"a fortunat ascendent clepen they whan that no wykkid planete, as Saturne or Mars, or elles the Tail of the Dragoun, is in the house of the assendent, ne that no wikked planets have non aspects of enemite up-on the assendent;"[159] The Wife of Bath attributes the two principal qualities of her disposition, amorousness and pugnaciousness, to the planets Venus and Mars: "For certes, I am al Venerien In felinge, and myn herte is Marcien. Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse, And Mars yaf me my sturdy hardinesse. Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars ther-inne. Allas! allas! that ever love was sinne! I folwed ay myn inclinacioun By vertu of my constellacioun."[160] A little later in her _Prologue_ the Wife contrasts the influences of Mercury and Venus. As a jibe at the Clerk who was in the company of Canterbury pilgrims she has just said that clerks cannot possibly speak well of wives, and that women could tell tales of clerks if they would. She upholds her statement thus: Wives are the children of Venus, clerks, of Mercury, two planets that are 'in their working full contrarious:' "The children of Mercurie and of Venus Been in hir wirking ful contrarious; Mercurie loveth wisdom and science, And Venus loveth ryot and dispence. And, for hir diverse disposicioun, Ech falleth in otheres exaltacioun; And thus, got woot! Mercurie is desolat In Pisces, wher Venus is exaltat; And Venus falleth ther Mercurie is reysed; Therefore no womman of no clerk is preysed."[161] Venus has her exaltation in the sign in which Mercury has his depression. Therefore the two signs have opposite virtues and influences, and the children of one can see little good in the children of the other. We have seen how the stars were supposed to control human destiny by bestowing certain qualities upon souls at birth. We shall next consider how they were thought to influence men more indirectly, through their effects on terrestrial events. Certain positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to one another could cause heavy rains. The clerk in the _Milleres Tale_ predicts a great rain through observation of the moon's position: "'Now John,' quod Nicholas, 'I wol nat lye; I have y-founde in myn astrologye, As I have loked in the mone bright, That now, a Monday next, at quarter-night, Shal falle a reyn and that so wilde and wood, That half so greet was never Noes flood.'"[162] Such predictions as this were, however, by no means always believed in even by uneducated people. In this case, for the purposes of the story, the flood does not take place. The carpenter, John, is taken in because the story requires it, but Nicholas is a quack pure and simple, and of course the Miller who tells the story has no delusions.