The Voynich Ninja

Linda, let's try not to get into specific personal theories in this thread about the representation of individual nymphs. We're discussing the philosophy behind them.

My apologies, but it is difficult for me to separate my philosophical thoughts on what they represent from what they specifically represent to me, and am just looking to see what kind of commonalities might exist between the various ideas thereof, which are also being described here.

(08-02-2020, 05:53 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
And why the gravitation towards female? Because words like anima, alma, sele.. are female?

Hi Koen! 
I wrote about it in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Excuse me for my lazyness, I'll just quote a fragment:

Quote:In the meantime, the soul is commonly depicted as being female in ancient Greek literature, for example, the Greek You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ([i]Metamorphoses[/i], Apuleius of Madaura), also it is feminine in gnostic writings ([i]On the origin of the World, Exegesis on the Soul[/i]). Notably, the word [i]Psyche[/i] [Ψυχή] in Greek, [i]Anima[/i] in Latin and in many other languages is feminine in gender.

While the Christian society believed in the close connection between the soul and the body, including gender, discovered in that time hermetic and alchemical teachings displayed the division of all things (duality): the Soul – female, silver, mercury, Moon; the Spirit – male (Divine being), gold, sulphur,  Sun.

The problem is that there are various female nouns which could underlie the preference for female forms, even dragging male figures into androgyny. For example, Diane thought about "horae". Personally I think a term like "embodiment", the abstract in human form, covers the most bases. But I'm not sure which word in which medieval language describes this the best.


I agree with David that it would be most worthwhile to see what we can say about this on a theory-independent level.

For example, take the central pool pages (Q13B). Is it reasonable to put forward that these human figures cannot be read as literal bathers given the use of the female nude in all these various contexts? I would say yes, we must assume a more abstract meaning despite convincing partial parallels with Balneis imagery. (I  still have no theory about the pool pages).

The first time I saw the bathing folios (the ones with lots of nymphs in the pools), they struck me as instructional. In other words, it didn't look to me like a record of people bathing (historical), but rather a step-by-step instruction on how to bathe (perhaps for therapeutic reasons?).

Not the pool with the rainbows, however. That one seems different, more like a narrative.

For the nude ladies I prefer the name of astral spirits, as Panofsky called them. They are a metaphor of eternal time. The key is the spindles that carry four of them. 

I read on the Koen website the Darren Worley's comment about the spindle used a metaphor for the rotation of the heavens in Plato's Myth of Er. 

 In Spanish we use the word spindle to talk about time zones.

The nude female form I think is by association with the personification of Venus or the Moon, which usually appear nudes with the same fertility symbolism. For me the nude ladies are the fixed stars

In the blog of the British Library there is an interesting article about medieval nudes. The examples are all from the late Middle Ages. It is about the ideal of beauty and the image of women.
The "corpulent" nymphs in the VMS do indeed correspond to the contemporary ideal of beauty.( even if they were sometimes drawn a bit clumsily ). An aspect that might be relevant for the interpretation.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The example of Christine de Pizan is worth noting because it is contemporary with the VM. The British Library's commentary on the scene is quite interesting:

Quote:Here, their nudity emphasises their intimate immersion in the waters of wisdom and their likeness to the fountain, ‘beautiful, clear, and healthy’. In this way, Christine uses the nude to represent the ideals of wisdom and to emphasise women’s embodiment of intellectual values.

The example of Christine de Pizan is always worth noting, but I am more inclined to point out her use of allegory. In La Cité des dames, the personification of Justice, Reason and Rectitude help her to build the city. This allegory, the personification of
virtues or abstractions, is something widely used at the time.

  I think the nude ladies of VM are a personification of astral spirits that come down from heaven to fertilize the Earth. Her nudeness is a symbol of fertility. They carry the water that makes the herbs grow, that's why we see them bathing in the pools and leaving the complex pipes of the universe