Syrma
Iota Virginis — the train of the Virgin's robe, the hem that follows her
- Position (J2000)
- 3°48′ Scorpio
- Magnitude
- 4.08
- Colour
- Yellow-white
- Spectrum
- F7 III–IV
- Distance
- ~72 light-years
- Nature
- Mercury · Mars
In the sky
Syrma is a yellow-white star of the fourth magnitude at the lower edge of the Virgin, below and behind Spica, where the long robe of the figure trails along the ground. It is one of the nearer stars of the Book, about seventy-two light-years away, a little hotter and brighter than the Sun and beginning to leave the main sequence; a quiet, ordinary star in the astronomer's reckoning. The name is the Arabic al-sirma, the train, the part of a garment that sweeps behind. With two fainter companions it makes the fifteenth mansion of the Moon, al-Ghafr, the covering, which the desert peoples called the best of all the Moon's stations because it lies safely between the Lion's tail and the Scorpion's claws.
It stands seven degrees north of the ecliptic, so that its contacts in a chart are by longitude.
The myth
The Virgin is the harvest goddess with the ear of grain in her hand, and her robe is long enough to need a train. Spica is the gift held out; Syrma is the hem that follows after, the last fold of the figure, the edge of the garment that touches the ground. Ptolemy gives the stars at the Virgin's feet and train the nature of Mercury and Mars, quickness and drive, which seems an odd pairing for a hem until one remembers that the train is the part of a robe that must be managed with skill and that is most easily trodden on.
The mansion the star leads is the mansion of the veil and of pardon, of what is decently covered and of water found under the ground. Syrma carries both senses. It is the star of the finishing fold, the detail at the edge that completes the whole, and of discretion: the hem drawn over what need not be shown.
What it gives
- The finishing fold The last detail that completes the work. The native sees the edge others leave ragged and has the patience to finish it; the hem is where their quality shows.
- Following through The train comes after. This native stays with a thing to its last step, and is the one still there when the harvest has been gathered and the field needs clearing.
- Discretion The veil drawn decently over what need not be seen. Secrets are safe here, and so are other people's lapses.
- Finding water The mansion's own gift: a feel for what lies under the surface of a person or a question, and the patience to sink the well.
What to watch for
- Trodden on The train is the part of the robe people step on. The native follows after and is overlooked, or is blamed for being in the way.
- Covering instead of healing Mercury's quickness in drawing the veil: a fault pardoned so fast it was never looked at, and the slow discord that follows.
- Detail that devours the whole The finishing fold attended to while the garment goes unmade; a native lost at the edge of things.
- Mars underfoot Drive spent in trailing behind. Irritation at being last, kept quiet and gathering.
How to work with it
The native does well to lift the train now and then: to take the first place in a small thing, so that following after remains a choice and the irritation of being underfoot has somewhere to go.
It helps to look before covering. A fault seen clearly and then pardoned is healed; one pardoned unseen is only hidden.
The edge is best finished after the whole is made. A rule of order, the garment first and the hem last, keeps the finishing gift from devouring the work it was meant to complete.
In brief
Syrma is the train of the Virgin's robe: the finishing fold, following through, discretion, the finding of water. Its difficulties are the hem's, being trodden on, covering in place of healing, detail that devours the whole, and drive kept underfoot. The placement works best where the train is lifted now and then and the whole is made before the edge.