WHosoever will work according to the Celestiall opportunity, ought to observe both or one of them, •amely the motion of the Stars, or their times; I say their motions, when they are in their dignities or dejections, either ••sential or accidentall; but I call their times, dayes and hours ••stributed to their Dominions. Concerning all these, it is abundantly taught in the books of Astrologers; but in this place ••o things especially are to be considered and observed by us. •he that we observe the motions and ascensions and windings • Stars, even as they are in truth in the eight sphere, through • neglect of which it happeneth that many err in fabricating • Celestiall Images, and are defrauded of their desired effect; • other thing we ought to observe, is about the times of •osing the planetary hours; for almost all Astrologers di •e all that space of time from the Sun rising to setting into ••elve equall parts, and call them the twelve hours of the day; •n the time which followeth from the setting to the rising, like manner being divided into twelve equall parts, they call the twelve hours of the night, and then distribute each of those hours to every one of the Planets according to the order of their successions, giving alwayes the first hour of the day to the Lord of that day, then to every one by order, even to the end of twenty four hours; and in this distribution the Magicians agree with them; but in the partition of the hours some do dissent, saying, that the space of the rising and setting is not to be divided into equall parts, and that those hours are not therefore called unequal because the diurnal are unequal to the nocturnall, but because both the diurnal and nocturnal are even unequall amongst themselves; therefore the partition of unequall or Planetary hours hath a different reason of their measure observed by Magicians, which is of this sort; for as i• artificiall hours▪ which are alwayes equall to themselves, the ascensions of fifteen degrees in the equinoctiall, constituteth an artificial hour: so also in planetary hours the ascensions of fifteen degrees in the Eclipticke constituteth an unequall or planetary hour, whose measure we ought to enquir• and find out by the tables of the oblique ascensions of every region.
Book II, Chap. XXXIV. Of the true motion of the heavenly bodies to be observed in the eight sphere, and of the ground of Planetary hours.
From Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Henry Cornelius Agrippa, translated by J. F. (probably John French), 1651), p. 289.