Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Zodiac Signs

Pisces

Also Known As Piscean

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Origin 100 BCE to 200 CE

Pisces is the twelfth and final sign, mutable water, ruled traditionally by Jupiter and in modern practice by Neptune, spanning about February 19 to March 20 at winter's end. Its symbol is the Two Fishes bound and swimming in opposite directions, from the myth of Aphrodite and Eros taking fish form to escape the monster Typhon, and its glyph shows the two crescents joined by a line, spirit tied to matter. As mutable water it is compassion, imagination, and dissolution: the sign in which the separate self melts into the whole. Its life themes are empathy, spirituality, art, sacrifice, and the longing to transcend boundaries, with escapism, confusion, and self-undoing as the shadow. Tender and boundless, it exalts Venus and holds the accumulated feeling of all the signs before it. In the body Pisces rules the feet, and its season is the last of winter dissolving toward spring.

Facts
Origin Period
100 BCE to 200 CE 3Tradition: Hellenistic astrology in Greco-Roman Egypt
Origin Period
475 BCE to 400 BCE 4Tradition: Babylonian celestial omens and horoscopy
Place of Origin
Babylonia, in southern Mesopotamia 4
Language
latin 3
Language
akkadian 4
A Rival System's Attribution
Modern astrology: ruled by Neptune, displacing or sharing with Jupiter. The dignity table this atlas records gives Pisces to Jupiter 3Tradition: Modern Western astrology, from the nineteenth century
Attributions
Governs
Pisces governs the feet, the last sign taking the lowest part of the body in the melothesia of Manilius's Astronomica and Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. 2
Identity
Position
12 of 12 1
Learn More
Pisces in the Tropical Scheme

Pisces is the twelfth and last sign, mutable, watery and ruled in the classical scheme by Jupiter, with Venus exalted in it; modern astrology commonly substitutes Neptune, discovered in 1846, a reassignment less than two centuries old. The sign closes the zodiac at the end of winter, immediately before the vernal equinox returns the cycle to Aries, and its traditional meanings turn on dissolution and the loss of boundary: the ending of things, the merging of what was separate, confinement, retreat and what is done unseen. The twelfth house, which corresponds to it, carries hidden enemies, imprisonment, hospitals and self-undoing in the older texts. It is a bicorporeal sign, figured as two fishes, and is classed among the fruitful signs in questions of fertility.

Pisces's three decans run Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, completing the thirty-six-decan cycle that began at Aries; because thirty-six is not evenly divisible by seven, the sequence does not return neatly to Saturn at the true starting point of the cycle, a small mathematical untidiness the Chaldean decan scheme simply accepts rather than corrects. As the last of the water signs, Pisces closes out the same triplicity dispute already discussed under Cancer and Scorpio: Ptolemy's table gives Venus by day and the Moon by night with Mars as co-ruler, while the Dorothean table Lilly transmits assigns the whole triplicity to Mars alone; because Jupiter, not Mars, rules Pisces itself in the classical scheme, the two tables produce a more noticeably different dignity picture here than they do for Mars-ruled Scorpio.

Two Fishes Bound by a Cord, and the Tropical Zero Point

The two fishes are joined by a long cord knotted at the star Alrisha, the knot, and the Babylonian tradition already recognised two fish figures here. The Greek story makes them Aphrodite and Eros, who took the form of fishes and tied themselves together so as not to be separated while escaping the monster Typhon. The constellation matters out of proportion to its faintness for one astronomical reason: because of precession, the vernal equinox, the tropical zero point of Aries, has lain within the stars of Pisces for roughly the last two thousand years, and is now moving toward Aquarius. Early Christian use of the fish as a symbol is documented from the second century and rests on the Greek acrostic ICHTHYS; the further claim that it was chosen because of the precessional age is a modern interpretation and is not attested in the early sources.

Manilius and other Latin sources note the sign's traditional weakness and passivity, reading the bound fishes as figures without power of their own motion, dependent entirely on the cord that joins them, an image some modern commentators connect, more as a later resonance than a documented ancient claim, to Pisces's role as the final and most dissolving sign of the zodiac's own cycle. The ICHTHYS acrostic, Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour, functioned in the earliest Christian centuries chiefly as a covert recognition symbol during periods of persecution, a practical rather than an astrological use of the fish image that had nothing to do with the sign's zodiacal associations in its own earliest attestations.

Glyph and Origin

The glyph is two crescents facing away from each other and joined by a bar, read as two fish bound together and swimming in opposite directions, an image the constellation itself supports through the long cord of stars linking its two fish figures. Greek myth explains the pair as Aphrodite and Eros, who took fish form and tied themselves together while fleeing the monster Typhon, a story layered onto an older Babylonian tradition of paired fish occupying the same stretch of sky.

Pisces belongs to the Babylonian zodiac codified in Hellenistic astrology, its two fish already distinguished as northern and western in the old Babylonian star lists, and the written form is preserved chiefly through Byzantine copies of Greek horoscopes, the manuscript tradition catalogued by Otto Neugebauer and Henry Van Hoesen, reaching its settled printed shape only once fifteenth and sixteenth century almanacs, in the line of Regiomontanus's early Nuremberg Kalendarium and Ephemerides, began fixing the zodiac signs consistently in type. Through precession, the same slow axial wobble that has shifted every tropical sign from its namesake constellation over more than two thousand years, the tropical sign has drifted from the constellation Pisces.

Correspondences & Relations

Detriment Of

Exaltation Of

Venus is exalted in Pisces, and the tradition reads love at its most tender and selfless here - affection without condition, compassion that reaches beyond the personal, and a longing to merge completely. Astrologers note a gentle, romantic, sometimes self-sacrificing heart, easily moved and inclined to idealize the beloved.

Placed Here

A Pisces Ascendant gives a soft, impressionable and elusive manner, and astrologers read a gentle presence that takes on the colour of its surroundings. The tradition notes a sympathetic, dreamy front, boundaries that blur easily, and an approach to the world through feeling and intuition rather than assertion.

Modern astrologers read Lilith in Pisces as an untamed relation to the boundless and the unconscious. The tradition describes overwhelming feeling, a refusal to be numbed or contained, and a rawness that surfaces through dream, longing and the wish to dissolve.

Modern astrologers read Ceres in Pisces as nurture through compassion and imagination. The placement is described as boundless, sometimes sacrificial care, comfort found in art, music and the sea, and a person fed by tenderness and the sense of being understood.

Astrologers read Chiron in Pisces as a diffuse, pervasive wound - a sorrow without clear cause, a sensitivity to suffering that seems to have no edge. The modern tradition of this placement describes healing found in surrender, faith and compassion, and a profound gift for healing others spiritually once one stops trying to escape one's own pain.

Astrologers read a Pisces Descendant as an attraction to gentle, imaginative others. The tradition describes partners met with sympathy and sometimes illusion, a wish to merge with the beloved, and relationships coloured by compassion and idealism.

Juno in Pisces is read as a wish for a tender, imaginative partner. Modern astrologers describe a committed bond idealized and compassionate, a spouse met with sympathy and sometimes illusion, and a marriage in which the self readily merges with the other.

Astrologers read Mars in Pisces as a drive that is diffuse and indirect, its energy easily scattered or turned to imagination, compassion and retreat. The tradition notes action that works behind the scenes rather than head-on, a will vulnerable to its own moods, and force most effective when it serves something felt rather than fought for.

A Pisces Midheaven is read as a vocation of compassion or imagination. Astrologers describe a public role in the arts, healing, service or spiritual life, a standing that can be diffuse or idealized, and ambition softened by feeling.

The Moon in Pisces dissolves the edge of feeling, and the tradition reads an inner life of great sympathy that absorbs the moods of everything around it. Astrologers describe boundless, compassionate emotions, a need for retreat and imagination, and a nature that can lose its own needs in another's.

A Pisces Nadir is read as a base that is soft and blurred. Astrologers describe an early environment of feeling and imagination, a household with porous boundaries, and roots that are more emotional and remembered than fixed in place.

Neptune is at home in Pisces by the modern reckoning, and astrologers read its passage there as an age of heightened spirituality, compassion and dissolving boundaries. The tradition notes mysticism, art and escapism all deepened, and in the individual a profoundly sensitive, imaginative nature attuned to the unseen and easily overwhelmed by it.

Astrologers read the North Node in Pisces as a turn toward surrender and compassion. The tradition describes learning to trust, to loosen the grip of control and analysis, and to meet life with faith and mercy rather than anxious management.

The Part of Fortune in Pisces is read as well-being found through compassion and surrender. Astrologers describe fortune that grows quietly from imagination, faith and a tender, boundless connection to others.

Pluto is expected to enter Pisces in 2043 and remain until about 2068. Astrologers anticipate a generation-long transformation of spirituality, imagination, and the collective unconscious, on the pattern of its last passage from 1797 to 1823, the years of the Romantic movement.

Astrologers read Saturn in Pisces as the meeting of limit and dissolution - a discipline brought to the formless, and often a fear of what cannot be controlled. The tradition notes solitary responsibility, hidden burdens, and a maturity reached by giving structure to compassion and imagination and by making peace with uncertainty.

The South Node in Pisces is read as an ingrained tendency to drift and escape. Astrologers describe a comfortable retreat into fantasy, sacrifice or vagueness, a habit of dissolving rather than facing, that the person is asked to ground.

With the Sun in Pisces the boundary of the self grows porous, and astrologers read an identity drawn toward feeling, imagination and the whole rather than the separate ego. The tradition notes a compassionate, impressionable nature, easily merged with its surroundings, that finds its strength in sympathy and in what it can dissolve into.

Astrologers read Uranus in Pisces as sudden change in the realm of the imagination and the spirit - old faiths dissolved, unexpected awakenings, invention touched by the mystical. As a generational marker the tradition notes upheaval in belief and the arts, and in the individual an intuitive, unpredictable originality drawn to the unseen.

With the Vertex in Pisces, the pivotal encounters are read as dreamlike and compassionate, sometimes touched by sacrifice. The turning points dissolve boundaries and arrive through intuition, art or loss rather than through plain event.

Ruled By

In Pisces Jupiter rules by the older reckoning, and the tradition reads its benevolence turned inward and universal - faith, compassion and imagination without limit, and fortune found in giving, mercy and the spiritual. Astrologers note a generous, sympathetic nature and a growth measured less in gain than in what is surrendered.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Africa, Continents

Pisces, of the water triplicity, in familiarity with the southwest quarter.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
Age of Pisces, Ages

The Age of Pisces is named for the zodiac sign Pisces, read through fish symbolism in Carl Jung's Aion.

Pisces, one of the three water signs used for the timing of washing.

Source Liber AstronomiaeGuido Bonatti
Source Christian AstrologyWilliam Lilly
The Moon, Tarot

In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, The Moon is assigned to Pisces by way of its Tree of Life path.

Winter, Seasons

The Western tropical season carries the sign Pisces.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Classification

Mutable, Sign Modes

One of the four bicorporeal or mutable signs, standing between two seasons.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
Yin, Polarities

One of the six feminine or nocturnal signs, taken by the alternation that begins at Aries.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Contains

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion

The Egyptian table divides Pisces into five terms of unequal width. This is the fifth of them, running from 28 to 30 degrees of the sign.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

The Egyptian table divides Pisces into five terms of unequal width. This is the first of them, running from 0 to 12 degrees of the sign.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

The Egyptian table divides Pisces into five terms of unequal width. This is the fourth of them, running from 19 to 28 degrees of the sign.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

The Egyptian table divides Pisces into five terms of unequal width. This is the second of them, running from 12 to 16 degrees of the sign.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

The Egyptian table divides Pisces into five terms of unequal width. This is the third of them, running from 16 to 19 degrees of the sign.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Corresponds To

Feet, Body Parts

Pisces governs the feet in the melothesia set out in Manilius's Astronomica and echoed in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos.

Source AstronomicaMarcus Manilius

Originates in Language

Symbolized By

The symbol's own cited description identifies its glyph as that of this zodiac sign.

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Sources
1. Tetrabiblos
Claudius Ptolemy, W. Foulsham, 1900Book I, ch. 10-12, on the equinoctial, solstitial, solid and bicorporeal signs
Quote, Book I, ch. 10-12, on the equinoctial, solstitial, solid and bicorporeal signs
Ptolemy reckons the signs from the equinoctial and solstitial points rather than from the fixed stars. This is why Western astrology is tropical, and why precession does not displace the signs on their own terms.
View the Source
2. Astronomica
Marcus Manilius, Harvard University Press, 1977View the Source
3. A History of Western Astrology
Nicholas Campion, Continuum, 2009the position of the vernal point in PiscesView the Source
4. The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
Francesca Rochberg, Cambridge University Press, 2004ch. on the Babylonian names of the zodiacal signsView the Source
Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning
Richard Hinckley Allen, G. E. Stechert, 1899Pisces and the knot AlrishaView the Source

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