Herman Melville

Teacher and poet · United States · 1819–1891

Leo 8.5° · born August 1, 1819
Birth time unknown

Birth date sourced. Birth time unknown.The Moon remained in Sagittarius throughout that civil day. Everything below uses only what the complete civil day settles.

The day, read honestly

The Sun stands at 8.5° Leo, in domicile — the planet in its own sign, running on home rules. Of everything the chart can be read for without a birth time, that is the loudest single fact in it.

Positions at 12:00 civil time in Manhattan—a reference instant, not a birth time. No houses, rising sign, angles, or sect were computed.

Where the Sun actually stood

The Sun's position resolves to 8.5° Leo — deep enough in the first decan (0°–10°) that the Sun, its traditional sub-ruler, colours the reading.

The personal registers

Day to day the chart speaks through Mercury in Virgo (4.2°), Venus in Cancer (20.1°), Mars in Gemini (7.6°): thought with its feet on the ground, attraction that works by atmosphere, effort aimed through strategy and words.

The angles that hold

The tightest geometry in the chart puts the Sun a sixth of the circle apart from Mars, 1.0° off exact. A sextile pays out only on effort; the scheme calls it opportunity rather than gift. Behind it, Neptune square Pluto at 1.1°, and Saturn conjunction Pluto at 3.0° — both still well inside the orbs this site uses. Every angle named here holds for the whole of that day at the birthplace, so an unknown hour cannot take it away.

Figures in the geometry

Venus makes no major aspect that survives the day; the old reading gives such a planet autonomy — it acts alone, sometimes loudly.

The classical map

Read against the old dignities, three placements stand out. The Sun in Leo at 8.5° is in domicile — the planet in its own sign, running on home rules; Mercury in Virgo at 4.2° is in exaltation — the tradition’s honoured-guest placement, working at its best; Saturn in Aries at 0.4° is in fall — the tradition’s uphill placement, strength earned rather than given. Dignity is a statement about conditions, not about worth.

The shape of the whole

Counting only the 10 placements whose signs hold for the whole day, the chart runs 5 fire, 2 water, 2 air, 1 earth by element and 6 mutable, 2 fixed, 2 cardinal by modality. Fire weights a chart toward initiative — starting, asserting, spending energy to find out what happens. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were retrograde — the backward drift a body appears to make as the Earth overtakes it, read in the scheme as a function that reviews before it releases.

The Moon, and how far it can move

The Moon stayed in Sagittarius for the whole of that day at the birthplace, covering 14.2° between midnight and midnight. Fast enough that its degree is approximate, slow enough that its sign is not in doubt. At the noon reference it stands at 9.5°.

Where this comes fromSources, revisions, and exactly what this chart assumes

Source article: Herman Melville · revision 1365878911
Wikidata: Q4985 · revision 2522041605
Retrieved: 2026-07-26T18:47:50.947Z
Birth date: 1819-08-01 · day precision · proleptic-gregorian
Birthplace: Manhattan, United States · Q11299
Coordinates: 40.7283, -73.9942 · from Manhattan
Reference instant: 1819-08-01T16:56:02.000Z · noon civil time, not a birth time
Omitted: Rising sign, houses, angles, and sect—all require a birth time.
Unknown-time range: Moon travelled 14.21° · The Moon remained in Sagittarius throughout that civil day.
Engine: astronomy-engine (repository dependency) · @zodiacs/engine/internal/math
Portrait: Joseph Oriel Eaton · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Something wrong here?Ask us to correct or remove it.