Also called: Cingulum Veneris · Ring of Venus · Katibandh · Kardhani Rekha

Where on the hand: A semicircular arc above the Heart line, in the upper palm below the fingers. Its standard course begins in the web between the index and middle fingers, arcs downward and across over the Mounts of Saturn and Apollo, and ends in the web between the ring and little fingers. Variants rise on the Mount of Jupiter itself, or run further out onto the Mount of Mercury and end on the percussion; Cheiro describes a longer version running from between Jupiter and Saturn down to between Mercury and the Luna mount.

What it looks like: A bowed arc riding above the Heart line like a second, higher heart line. Very often fragmentary — one or two short arcs, or a broken series — rather than a complete girdle.

The line of heightened emotional and sensory sensitivity. Modern reading: nervous intensity, refined aesthetic response, strong reaction to beauty, music and atmosphere, erotic responsiveness, and also moodiness, over-reaction and emotional volatility. It is common on artists, musicians, dancers and performers. Its interpretation has changed more than that of any other line.

Western reading: Older texts read it as lasciviousness and moral looseness. Benham replaced that with nervousness and liability to hysteria, and restricted the sensual reading strictly to coarse, thick, red hands with a swollen Venus mount.

Read with care: The historical "lasciviousness / moral looseness" reading is a judgemental artefact of nineteenth-century texts, and Dale's "intemperance, lust, baseness" and "losses and infamy" readings belong to that era. Benham explicitly overruled them. Present the older reading as tradition only, never as a character verdict; likewise "liability to hysteria" is a period medical framing with no clinical standing.

rises between the fingers of Jupiter and Saturn and runs across the Mounts of Saturn and Apollo, ending between the fingers of Apollo and Mercury.Benham

nearly always does indicate an intense state of nervousness, and in a large majority of cases great liability to hysteria.Benham

overflow[s] into the palm of the handBenham