Polybus, that a hundred and eighty-two days and a half suffice for the bringing forth of a living child; that is, six months, in which space of time the sun moves from one tropic to the other; and this is called seven months, for the days which are over plus in the sixth are accounted to give the seventh month.

Those children which are born in the eighth month cannot live, for, the infant then falling from the womb, the navel, which is the cause of nourishment, is thereby too much wrenched; and is the reason that the infant languishes and hath an atrophy.

The astrologers, that eight months are enemies to every birth, seven are friends and kind to it.

The signs of the zodiac are then enemies, when they fall upon those stars which are lords of houses; whatever infant is then born will have a life short and unfortunate.

Those signs of the zodiac which are malevolent and injurious to generation are those pairs of which the final is reckoned the eighth from the first, as the first and the eighth, the second and the ninth, etc; so is the Ram unsociable with Scorpio, the Bull with Sagittarius, the Twins with the Goat, the Crab with Aquarius, the Lion with Pisces, the Virgin with the Ram.