Lilly addresses "whether an absent party be alive or dead"
What mark, mole or scar, the querent had in any part of his body. (uninteresting to me. skipped)
Whether one absent be dead or alive.
If the missing person is not related to the person who asks the question, the *missing person* gets the first house, and the First House, lord of the first and the Moon signify the missing party. The Lord of the Eighth, or planet located in (or within 5 degrees of the cusp) of the eighth show his death and its quality.
If Lord of the Ascendant (or Moon) and Lord of the 8th are conjunct, or in opposition in houses 8,2, 6, 12, these denote that the party is deceased or sick and near death.
If there is any translation of light between the Lord of the Ascendant and Lord of the 8th, or the Lord of the 8th be in the ascendant, or Lord of the Ascendant and (or?) Moon in the 4th, these are all testimonies that the party is dead.
If the Lord of the Ascendant separates from a bad aspect of
a) Lord of the 6th => judge that the party has recently been sick
b) Lord of the 8th => judge that the party has been in danger of death, but is not dead
c) Lord of the 12th => judge that the party has been troubled by thoughts of imprisonment, arrests etc
d) Lord of the 2nd => judge that the party has suffered from lack of money
e) Lord of the 9th/3d => he has been accosted by thieves etc on his journeys
and so on.
Lilly finds that if the Lord of the Ascendant is in the 9th, 10th or 11th, in spite of many reports that the party was dead, he turned up alive. So judge accordingly. To see when this party would return, or if you'll get news of him, look for
(a) Lord of the 11th and ascendant come to a trine or sextile (why only 11th? why not 10th or 9th?)
(b) If the Moon applies to a trine or sextile of the Lord of the Ascendant, count the degrees to perfect the aspect and for every degree (measured *from the Moon* at least that is how I understand it)
in moveable signs, take days,
in common signs, weeks
in fixed signs, months
to get the interval of time from now, to when you'd hear of the party being alive.
Now Lilly judges the chart cast for the woman enquiring if her son was at her home, *as if* it were a chart cast for "whether an absent party be dead or alive"
The First House is Libra (interesting that the son gets the first house in spite of the querent having a relationship with him. This is in keeping with Minderwiz's horary method which I have shamelessly copied and adopted and can be found on the first page of this thread) with Jupiter contained in it (practically conjunct the ascendant).
Thus Venus (Lady of the Ascendant) and Jupiter (planet contained in the 1st) and Moon (always, co significator of the party who gets the first house) are the significators.
None of these are in any malignant aspect (including conjunction) to the Lords of the 8th or 6th (note that Lilly does not check for aspects to the Lord of the 2nd or 12th, though he asks us to do so in the 'general instructions' above.
There is no tarnslation of light between the Lords of 8th/6th and Lords of the ascendant, the Lord of the 8th is not in the ascendant, and neither Moon nor Lord of the ascendant are in the 4th.
(Lilly doesn't mention this, but here Venus, Lady of the Ascendant is in the 9th, which is another indicator that the party is in good health).
So Lilly judges the absent party to be alive and in good health.
and then goes further.
Since the Lady of the Ascendant (Venus) had recently squared Mars, Lord of the 2nd and 6th, Lilly judges that the party had suffered from want of Money (2nd) or inclined to a fever (6th) but by Jupiter being in the Ascendant and trine to Venus (in the 9th) Lilly judges that Medicine (jupiter) was applied, and since Mercury (lord of the 111th) *squares* Jupiter in the ascendant BUT Lilly says these are 'signs of long ascensios' so this is effectively a trine (!!!! mind blown !!! Is this a general principle to learn and apply? By degree, this is very much an applying square!). Mercury is about 10 degrees away from a perfect square from Jupiter, and in Cancer, (so a Movable sign) so Lilly would predict that the querent would get news of the party in about 10 weeks. (Hmm this should be 10 days by the Movable signs being given 'days' in the general schema above, but Lilly seems to be contextualizing as Minderwiz clarified in an earlier post)
The emerging principle I notice is that a chart cast for a question X of the nature of house A, can be used for other questions Y,Z as long as they are also of the nature of house A.
Whoa!