In astrology, a prominence of Cygnus is said to give a contemplative, dreamy, cultured and adaptable nature, with ill-regulated and unsteady affections. Talents are said to develop late. There is some love of water and swimming and the arts. Manilus, writing in the 1st century CE analyzed the influence of Cygnus as follows:

“Its down and glittering wings figured by stars. Accordingly he who at its rising leaves his mother’s womb and beholds the light of day shall make the denizens of the air and the race of birds that is dedicated to heaven the source of his pleasure and profit.

“From this constellation shall flow a thousand human skills: its child will declare war on heaven and catch a bird in mid-flight, or he will rob it of its nestling, or draw nets up and over a bird whilst it is perched on a branch or feeds on the ground (swans have a reputation for being hostile to other birds). And the object of these skills is to satisfy our high living. Today we go farther afield for the stomach than we used to go for war: we are fed from the shores of Numidia and the groves of Phasis; our markets are stocked from the land whence over a new-discovered sea was carried off the Golden Fleece. Nay more, such a man will impart to the birds of the air the language of men and what words mean; he will introduce them to a new kind of intercourse, teaching them the speech denied them by nature’s law.

“In its own person the Swan hides a god (as being in the disguise of Jupiter) and the voice belonging to it; it is more than a bird and mutters to itself within. Fail not to mark the men who delight to feed the birds of Venus in pens on a rooftop, releasing them to their native skies or recalling them by special signs; or those who carry in cages throughout the city birds taught to obey words of command, men whose total wealth consists of a little sparrow (for such performing birds).”

(Manilus, Astronomica, Book 5).