The Voynich Ninja

Aristotle has described the rainbow in Meteorologica (and also mentioned it elsewhere e.g. de Caelo). An excellent summary of his theory (in connection with his colour theory  is Aydin  Sayili' s paper "The Aristotlelian Explanation of the rainbow" (Isis, 30, No. 1, pages 65-83, if interested, PM me for further details)

A free summary (apart from the usual sources) is here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Maybe important to note here is the fact that Aristotle also focusses on 'two' rainbows, an inner and outer bow (but he is by no means the only one doing that - and he has learned from his predecessors in this instance a lot).

The Aristoteleian colour code wouldn't fit (red green and purple) though that also is not 100% assured in the Voynich context as mentioned before in the thread. Again, Aristotle's choice/reasoning of colours has been challenged beginning 14th century (Theodoricus of Freiberg).

What also comes to mind are lunar rainbows - very rarely observed - also described by Aristotle in his Meteorologica - though I can't recall now if that also comes in two...

ssst Jurgen, don't tell it all. Let them figure it out themselves first.

I found these (three or two colours):
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About double rainbows - Dante, Paradiso, Canto 12:

" As through a tenuous cloud two arcs curve
parallel and colored alike, when Juno commands
her handmaid,
the outer born from the inner one, like the
speech of that desirous nymph whom love
consumed as the sun does vapors
and cause people here to predict the
weather, thanks to the pact God made with
Noah, that the world will never again be flooded;
So the garlands of those two sempiternal
roses turned about us, so the outer replied
to the inner one;"

Dante refers to two things: Ovid, via the mention of the handmaid of Juno (Iris = rainbow) whom he associates with Echo (an echoed rainbow = a double rainbow), and the Bible's book of Genesis (8:13: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the Earth)

Another interesting text about rainbows is the Ovide Moralisé, which was hugely popular in the 14th C.
It is in old French but here's my best translation of the parts which deal with rainbows:
XXI: Juno wanted to return to the sky. While she was climbing back up she was splashed and showered by the rainbow, which in latin is called Yris. And if any of you are wondering what Yris is, I will reply truthfully that it is a repercussion of the sun shining upon a cloud, and that it is shaped like a half compass, and that it drinks and draws water, not to retain it but to spill it... 
This part is followed by a long passage that details the virtues associated with rainbows: that it is a sign of God's covenant with Earth, that it is a symbol of charity and that it is a symbol of divine forgiveness, the light of god's grace reflected in the tears of the repenting sinner.

Might the thought of rainbows somehow "drinking", spilling or somehow transferring water explain the "fringes" at the end?

There's also a part in the Metamorphoses about a flood caused by Jupiter's anger. This part seems interesting:

Quote:When he crushes the hanging clouds in his outstretched hand there is a crash, and the dense vapours pour down rain from heaven. Iris, Juno’s messenger, dressed in the colours of the rainbow, gathers water and feeds it back to the clouds. The cornfields are flattened and saddening the farmers, the crops, the object of their prayers, are ruined, and the long year’s labour wasted.

I agree that it is very tempting to see the fringes as water spilling from the rainbow.
However, if this is a rainbow, it does not mean that the reason for its presence in the Voynich really literally illustrates the mythological story of Iris: it might refer to other things medieval people were interested in regarding rainbows, such as optics (with Robert Grosseteste or Theodoric of Freiberg recreating the rainbow in the lab), or the rainbow's medieval interpretations, such as the virtues described in the Ovide Moralisé, or the symbolism of the phases of the alchemical process JKP mentioned.
Considering the presence of the nymph holding a tube next to it, and all the vapor action going on nearby, I'm personally more tempted to go with the optics/alchemical interpretations.

I'm not sure if this one has anything to do with mythology either, I really have no idea. It is the thought of rainbows transferring water that I found interesting.

Given the appearanceof the fringes I'd be more inclined to see a double meaning as fabrics, like Jkp.also suggested. Though that doesn't help much..

VViews:

Quote:I think it may be significant that what we see in the Voynich (if it really is a rainbow) is actually a double rainbow.

I found an example of the type of apocalypse image I'd mentioned earlier. To me, the similarity is in the double nature of the rainbow, although of course, the Voynich rainbows have nobody sitting on them.

Of course, no one is sitting on the rainbows in the VMs, but, I also think that the idea can be just in a meaning of that double rainbow. Christ (mostly, Christ in Majesty, Christ in the Last Judgement) often was depicted seated on the doubled rainbow, that means:
The rainbow is a frequent iconographical element of the Ascension of Christ and Christ in Majesty. It has been considered as a common feature of the Palestinian and Byzantine iconographical type of Christ’s Ascension, as well as of the East iconographical type of mandorla in Christ in Majesty scenes. Representation of a rainbow portrays the throne of God as described in /”You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.”/; /”You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.”/ in two ways – symbolically and naturalistically. 37 One of the earliest known depictions of mandorla with rainbow is the apse mosaic of Christ in Majesty in the church of Hosios David, Thessaloniki (end of V or beginning of VI c. AD) 38 . In many cases, mandorla is combined with two rainbows as a visual reference of the already described notion about heaven as throne of God and earth as His footstool. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.



 As for the water on the end of the rainbows, it can mean that it appears after the rain anyway, and, like a gate, locks the water of the rain in the sky, as in Noah's story, when the rainbow "locked the Flood".

Hi Searcher,
This explanation has the benefit of explaining the double rainbow feature, and certainly a medieval mind would immediately associate the double rainbow to the type of iconography your image and the one I posted display, as it was extremely widespread.

I think we have to also take into account that there is another rainbow on this folio, represented at the top of the page, which to me really echoes the idea that rainbows are formed on the side of clouds, expressed in Ovide Moralisé:



And then on the next page, we have another rainbowy-looking feature, although that one's ends are clearly drawn like tubes, which could mean that the rainbow has been recreated using lab equipment:



Could it be that the author is discussing rainbows, showing how they are formed in nature, how they can also be double, and then how you can recreate them in the lab, or something along those lines?

Just some various thoughts on the subject.

I find the rainbow/flood connection Koen mentions intriguing.

Here is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which covers the Black Sea flood, indicating that the displaced culture was extremely advanced and theirs were probably the basis for technologies of the Egyptians and others. They show golden artifacts which include large rings, cylinders, and depictions of rams. Kind of sounds familiar somehow... could it be that some of the information in the MS came from this society or those that sprang from their dispersal?

There are several instances in the MS that make me think flood, especially Quire 13 with its water bodies , and also Quire 14 with its imagery. At one point in my looking at the rosettes I thought that an alternative coastline was portrayed for the southwestern part of the Mediterranean, then upon researching whether this could ever have been the case, I found a scientific paper stating the same hypothesis. I'm not certain that means that is what is indicated, since by current standards it would have happened long before any known civilization could have recorded it, but it is certainly food for thought, at least it is for me. I have also seen glimpses of this idea in ancient cave drawings, although again this is my own interpretation.

I'm not sure that the last example VViews provided is a rainbow. In my own interpretation at this time, it depicts the Canal of the Pharaohs. However it would still be a flooding situation, albeit a planned one, so perhaps the connection is still there.

Perhaps the rainbows mean waterfalls are involved. I take the first of Vviews' diagram examples to mean runoff from a mountain created a lake, although I can't say I understand the significance of the green the nymph stands in which I would generally take to mean salty or mineralized water, nor the red bit, heat? The other bit I also take as mountain runoff but again I am unsure of the meaning of its shape and proximity to the other with the rainbow, perhaps other rivers or runoff from other mountain ranges also contributing to the newly created freshwater bodies, perhaps underground.

As to the double rainbow, I once read that all rainbows are thus, just not always readily visible as such. Could it stand as a metaphor for seeing beyond the easily seen? An indication of more beyond the known extents?



The religious connotations noted by Searcher I think could be involved insofar as they might be part of the culture of the copyist(s), if indeed it is a copy of older info, but most of what I see portrayed are things which would have occurred or been that way before the new testament came to be written. However, if indeed we are talking floods, this could appear as end times, which would also connect those two ideas of rainbow imagery.

The idea of locking the flood is also interesting, but I agree would be related to the timing of rainbow viewings to generally occur after the rain has stopped. However in the case of rainbows which are seen over waterfalls, these tend to be visible day after day, year after year, as long as the correct lighting is in play. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.