William Shakespeare

Not of an age, but for all time: William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is widely held to be the greatest writer the English language has produced. Baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, he left behind some thirty-nine plays, a hundred and fifty-four sonnets and several long poems, works still performed and reinterpreted more than any other playwright's.

His Sun sits in Taurus, the earthy, Venusian bull, the foundational pillar of a chart, born connoisseur of beauty, sound and the five senses, patient builder of lasting things. That solar signature fits a craftsman who worked steadily across decades and became a part-owner of his playing company. His Sun falls in the eleventh house of tribe and network, the hero who founds his own troupe: the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later the King's Men.

His Moon in Libra, a beautiful, Aphrodite-touched Moon, gave him the radar for harmony and the poet's ear for balanced music, and it rests in the fourth house, the Moon's own happy home of roots and family, where he returned in the end. A Cancer Ascendant lent the intuitive, feeling mask of one who knows emotion like no other. From that lunar depth came Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth.