Capricorn opens at the December solstice, the Sun's lowest declination and the year's shortest day. Cardinal and earth.
Saturn rules it, and the traditional attributions — endurance, structure, patience with slow returns — are the qualities of the season that has the least to work with and the longest to wait.
The Sun moves fastest through the zodiac here, about 1.019° a day, because the Earth reaches perihelion in early January. Capricorn is consequently the shortest sign in time: roughly 29.5 days against Cancer's 31.4.
Traditionally attributed
Endurance, structure, ambition, and patience with slow returns.
Listed because it is what the tradition says, not because this site can check it. Everything above this line is geometry; everything in it is convention.