Decan One · 0°–10°
Mercury ♉
Apr 20 – Apr 30
Quickened by Mercury — the bull that thinks and talks, steadiness with a curious mind attached.
Taurus, the Bull.
Apr 20 – May 20 · Fixed Earth · Ruled by Venus
Taurus is the zodiac's steady ground — the fixed earth sign that trusts what it can touch, taste, and keep. Ruled by Venus, it loves beauty and comfort without apology, and it moves at the pace of something that intends to last. Its symbol is the bull: slow to anger, immovable once settled, quietly powerful.
Plate · The Reading
The sign, at a glance.
Element
Earth 土
Modality
Fixed
Ruling Planet
Venus ♀
Symbol
The Bull ♉
Polarity
Receptive
House
Second the 2nd
Brightest Star
Aldebaran α Tau
Season
Mid-Spring
Plate · The Myth
The god who wore the shape of a bull.
Taurus carries one of Zeus's most famous disguises. To win Europa, a Phoenician princess, the king of the gods took the form of a bull so magnificent and gentle that she climbed onto his back without fear — at which point he rose and carried her across the sea to Crete. The constellation shows only the front half of the animal, rising out of the water, forever caught mid-crossing. Older still, the Babylonians saw this same V of stars as the Bull of Heaven, and marked their spring by it. Whichever story you take, the meaning that settled into the sign is the same: strength that does not need to hurry, and a beauty worth crossing an ocean for.
That is the character of the sign. Taurus is fixed earth — the most grounded expression of the most grounded element. Fixed signs hold; earth builds and endures. Together they make a temperament that is patient, sensual, and deeply loyal, that plants slowly and then refuses to be moved, and that measures its life in things made to keep rather than moments spent.
"Taurus is not stubborn for its own sake. It has simply already decided, and it was probably right."
Venus, the ruler, is the planet of love, beauty, and value — of what we find pleasurable and what we consider worth having. This is why Taurus governs the astrological second house: the house of money, possessions, and self-worth, everything we build, hold, and call our own.
Read well, a Taurus placement in your chart is not materialism — it is a map of where you seek solid ground. It marks the corner of life where you build patiently, love steadily, and refuse to be rushed into anything that won't last.
Plate · The Temperament
Two sides of the same soil.
Every strength a sign is proud of casts a shadow it would rather not discuss. Taurus's steadiness is both its foundation and its cage, depending on whether it holds or simply refuses to move.
At its best
ReliablePatientDevotedGroundedSensualLoyalGenerous
At its shadow
StubbornPossessiveResistantIndulgentSlow to changeComfort-bound
Plate · The Constellation
Aldebaran — the eye of the bull.
Look for the small V of stars that forms the bull's face, and at one tip burns Aldebaran, a red giant so vivid it reads clearly as an angry orange eye. Its name comes from the Arabic for "the follower," because it appears to chase the Pleiades star cluster — the bull's shoulder — across the sky each night. It is one of the four royal stars of ancient Persia, and though it seems to sit within the V, it is actually far closer to us, a bright foreground jewel laid by chance over a distant cluster. A fitting eye for an earth sign: warm, fixed, and unmistakably watching.
Plate · The Three Decans
Not one Taurus, but three.
Each sign divides into three ten-degree decans, and tradition gives each its own sub-ruler. It is the oldest answer to why two people of the same sign can feel nothing alike — a Taurus born in the first ten days is not the same Taurus as one born in the last.
Decan Two · 10°–20°
Moon ♉
May 1 – May 10
Deepened by the Moon — the most sensual and home-bound Taurus, security felt rather than reasoned.
Decan Three · 20°–30°
Saturn ♉
May 11 – May 20
Hardened by Saturn — the builder's Taurus: slowest, most enduring, most likely to still be there in thirty years.
Plate · The Sky Right Now
Where Taurus is tonight.
Live from real astronomy
Reading the sky…
Working out where the constellation sits from your point of view.
Assuming mid-northern latitudes
Light that left before you did
Aldebaran lies roughly 65 light-years away — a red giant whose name means the follower, forever chasing the Pleiades. The light reaching your eye tonight left that star around 1961, and has been travelling ever since. You are not looking at Aldebaran. You are looking at its past.
The same stars, other eyes
What others saw here
To the Babylonians this was the Bull of Heaven, whose rising opened their spring. In Japan the star cluster on its shoulder — the Pleiades — is Subaru, meaning united, and its six stars became a car company's badge.
Plate · The Mirror
Is this actually you?
Rate how well each statement fits. Answer honestly — the result is more interesting that way.
Plate · Questions, Not Answers
What Taurus is good at asking.
Astrarium does not predict. But a tradition four thousand years old is very practised at asking the right question — and these are the ones this sign keeps returning to.
What are you holding on to because letting go would mean admitting something changed?
What have you built slowly that you are quietly proud of?
Where does your comfort end and your rut begin?
The traits, rulerships and decans on this page are the Western astrological tradition as codified in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (2nd century CE) and refined through medieval Arabic and Renaissance sources. They describe what the tradition holds about the sign — not verified claims about people born under it. The astronomy is separate and real: see our editorial standards.
Plate · The Company It Keeps
Who plants roots with Taurus.
Astrological compatibility is a starting question, not an answer — a real chart holds far more than sun signs. Traditionally, Taurus settles most easily with the other earth signs and the water signs that help it grow.
Plate · Go Deeper
Where is your solid ground?
Your sun sign is one line of the story. Cast your full birth chart to see where Venus, the second house, and your Taurus placements actually fall.