There is so much work and discussion around the section that contains the seven stars. I understand the logic and paradigms used in searching for the word Taurus but, I had a thought and, I was hoping some of you scholars could think this through with me.
Let's assume the seven stars are the the Pleiades (and there is going to be a lot of assumptions... old hat for you folks.) I feel like the masculine nature of Taurus goes against the female nature of the codex. So, what if the curved (female) line is going from the star cluster to the center figure communicating "I come from here" and/or "we are connected."
What if the center moon figure is Pleione their mother. She brings a lot to the table, as far as, connecting imagery in her mythos. Female, water, etc.
The large star above the seven sisters could be Elnath; which could be, the Butting One. But, not referring to the bull but, the goat. Or, it could also be Capella; Small She Goat. Which continues a female and not male narrative, and again, a goat.
I share this in hopes of both reasoning out this logic and to hopefully give you language scholars a few words to chase and seek. Goat seems like it would be helpful to find.
Thanks for reading.
Unfortunately, there are so many myths and legends that we can read almost anything into one singe interpretation.
Now, if you can find similar myths from the same tradition linked onto other pages, then you can start to build up a case.
Also, IIRC, Pleione doesn't actually star in any of the Pleiades myths, or at least I don't recall her - she's just there for the narrative.
Back in January 2017, I discussed You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. could correspond to the eclipse dragon. That discussion was partly based on an Indian astrological painting. It has often been suggested that the seven stars in the Voynich diagram could be the Pleiades. The wave line connects the seven start with the moon which appears at the centre.
While search manuscripts to include in the 116v I am doing with Koen, I stumbled upon a source that provides a geographically closer parallel to that idea: the work discussed in this paper by Isabelle Draelants: You are not allowed to view links.
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Draelants Wrote:This work of cosmogony, astronomy, and computus science (a calculation that determines the calendar dates) is a strange and still rather unknown Latin treatise compiled, to all appearances, sometime between the sixth and the middle of the tenth century.
The work contains many illustration, mostly rotae i.e. circular astronomical diagrams. Surviving illustrated copies:
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., fols. 203r–229r , Chartres, 12th C.
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., fols.1r-26r, Siena, 13th C.
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. fols. 1r-19v, S.Italy?, 11th C.
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., fols. 1r-31r, England, 12th C.
The text appears to be very interesting, but what stroke me is a particular diagram (in particular in the Vatican ms) where a snake is shown between the moon (represented by a crescent) and a label for Pleiades (Pliades). The text says that the Pleiades are moon's enemies and eclipses of the moon are caused by "the dragon of the Pleiades".
This is the illustration from the Vatican manuscript: (f.10v). The numbers and small circles on the diameter of the rota represent the mansions of the moon. The presence of the bears is discussed in the quote below.
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Even if the diagram is not visually very close to f68r3, I think it's interesting that the three entities Pleiades, Dragon and Moon do appear to have a connection documented in European medieval manuscripts. I believe this could be slightly more convincing that the Indian frescos.
The discussion of moon eclipses from the paper linked above:
Draelants Wrote:Referring to eclipses, the author uses various expressions such as obscuritas, nigredo, inimicitia (chap. 22, chap. 38: eclipsis, nigredo; chap. 36, chap. 41: obscuritas, obscuratio; chap. 36: umbra caude Pliadum; chap. 38: umbra ursi; chap. 23, “Que sunt inimicitie Pliadum ac Lune et quomodo ad tempus obscurent eam” (What are the enmities between the Pleiades and the Moon and how they obscure it at some times)). In the drawings, he also often refers to old mythical zoological forms of representation like the umbra ursi, as in chapter 38, where it states: “Respondit Nemroth dicens, sicut vides pictum, ita est expositio de qua me interrogasti. Et ne dubites, vide, hoc sunt radii solis, nigre autem sunt in umbra ursi” (Nemroth answered, saying: as you see it depicted, this is the explanation about which you asked me. And so that you have no doubt, here are the rays of the Sun, they are black in the shadow of the Bear) (Ms. Va, fol. 11r). The terms draco Pliadum (“the dragon of Pleiades”, chap. 22) or Pliades draconum (“the Pleiades of the dragons”, chap. 21) or umbra caude Pliadum (“the shadow of the tails of the Pleiades”, chap. 36), are probably all corrupted forms of an original different term used to describe this dragon, since the Pleiades have nothing to do with eclipses. Nonetheless, using these terms, the LN also represents the Dragon of eclipses that very likely evokes the “Chaldean” snake, depicting what we call today the lunar nodes as the Dragon’s head and Dragon’s tail. It is clear that the illustrator is under the troubling influence of traditional Roman ancient iconography that represents the northern constellation of the Draco together with the Bears (Ursae). In the mythical astronomy of Mesopotamia, the snake, termed in Syriac Atalia, was thought to cast a shadow over or even eat the Moon and to be responsible for provoking the eclipses when the Moon crossed the apparent path of the Sun in the sky. 32 Speaking about eclipses in a geocentric world, the ascending node is where the orbiting Moon moves north through the ecliptic, and the descending node is where it moves south through it. This is depicted in several pictures of the LN. For example, Illustration 23 of the LN (Figure 3.7) represents the thirty lunar phases around the Pleiades’ Dragon and the Bears, and corresponds to chapter 36, De eclipsi lune.
This does sound like it may be very relevant. The work also seems to have spread to various regions of Europe.
Since there is no direct drawing of a dragon in the VM diagram, I think especially the phrase "umbra caude Pliadum" is interesting, since the line is quite literally a tail on the Pleiades.
Voynich-wise, the last illustration in the BAV manuscript could also be of interest. It shows "Ioanton [Nemroth's pupil] observing the different rainbows depending on the position of the Sun" (f.18v).
(27-06-2023, 03:45 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Voynich-wise, the last illustration in the BAV manuscript could also be of interest. It shows "Ioanton [Nemroth's pupil] observing the different rainbows depending on the position of the Sun" (f.18v).
For what it's worth, the picture description of Heidelberg's historical holdings is this:
Quote:Day and night arcs over a walker on a riparian strip.
This is quite interesting for several reasons.
The illustration clearly reflects the two bears and the dragon in the northern sky. While the animals don't really look like bears (at all), the text refers to bears.
What I don't quite understand is why Draelants calls this 'troubling'.
What I find intriguing is that this text appears to be some off-standard cosmology (unless I misunderstood from the limited information), and that is something I could easily imagine the Voynich to reflect as well.
(28-06-2023, 02:31 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I don't quite understand is why Draelants calls this 'troubling'.
When Marco sent this diagram to me I initially thought it was just an unusual diagram of "Draco inter Arctos", i.e. the three most northern constellations. (For a lot of examples see Kristen Lippincott's pdf here: You are not allowed to view links.
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This is troubling because the dragon of the eclipse is not the same as the Draco constellation, so the illustrator (and author?) is merging two concepts that make no sense being merged.
Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs, You are not allowed to view links.
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"Indian, Persian and Arabic astrologers customarily refer to the lunar nodes as the ‘head’ and ‘tail’ of a cosmic dragon, who is known as Gawzar in Arabic; the conventional Latin names are caput draconis for the head, at the ascending node, and cauda draconis for the tail, at the descending node."
I skimmed the rest of the paper and it does not appear to mention the manuscripts Marco found, nor any similar tradition. It is clear though that the Ouroboros-like dragon of the eclipses has nothing to do with the constellation Draco, even though there are obvious ways in which both could be confused.
Hi Rene,
the unique cosmology at the basis of a number of similarly unique circular diagrams could indeed be what makes this text attractive for me too.
I agree with Koen that by "troubling" Draelants alludes to the apparent confusion between the eclipse dragon and the constellation dragon. BTW, also the link between the eclipse dragon and the Ouroboros proposed by van der Sluijs seems to me rather troubling. Investigating concepts that date so far back is certainly difficult....
Without wanting to make a big point of this, but had she written "intriguing" or "surprising", I would not have given it a second thought.