← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 114/235
Partile aspect
A partile aspect is one in which the two planets stand in the same degree of their signs. The Sun at 14°10' Aries and Mars at 14°50' Leo are in partile trine: both stand at 14 degrees and some minutes, so the trine is counted as complete, even though 40 minutes of arc still separate them. The word comes from the Latin pars, a part — the planets share a part of the zodiac, degree for degree. Its opposite is platic: an aspect that is within orb but not in the same degree.
The exact aspect entry introduces the pair. This one looks at how the test works, where it gives a surprising answer, and what the tradition did with it.
How it is worked out
Read the degree numbers, not the gap. A degree written 14°xx' is the fifteenth degree of the sign in the older counting (0°00'–0°59' being the first), but either way the rule is the same: if the whole-number degrees match, and the signs make an aspect, it is partile.
That makes partile a different measure from distance, and the two can disagree:
- 14°01' Taurus and 14°59' Virgo are 58 minutes apart — and partile, sharing degree 14.
- 14°59' Taurus and 15°01' Virgo are 2 minutes apart — and, by the strict test, not partile, because the second planet has crossed into the next degree.
Lilly's examples put the two planets at the same degree number, and the strict reading follows from them; in practice it was always a rule of thumb rather than a precise measure. Many modern astrologers simply use partile for any aspect within about a degree, and some charting programs do the same. Both usages are common; it is worth knowing which a writer means.
How it is read
In a birth chart, a partile aspect is read as one of the loudest notes in the chart. Lilly held partile aspects to act more strongly than platic ones, and modern practice agrees that the closer an aspect, the more clearly it tends to show. A partile square between Mars and Saturn, or a partile trine from Jupiter to the Moon, is usually among the first things an astrologer notes.
In horary, partile matters twice. An applying aspect that will become partile is the moment of perfection, when the matter is said to come about; an aspect that has just been partile and is now separating may describe something already done. And Lilly built partile contacts into his tables of accidental dignity: a planet in partile conjunction with Jupiter or Venus gained five points, a partile trine to them four, a partile sextile three; a partile conjunction with Saturn or Mars cost five, a partile opposition four, a partile square three. A partile conjunction with the North Node added four; with the South Node it took four away.
In the sky, the partile moment of a slow pair — Jupiter and Saturn, say — is the date astrologers quote for the aspect, even though its influence is felt for months either side.
In the tradition
The pair are old terms of art — Latin partilis, and platicus from the Greek platys, "broad" — used by medieval and Renaissance writers and passed into English with Lilly, Gadbury and their contemporaries. It answered a practical need: before calculators, an astrologer reading a table of positions in whole degrees could see a partile aspect at a glance, without working out the arc between two planets.
In a reading here
Where a horary or electional chart is weighed here, contacts within a degree to the benefics and malefics are counted with Lilly's partile points among each planet's accidental fortitudes and debilities.