doth protect;
And Neptune Pisces -----
And most ancient Orpheus writing to Muscus, reckons up more Dieties of the heavens then these, signifying their names, respects, and duties, calling them all in proper songs. Let no one therefore think that they are the names of evill deceiving spirits; but of naturall, and divine vertues, distributed to the world by the true God, for the service, and profit of man, who knew how to use them: and antiquity it self hath ascribed to each of these Dieties the severall members of man; as the ear to memory, which Virgil also dedicates to Phebus, saying, Cynthius puls my ear, and admonisheth me. So the right hand being a token of fortitude, & by which an oath is made, Numa Pompilius, as saith Livy, hath dedicated to faith: The fingers are under the tuition of Minerva, and the knees given to Mercifullness; Hence they that beg pardon bend them. Some dedicate the Navell to Venus as the place of luxury; some who refer all the members to it as the center, say it is dedicated to Jupiter Hence in the Temple of Jupiter Hammon the effigies of a navel is celebrated. Many other things the ancients did observe, ascribing every little member and joynt to their Dieties, which if they be rightly understood, and the true Dieties ruling over them known, would not at all swerve from their duty, seeing also sacred writ testifies that all our members are governed by the superior vertues, of which we shall speak more largely in the following book; and not members only, but every exercise of men is distributed to its Dietie, as huntings to Diana, wars to Pallas, husbandry to Ceres, of which thus speaks Apollo in his Oracles in Porphyrie.
Pallas loves wars, woods to Diana fair
Ascribed are, to' Juno humid Aire,
To' Ceres Corn, and fruits; to Oryris
The water, also humors waterish.
