Interesting stuff! Thanks for posting. I have read some of those passages before but as my focus was not primarily on practical alchemy, I missed that entirely. I do think if people start taking alchemy as a topic, particularly people like Jennifer, that permeates the VMS, more and more of these detailed processes will be found in the images.
That’s my aim, if I have one:I don’t want alchemy dismissed, because the VMS often uses its own symbol, not used before, as metaphors.
For instance, once a reader understands the nymphs not as mythical creatures, or even female, but as substances, defined by narrative, context or accoutrements, the entire balneological section, as well as pages of the zodiac, take on an entirely new meaning. The only thing the nymphs have when naked and apart from the aforementioned, are pregnant bellies, signifying life or reproduction. If you think of them as substances, like sulphur, mercury, possibly the elements, and definitely the water of life/quintessence, everything starts to come into focus.
I will give you an example: I believe starting at the bottom of the “Melusine” page, reading up, then reading down the prior page You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. or the Hermaphroditus page, one can read a summary of the alchemical Magnum Opus, the Great Work, including the most important three stages: Nigredo (Black),Albido (White), and Rubedo (Red). I’ve only come to this theory recently, but a conversation with Koen about one of the images has made me almost certain I am on the right track. I will post the key points with images later.
But since you seem to know the images, nablator, I will begin with the “Melusine”page on f79v. The bottom image is a green pool of water with animal bodies, among which is a nymph rising out of a fish. She is looking upwards as if she wants whatever is up there.
So let’s put this in alchemy terms, ignoring “Melusine” in search of a soul entirely. As I stated before, the green pool can be seen as prima materia. The animals are symbolic of “bodies” in the prima materia. The fish is one of those bodies, but a different type of body to signify one of the three most common substances in alchemy: salt. Salt symbolizes the body in alchemy. Specifically sea salt, thus the fish. . “Melusine” is just a substance that must be separated from the salt or body.
In alchemy, her substance at this point should be a combo of sulphur, mercury, a bunch of other things and impurities. The goal of alchemy is to take this mass,which contains the quintessence, isolate sulphur and mercury, separate them, modify them, and put them back together again as the philosopher’s stone/quintessence.
Let’s move up to what look like pipes and then a nymph or substance. I believe this is representative of various practices to distill or sublimate the hybrid substance. Notice that the green changes to blue water in the pipes. Think of the substance/nymph coming out of this process with all impurities washed away, leaving only the two necessary substances - sulphur and mercury, the incipient, potential water of life, behind, thus the water becomes blue.
Up we go to our dead character. Death in alchemy is the signature of the Nigredo phase in alchemy, which is what we’ve been following, but it’s this figure that really alerts the reader because this is where the substance turns black. In alchemy, it’s often symbolized by a skeleton, a black raven, other black animals, the death of a king, entombment, or just as here, a dead figure.
This step is putrefaction. Basically the mass is left to rot for, traditionally, 40 days and it turns black. But there’s more with this symbol. Koen directed me to a very compelling illustration that looks exactly like this nymph (I will insert it later when I have more time to play with inserting links and illustrations). The Whore of Babylon. I can’t think of a more apt character to symbolize the rot and corruption of this step.
Now it’s during this step that the peacock or rainbow sub-stage occurs. The VMS authors have left it out but you can see it at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. . The black mass becomes very oily so that you can see rainbow colours in it. This oily substance and the remainder are separated, and a “resurrection” (symbolized by the nymph with cross) occurs: the sulphur and mercury are resurrected as two separate substances, thus beginning the albedo phase, which can be followed at the top of You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. and then the Rubedo phase to complete the process in what I interpret as the story of Hermaphroditus.
Will end here. It’s highly speculative and I’m not sure anyone else can see it but me! But I have studied semiotics, and immersed myself in alchemical imagery, so I hope this interpretation, faulty as it may be, can be taken seriously.
