The Voynich Ninja

(13-01-2025, 09:22 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For what it's worth, another model trained on ink (the results of which I've been planning to add to my site for a while...) shows some ink line on the forehead of "the doctor", suggestive of some headgear.

You have the same thing around blue paint elsewhere so it is suggestive of a high contrast IMHO.
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Of the Seven Ages is a short poem that appears in BL ms Add 37049, Northern England, possibly first half of the 15th century (VViews and Koen mentioned the ms in the past). The poem was You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1969). The two pages spread (illustration from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Burrow, 1986) shows the seven  ages.

1. Naked new-born child at the top of the first page
2. Older child between angel and devil
3. Youth on the left
4. Man at the bottom
5. Older man with bag of money at the top of second page
6. "Cripple" as a bearded man with rosary (and maybe staff) and staff of the crutch type*
7. "Last old age" as a dying man in bed

* EDIT: see Koen's post #94

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The passage involving the Cripple is:

Quote:The crepyl spekes to hym selfe: Now must I beddes byd thof my bones ake: I drede taht ded perserwes me fast.
Angel: goode prayers sla thi paynes slake, And sage thi saule so at the last.
The fende says: When thi syn has the forsake, Than for thi bale thou akse heuen blis; and than may thou amendes make For that thou has doen mysse.
Angel: At this tyme thou hast grace, If thou will for mercy crye; The fende fro the I sal do chasse, And bere thi saule to blis on hye.

Rendered in modern English by ChatGPT:

Quote:The cripple speaks to himself: "Now I must pray in bed with beads**, though my bones ache. I fear that death is pursuing me swiftly."
Angel: "Good prayers will ease your pain And save your soul at last."
The fiend (devil) says: "When your sins have left you behind, Then, for your suffering, you seek Heaven's bliss; And only then can you make amends For the wrongs you have done."
Angel: "At this time, you have grace, If you will cry out for mercy. I shall drive the fiend away from you And bear your soul to bliss on high."

** EDIT: see Koen's post #97

Here it seems clear that the rosary represents old people turning to prayer when they feel that death is near.

Bowers, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 2003, writes:

Quote:The depiction of Age VI as a cripple telling his beads is unusual: Ratis Raving, I. I637, describes the typical man of this age as being stable, covatus, swere: that is "settled in character, greedy, and slow in physical movement."

(13-01-2025, 11:19 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(13-01-2025, 09:22 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For what it's worth, another model trained on ink (the results of which I've been planning to add to my site for a while...) shows some ink line on the forehead of "the doctor", suggestive of some headgear.

You have the same thing around blue paint elsewhere so it is suggestive of a high contrast IMHO.

It is quite possible that you are right, because this pipeline includes a high pass filter as one of the steps (as opposed to the images I published back in December, which have no local correction). 

I've tried enhancing the image manually, and couldn't get a clear ink line anywhere on the forehead.

(13-01-2025, 12:24 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.6. "Cripple" as a bearded man with rosary (and maybe staff) on the right

He has a staff, but I think more of the "crutch" type that offers support in the armpit. 
There really seems to have been some idea that as the body becomes feeble, one turns more towards the soul. Staff and rosary symbolize both.

From Elizabeth Sears' "The Ages of Man":

Quote:Yet writers and artists worked within conventions proper to their own disciplines. One will discover that _ artists made use of a relatively small repertory of forms, independently con- : ceived. They drew distinctions between the different ages of man through physical characteristics—size, posture, the length and color ofhair, the presence or absence of beard—and through costume and attribute: whip tops and other toys, bows and arrows, writing tablets, mirrors, falcons, flowering branches, scepters, swords and shields, axes, money bags, spindles and distaffs, rosaries, books, crutches, and other items were given to appropriate figures. Certain stock characters were created—the swaddled baby, the frolicsome child, the youthful falconer, the military man in his prime, the prosperous older man, and the very elderly man bent over a stick among them—and these were used time and time again, painters and sculptors combining them to form shorter and longer cycles as context demanded.

There's probably no possible answer to this other than finding something much better fitting, but I just had a thought, maybe the triple rosary beads serve no other purpose than to facilitate and continue the "artists" obsession with women touching bums as seen all throughout the previous pages (Q13). This handle and spout sort of pose does seem to be a firm favourite for them. (Obsessed with drawing this template pose.. not literally.. I just re-read it and thought needed to clarify )

(13-01-2025, 12:24 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rendered in modern English by ChatGPT:

Quote:The cripple speaks to himself: "Now I must pray in bed [I am not sure "beddes" can mean "in bed"]

Hi Marco, I looked into this just now. The English word "bead" is etymologically related to "bid", which still means "to pray" in Dutch (and I assume other Germanic languages). So if one must "byd beddes", it simply means "to pray using beads". It's a direct reference to the prayer beads he's holding. So this is a good addition: a textual description of someone using prayer beads when the body is feeble and death approaches.

Apparently "to bid beads" still exists: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Sears calls Tetradic diagrams a "versatile commodity" in this quote about an interesting diagram in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

Quote:The manuscript contains the works of Bede and Helperic as well as a poem on the Easter cycle written by Agius of Corvey in the year 863. A tetradic schema appears at the head of the poem, although unrelated to it in content. Remarkable for the wild, trumpeting figures of the four winds perched at its cardinal points, the rota is otherwise straightforward. The elements, seasons, and humors are inscribed with their qualities. The four ages of man—infantia, adolescentia, inventus, senectus—are written in roundels which, significantly, interlock with a central circle inscribed microcosmus. A tetradic diagram was a versatile commodity.

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What every alchemist's belt needs: a potion bottle holder!
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It would be even better with a conical plug like this one from Harry Potter:
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The yellow liquid is aurum potabile, obviously.

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The sun in the center is the symbol of gold.

The enclosure with 4 jets: the fountain of youth maybe?

(13-01-2025, 05:58 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The yellow liquid is aurum potabile, obviously.

Of course, who would question that ?