The Voynich Ninja

(08-02-2020, 05:33 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think Koen was on the right track with the story of Philomela. 

Heheh indeed, it was reconsidering this sequence which got me philosophizing about nymphs in the first place. I got some ideas when reading about the "Ovide Moralise".

The Metamorphoses were risky business for medieval authors. The only one capable of metamorphosis is God. He created the universe out of nothing, water into wine, bread becomes the body of Christ... So what's with these pagan stories about people turning into stuff?

The authors of the Ovide Moralise and similar works were very explicit about their solution to this problem: the characters in the stories are personifications of values. Medieval audiences were familiar with this concept (think of stories like Everyman, or any story where personified values are teaching a young man how to behave). This is called the moral allegory (hence Ovide Moralise).

In the story of Philomela, the main antagonist, Tereus of Thrace, is explained by the author to represent the physical body. He succumbs to the temptations of earthly pleasures, represented by Philomela. So Thereus giving in to his lust ad abducting Philomela stands for the physical body indulging in the pleasures of life.

It's remarkable then, that the guy I thought should represent Tereus at the moment of his transgression, is wearing clothes:

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Of course this doesn't explain everything... Why was it necessary to blend this with other elements? And why was it acceptable for other manuscripts to illustrate these stories with actual people, while the VM uses "souls"? 

And why the gravitation towards female? Because words like anima, alma, sele.. are female?

(08-02-2020, 05:33 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The postures of the nymphs are, in a sense, acting out a story.

Or the postures stand for different "states" of the nymphs in the sense of a processual sequence of something.

I certainly agree with Aga that you can't isolate any of the nymphs, and have often argued this in the past. They tell stories - some of these stories are even larger than one page, they occupy the whole folio (one of the bathing pages is connected front and back, as if it were both sides of a large poster).

And Koen, I don't think "souls" is the right word; to me, that indicates the animating life force of a once-living person. Instead we're looking at anthropomorphic depictions. The Latin word was animus, which I think is the one still in use for such (or is that in Spanish?).

I wasn't sure which word to use to describe them, since it's really a group of different but related "beings" that were usually drawn nude in medieval manuscripts.

Some of them are rising from graves, some are in hell, some are divine beings. What they have in common is that they are not currently alive in the corporeal sense.

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(08-02-2020, 05:53 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(08-02-2020, 05:33 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think Koen was on the right track with the story of Philomela. 

... This is called the moral allegory (hence Ovide Moralise).

...

LOL! I've been looking at that one too.  

The question with the nymphs where it comes up with me is not what they do there, but why they are all blond.

The colours red, brown and black are represented, but were not used for the hair.

Or were all really innocent? Blond, the color of innocence.

In my interpretation, arms high mean recent, arms low means past, arm on hip means history intact, arms loose means that the original civilization has undergone change or revision, and has forgotten its past self, arms back means taken over, arms forward means a state of power.

I see the nymphs as indicative of regions or communities within a greater framework of their locations within the ecumene, indicating further geopolitical and historical data with their positioning and decoration.

Aga, i can't reconcile the nymphs being plants but you could still be right about that interpretation, i wouldn't put it past the vms creators to put several stories together with the same images. Plus there are others that hold that view as well. But i would need to see it rolled up into a more cohesive story, with all the visual elements of the quire accounted for. 

I also keep in mind that the zodiac man anatomy as put forward by EllieV seems to follow the track of my geography tour from foot to head.

Do you consider, though, that the pages are in the right order for your interpretation? Mine reorganizes and flips several folios to forms a cohesive tour of the ecumene. Ah i just read that you do believe the pages are out of order. Good, we have another point in common.

I agree with the characterization that the text paragraphs go with the drawings, Koen has shown this before too. 

However the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. story for me is related more to promontories and mountains than hedges and baskets. But as i said the vms seems to pack in a lot of visual detail so i am open to concurrent narratives existing. I see this page as the starting point of the story, with the previous page as preface. For me the next page is f80r, would that fall in line with the processing you expected to see?

Koen and JKP, i can see the moral allegories also existing, and there is the idea that various creation myths can thus also be incorporated into the tapestry of world history. I found it very interesting when i was able to predict the mention of Deucalion by an author if he wrote in the same meter. It pulls in Homer, and Hecateus also wrote of Deucalion, and thus connects the allegories with geographies. I would not be surprised if quire 20 was comprised of tidbits from these writings and ascribed to nymphs in the zodiac ages to set a time to them, and then possibly also to a place in quire 13. 

It might be that they just fit in where they fit, insofar as your question as to why other elements exist that don't seem to belong, especially if multiple interpretations are meant to occur. 

(08-02-2020, 06:22 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.some of these stories are even larger than one page, they occupy the whole folio (one of the bathing pages is connected front and back, as if it were both sides of a large poster).

Do you mean You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ? I agree they work together.

It is not only this page though, it is all of them, it is one cohesive story, although folio pages will be closer to each other insofar as topic, especially in the order in which they were bound.

(08-02-2020, 07:07 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The question with the nymphs where it comes up with me is not what they do there, but why they are all blond.

The colours red, brown and black are represented, but were not used for the hair.

Or were all really innocent? Blond, the color of innocence.

There is one redhead. I equate her with Pyrrha, that Deucalion story again.  Her name means red headed... 

As to the blond hair, i think it could indicate a more northern origin for the artist, ie you draw what you know? Or to maintain a standardized reference to the use of the nymphs, ie they are not people, so why change them to reflect differences in people. A stripping away of cultural differences, perhaps.

Or you could be right about the innocence. Or the artist was a gentleman in his preferences (movie reference).