← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 102/235
Quintile
A quintile is two planets 72° apart — a fifth of the circle, the fifth harmonic. Johannes Kepler proposed it, with the biquintile, in the early seventeenth century, reasoning from the harmonies of music and geometry that the five-fold division of the circle should matter as much as the others. deVore notes drily that "it has not been universally adopted", and it remains a specialist's aspect. At two signs and twelve degrees it has no fixed sign relationship.
Its character is craft. Where the classical aspects describe flow or friction, the fifth harmonic is usually read as making and shaping: a knack, a style, an inventive way of putting things together. Astrologers who work with harmonics associate it with skill that is practised until it becomes one's own — and, sometimes, with an urge to control or perfect.
Orb
Quintiles are kept very tight almost everywhere: 1–2° at most. In the charts here the quintile is capped at 1.5°; the bodies' own allowances only matter if they are tighter still. Its strength is how tight it is against that allowance, 1 at exact and 0 at the edge. See orb.
Ease or tension
The quintile counts as a light ease in the ease and tension chart, about a third of a trine's weight. Its ease is that of a skill that works, rather than of good fortune.
In a chart
Ask what the two planets make together. Venus quintile Mars might show a flair for anything that combines beauty and drive — dance, design, persuasion; Mercury quintile Saturn, a gift for precise, well-built thought. A quintile seldom shapes a whole reading, but it often explains a talent that the major aspects do not.
In transit
The transit lists here do not include quintiles. Those who time with harmonics treat them as brief, mostly creative prompts.
Kinds and conditions
- Applying or separating, like any aspect.
- With no fixed sign relationship, the idea of out-of-sign does not really apply.
- Related fifth-harmonic aspects include the decile (36°) and the biquintile (144°).