Vertcliff Publishing · the fixed stars

Mesarthim

Gamma Arietis — the Ram's second horn, a pair of white stars that mark the old beginning of the sky

The constellation Aries drawn in gold foil, with the star Mesarthim marked at the Ram's second horn, a pair of white stars that mark the old beginning of the sky.
Aries — Mesarthim marked, the Ram's second horn, a pair of white stars that mark the old beginning of the sky
Position (J2000)
3°11′ Taurus
Magnitude
3.86 (combined)
Colour
White
Spectrum
B9 V + A1p
Distance
~164 light-years
Nature
Mars · Saturn

In the sky

Mesarthim is the fainter of the two stars at the tips of the Ram's horns, close beside Sheratan, and it is one of the sky's handsome doubles: two white stars of almost equal light, a little under eight seconds of arc apart, which a small telescope divides into a pair of matched points. Robert Hooke found them so in 1664 while he was following a comet, and they were among the first double stars anyone had seen. The two are about a hundred and sixty light-years away and circle each other so slowly that no motion has been measured in three and a half centuries.

The name is a puzzle. It is not Arabic, though it looks it, and the likeliest account is that a Hebrew word for ministers or servants was pressed into service by a Renaissance mapmaker who wanted a name for the second horn. In the second century before our era the spring equinox stood almost exactly here, so that this small pair was, for Hipparchus, the first star of the first sign, the place where the whole zodiac began. The equinox has moved on since, a full sign to the west, and the horn stays where it was.

The myth

The Ram is the golden-fleeced beast that carried Phrixus and Helle across the sea, and its two horns are the two marks, al-Sharatain, by which the Arabs knew the first mansion of the Moon. Sheratan is the brighter horn and Mesarthim the second, and the two were called the protecting pair. Ptolemy gives the stars of the Ram's head the nature of Mars and Saturn, drive and discipline together, and the tradition reads them as bold, initiating stars with little patience for counsel.

Mesarthim adds something its brighter twin does not have: it is two. The second horn is itself a pair, matched and equal, and the star's own character is the character of a partnership in which neither light outshines the other. It stands for the servant's and the minister's work, the second place held with dignity, and for the kind of beginning that is made together rather than alone.

What it gives

  • A beginning made together Where the first horn goes alone, this native begins in company: the partner found early, the venture started as a pair, the matched light that doubles the courage of a first step.
  • The minister's dignity The second place held well. The native serves a cause or a person without being diminished by it, and the service is the source of their standing rather than the cost of it.
  • Equal measure Two stars of the same brightness. The native is fair in the plain sense, giving and expecting the same weight on both sides, and partnerships under this star tend to be level.
  • The old beginning A memory of where the sky once started. The native carries a sense of first principles, of how things were meant to begin, and returns to it when others have lost the thread.

What to watch for

  • Never the first light The second horn can come to believe it is only the second; a native who takes the servant's place by habit when the leader's place was theirs.
  • The pair that cannot part Matched lights so close that neither can be seen alone. The partnership becomes the whole identity and the native does not know who they are outside it.
  • Mars without Saturn The horn's drive unchecked by the discipline that should pair with it; the beginning made twice and finished never.
  • The equinox moved on A loyalty to how things were first arranged that does not notice the sky has turned, and holds the old beginning against the new one.

How to work with it

The native does well to take the first place sometimes on purpose, so that the second place remains a choice. The minister who has led once serves better afterward, and the pair is stronger when each light has shone alone.

The partnership is kept healthy by distance taken deliberately: a project, a journey, a friendship that belongs to one of the two and not both, so that the matched stars can still be told apart.

Mars and Saturn are the horn's two natures, and the native who gives the drive a discipline, a season, a form, a finishing date, finds that beginnings reach their middles. The old beginning is best honoured by carrying its principles forward rather than its arrangements.

In brief

Mesarthim is the Ram's second horn and a matched pair of white stars: a beginning made in company, the minister's dignity, equal measure, and the memory of where the sky once began. Its difficulties are the second light's, a servant's place taken by habit, a pair that cannot part, drive without discipline, and loyalty to a beginning the sky has moved past. The placement works best where the first place is taken sometimes and each light shines alone a little.

Share how Mesarthim stands in your chart →

The shared observatory

For thousands of years astrology was built one way: someone watched the sky, watched a life, and wrote down what seemed to answer what. Everything in the tradition — every verdict the old texts hand down about Mesarthim — began as one person's observation, kept, compared, and corrected across generations. This page continues that work. If Mesarthim stands close upon a planet in your chart, add your observation to the record: what it has given, and what it has asked of you.

Which planet does Mesarthim stand upon in your chart, and how close is the orb? How do you experience the conjunction — where does it show in your life, and what has it taught you? The calculator will find your conjunctions if you have not looked yet.

No account needed — a nickname and your words. Observations are reviewed before they appear, which usually takes a day or two.

Read Mesarthim beside its hundred and twenty-two companions in A Book of Fixed Stars, or raise your own chart to see which stars stood close at your birth.

These stars walk the world in the novel. Our Sidereal World: Selena and Lilith — Anastasia Vertcliff's mythopoetic, philosophical fantasy of souls and free will, where the fixed stars come down wearing faces, eager to help, and not to be trusted.

Meet them in the novel →