Scorpio Venus and Capricorn Venus compatibility joins two signs two steps apart on the zodiac wheel. That gap is a sextile, an angle Ptolemy counted as friendly. Yet this is the least common of the twelve Venus sextiles. Venus spends less time in Capricorn than in any other sign, and Scorpio is her second-rarest.
The old rules add a quiet link. Venus is in exile in Scorpio and has no major rank in Capricorn. But Ptolemy gives her a share in ruling both signs for anyone born by day. We tracked Venus and the Sun from 1600 to 2400 to put numbers on this pair. Read the page as a lens for talking about love, not as a forecast. Astrology is not a science, and no study has shown that Venus signs predict how a couple will do.
The pair at a glance
| Question | What we found. |
|---|---|
| How common is the pair? | About 1 random couple in 77, rank 66 of the 78 Venus pairs. |
| How far apart are the signs? | Two signs, a friendly angle called a sextile. |
| Is it common among sextiles? | No, it is the least common of the twelve. |
| Where is each Venus strong? | In exile in Scorpio, with no major rank in Capricorn. |
| Which Sun signs are most likely? | One Scorpio Sun and one Sagittarius Sun, in about 1 couple in 11. |
| Do the partners share a Sun sign? | In about 1 couple in 8, mostly two Sagittarius Suns. |
What a Venus sign is
Your Venus sign is the sign Venus was in when you were born. In astrology it shows what you find lovely and how you like to be loved. Venus never strays far from the Sun in our sky. So people with Venus in Scorpio are born between late August and mid January. People with Venus in Capricorn are born between late October and about March 20.
Your Sun sign alone does not give your Venus sign. You need the date, and near a sign line, the hour. A free birth chart gives it in seconds.
A sextile, by the old rules
An aspect is an angle between two points on the wheel. Ptolemy wrote the Tetrabiblos in Alexandria around 150 AD. In Book I, chapter 13, he counted four aspects. He called the trine and the sextile harmonious. He called the square and the opposition discordant.
Signs two steps apart form a sextile, an angle of 60 degrees. So Scorpio and Capricorn share an easy aspect. The natures fit as well. Scorpio is water and Capricorn is earth. In the old scheme, water is cold and moist, and earth is cold and dry. They share the cold. Both signs count as feminine, or receptive.
The modes differ. Scorpio is fixed, the middle of autumn. Capricorn is cardinal, the start of winter. A fixed sign holds on, and a cardinal sign begins things.
Two rarer Venus signs
Venus does not spend the same time in each sign. About every 19 months it seems to move backward for some six weeks. Astrologers call this retrograde motion. Venus repeats its path on an eight-year cycle, so a short span of years can skew the count. We used eight full centuries.
| Venus sign | Share of time, 1600 to 2400 | Rank of twelve. |
|---|---|---|
| Scorpio | 8.11 percent | Eleventh. |
| Capricorn | 8.04 percent | Twelfth, the rarest. |
| Equal share | 8.33 percent | One sign in twelve. |
Now take two people at random. The chance that one has Venus in Scorpio and the other in Capricorn is twice the product of the two shares. That comes to 1.30 percent, or about 1 couple in 77. The pair ranks 66th of the 78 Venus pairs. Among the twelve sextile pairs, it comes last. The most common sextile, Taurus and Cancer, is also the most common pair of all.
The gaps are small. The most common sextile reaches 1.48 percent, so the spread is less than two tenths of a point. Read the rank as a detail, not a verdict.
By day, Venus shares rule of both signs
Each sign has a ruling planet. Think of it as the landlord of the sign. Mars rules Scorpio, and Saturn rules Capricorn. Venus rules Taurus, the sign straight across from Scorpio. So in Scorpio she sits in the house opposite her own. The old books call this exile, or detriment.
In Capricorn, Venus holds no major rank. She is not at home, not honored and not weak. Astrologers call this state peregrine, a Latin word for a traveler. She does hold a few degrees there as her terms, a minor share of rule.
Chapter 18 of the Tetrabiblos changes the picture. Ptolemy splits the signs into four triangles and gives each one to rulers. The earth triangle of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn goes to “the moon and Venus; the moon governs it by night and Venus by day.” The water triangle of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces goes to Mars. Along with him, “the moon by night and Venus by day are co-rulers.”
So both signs of this pair give Venus a part in their rule, and both do it by day. A day birth means the Sun was above the horizon. For two partners born by day, each Venus has a say in her own sign. A night birth hands that share to the Moon. Your birth time decides it.
| Question | Scorpio Venus | Capricorn Venus. |
|---|---|---|
| Who rules the sign? | Mars | Saturn. |
| What is the rank of Venus there? | Exile, a weak rank | No major rank, a traveler. |
| Does Venus share the triangle? | Yes, by day, with Mars | Yes, by day, with the Moon by night. |
| What element? | Water | Earth. |
| What mode? | Fixed, the middle of autumn | Cardinal, the start of winter. |
| How much time does Venus spend there? | 8.11 percent, 11th of twelve | 8.04 percent, 12th of twelve. |
Mars runs through both signs as well. He rules Scorpio, and chapter 19 makes Capricorn his exaltation, the sign where he is most honored. Ptolemy says Mars grows “all the more” fiery there, because he is farthest south. Our page on Venus in Scorpio tells the story of the exile. The page on Venus in Capricorn explains why her minor ranks there matter.
The other bonds Ptolemy names
Ptolemy lists two more ties between signs. Chapter 14 pairs signs that “command” and “obey.” Chapter 15 pairs signs that “behold” each other, because their days have the same length. Both can be read two ways. One reading works by whole signs. The other works by exact degree, as mirror points around a fixed line.
| Rule | Read by whole signs | Read by degree. |
|---|---|---|
| Commanding and obeying, chapter 14 | Scorpio pairs with Virgo, and Capricorn with Cancer | Scorpio mirrors Leo, and Capricorn mirrors Gemini. |
| Beholding, chapter 15 | Scorpio pairs with Pisces, and Capricorn has no partner | Scorpio mirrors Aquarius, and Capricorn mirrors Sagittarius. |
The whole-sign lists come from Robbins’s notes 80 and 83 to his translation. Note 83 says that Cancer and Capricorn “are left without mates.” The degree reading is the one William Lilly used in 1647, where a mirror point is called an antiscion. Neither reading ties Scorpio to Capricorn. By degree, the two Venuses land on mirror points within 3 degrees in only 0.5 percent of couples, right at the sign edges.
So the sextile is the only classic bond here. For Ptolemy, that was enough to call the signs friendly.
How close are the two Venus points?
A sign is 30 degrees wide. So a Scorpio Venus and a Capricorn Venus can sit anywhere from about 30 to 90 degrees apart. Astrologers allow an orb, the miss they accept around an exact angle. Here is the share of couples whose two Venus points fall within each orb of an exact 60 degrees.
| Allowed miss | Share of couples. |
|---|---|
| Within 3 degrees | 19.0 percent. |
| Within 6 degrees | 36.0 percent. |
| Within 8 degrees | 46.2 percent. |
| Within 10 degrees | 55.5 percent. |
So fewer than half of these couples have a true sextile at a common orb of 8 degrees. That share is close to the same for every pair of signs. At one edge, an early Scorpio Venus and a late Capricorn Venus come close to 90 degrees, a square. That happens within 8 degrees in 3.58 percent of couples.
A birth date is enough to find the Venus degree within a degree or so. Venus never moves more than about a degree and a quarter in a day.
The Sun signs behind each Venus
Venus orbits inside the Earth’s path. From here, it never gets more than 47.28 degrees from the Sun. So your Venus sign is your Sun sign or one of the four signs closest to it. Among people with Venus in a given sign, which Sun signs do they have?
| Sun sign | People with Venus in Scorpio | People with Venus in Capricorn. |
|---|---|---|
| Virgo | 9.3 percent | None. |
| Libra | 29.7 percent | None. |
| Scorpio | 23.5 percent | 9.6 percent. |
| Sagittarius | 28.4 percent | 28.8 percent. |
| Capricorn | 9.1 percent | 23.2 percent. |
| Aquarius | None | 29.0 percent. |
| Pisces | None | 9.4 percent. |
Sagittarius, the sign between the two Venuses, stands out. It holds close to 29 percent on each side. So 49 percent of these couples include at least one Sagittarius Sun.
| Most likely Sun pairs | Share of these couples. |
|---|---|
| One Scorpio Sun and one Sagittarius Sun | 9.5 percent. |
| One Sagittarius Sun and one Capricorn Sun | 9.2 percent. |
| One Libra Sun and one Aquarius Sun | 8.6 percent. |
| One Libra Sun and one Sagittarius Sun | 8.6 percent. |
| One Sagittarius Sun and one Aquarius Sun | 8.2 percent. |
| Two Sagittarius Suns | 8.2 percent. |
The top mix covers only about 1 couple in 11, so it is a lean, not a rule. A Scorpio Sun with a Capricorn Sun comes ninth, at 6.3 percent. It needs both partners to have Venus in their own Sun sign.
How far apart are the two Suns? A sextile leads at 24.9 percent, close to a gap of one sign at 24.2 percent. The Suns share a sign in 12.5 percent of couples, about 1 in 8. Two Sagittarius Suns make up most of that, at 8.2 percent. Two Scorpio Suns make 2.3 percent, and two Capricorn Suns 2.1 percent.
In 41.24 percent of these couples, at least one partner has Venus in their own Sun sign. That ranks 69th of the 78 pairs.
How the tradition reads this pair
Nothing below has been tested. It is how the old symbols describe the two styles.
Where the pair flows
Both signs are cool and receptive in the old scheme. Neither one rushes. The Scorpio Venus tests trust before it gives it. The Capricorn Venus builds love the way it builds a house, one course at a time. Both take commitment seriously.
Both are private as well. They show love through loyalty and deeds more than through words. Modern writers such as Liz Greene and Stephen Arroyo read a Venus through its element. Water loves by feeling deeply. Earth loves by making things last.
Where it snags
The friction is about feeling and duty. The Scorpio Venus wants to be known all the way down. The Capricorn Venus wants a plan, and it can put feelings off until the work is done. To one partner, calm can feel like distance. To the other, intensity can feel like a storm.
Two reserved people can also both wait. Each can hold back until the other shows its hand. The sextile, in the old reading, is an opening that needs a step. It helps, but someone has to use it.
The same signs through other planets and pairs
The Sun shows the core self, a different layer from Venus. Our page on the Sun-sign comparison of Scorpio and Capricorn covers that layer. The Moon shows emotional needs, and Scorpio Moon and Capricorn Moon compatibility reads the pair that way.
One step back, a Scorpio Venus meets its neighbor in Scorpio Venus and Sagittarius Venus compatibility. The rarest Venus sign meets another sextile in Capricorn Venus and Pisces Venus compatibility. Every pair of Venus signs is listed in our guide to Venus sign compatibility.
What the evidence says
No study has tested Venus pairs. The largest test of love signs used the Sun. In 2007 the sociologist David Voas looked at the 2001 census of England and Wales, with 10.3 million married couples. He found no link between Sun signs and who marries whom. A small excess of same-sign couples came from errors on the forms.
So a sextile is not a promise, and an exile is not a warning. The odds on this page are odds about the sky, not about love.
How we measured
All figures cover 1 January 1600 to 1 January 2400, in the tropical zodiac, seen from the center of the Earth. Every moment of birth counts the same. We used two methods that share no code. The first used the Astronomy Engine library. It found each time Venus and the Sun entered a sign, to a tenth of a second, and added up the time. The second used the Swiss Ephemeris. It checked the sign of Venus every hour, on a grid set half an hour off the first. That is more than seven million points. Neither method drew random numbers. On the Venus figures, the two agree within 0.01 points.
Pair odds assume two people born at unrelated moments. The Sun pair figures multiply each partner’s Sun sign shares. The degree and mirror figures use the real spread of Venus inside each sign, in steps of a tenth of a degree. Ptolemy is quoted from the Loeb edition by Frank Robbins, Book I, chapters 13 to 19.
Frequently asked questions
Are Venus in Scorpio and Venus in Capricorn compatible?
They form a sextile, an angle Ptolemy called harmonious, and both signs are cool and receptive. Within 8 degrees, 46.2 percent of couples have a true sextile. No study shows that Venus signs predict how a couple does.
How common is a Scorpio Venus and Capricorn Venus couple?
About 1 couple in 77, or 1.30 percent, over 1600 to 2400. It ranks 66th of the 78 Venus pairs and last of the twelve sextile pairs.
What Sun signs are likeliest for this couple?
One Scorpio Sun and one Sagittarius Sun, in 9.5 percent of these couples. About 49 percent of the couples include at least one Sagittarius Sun.
Why is Venus said to share rule of Scorpio and Capricorn?
In Tetrabiblos I.18, Ptolemy makes Venus a ruler by day of both the earth triangle and the water triangle. So a day-born partner’s Venus keeps a share in either sign.
Do Scorpio and Capricorn behold each other?
No. By whole signs, Robbins’s note 83 leaves Capricorn with no partner. By degree, Capricorn mirrors Sagittarius and Scorpio mirrors Aquarius.
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