Well, it's referred to as a Mediterranean phenomenon. In Italian, the word for billy goat is the same as that for c***.
Quote:In the texts of the plays, “pox” apparently translates as “God's” — “God's liver.”
I suppose it is AI that translates it for you so? Or are you an expert in medieval German?
My experience is that AI is generally stupid with "pox leber", it just roughly knows what people said on Voynich Ninja.
(17-09-2026, 07:45 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anything can be written in VMS, but if I’m referring to goat’s liver, I should, in theory, write “bocksleber,” and if I’m referring to God’s liver, then “poxleber.”
But I could be wrong, and I don’t want to mislead anyone…
Kind of wrong, yeah.
Our earliest attestation of a spelling with "pox" is the use as the goat's liver.
And then after that, we get some attestations of "pox" as an alternative for "potz", which in turn is a minced oath for "Gott's".
Something else about this: for the minced oath, we are comfortable accepting variations: box, potz. If we accept similar variations for the ingredient, which we
could by virtue of the Kitzbühel text, we would have many more of those.
In fact, since the curses include "boxleber", we must also include "NYm ein Pokchsleber" from this pre-1450 cookbook: You are not allowed to view links.
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(17-09-2026, 11:29 AM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Was the marginalia on folio 116v of the VMS written after 1500?
I am pretty sure that all that text, minus the two Voynichese words,were written by a later owner who could not read Voynichese, following a large water spill and a disastrous cleanup. That Big Wipe theory is explained in You are not allowed to view links.
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(17-09-2026, 11:34 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The text You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is similar in style to the text of the entire VMS. There is reason to believe that it was written in the same ink/with the same quill/by the same hand.
That would apply only to the two words in Voynichese, which presumably were spared by the spill and wipe-off. The rest is in a
very different hand. AFAIK we cannot tell about the ink and quill from the images that we have.
And even for the Voynichese words, there is my claim that practically all the text in the book, and a good part of the figure outlines were carefully restored decades or centuries after the creation, because they had faded to almost invisibility. That Massive Retracing theory is discussed in You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. I don't know whether that happened before or after the Big Wipe.
All the best, --stolfi
(Yesterday, 05:24 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That would apply only to the two words in Voynichese, which presumably were spared by the spill and wipe-off. The rest is in a very different hand. AFAIK we cannot tell about the ink and quill from the images that we have.
When I talk about similarity, I mean the following (I think it’s clear what the green and red arrows mean. The blue one is a partial similarity):
[
attachment=17666]
Even if it’s not the same hand, the handwriting itself is somewhat similar. The same color, the same fine lines of the letters.
(17-09-2026, 08:39 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I suppose it is AI that translates it for you so? Or are you an expert in medieval German?
I don’t understand the dropout
.
I only read the information from the forum. I don’t use AI in this regard.
Here’s a quote from Koen G’s post:
1550 ca., Nürnberg. Several attestations in carnival plays by Hans Sachs. Found in the
Fastnachtspiel (carnival play)
Der Bauer im Fegefeuer (1552). Expressions:
- "schendt sie
pox leber und lung!"
May God's liver and lung harm her!
Quote:I only read the information from the forum. I don’t use AI in this regard.
Here’s a quote from Koen G’s post:
1550 ca., Nürnberg. Several attestations in carnival plays by Hans Sachs. Found in the Fastnachtspiel (carnival play) Der Bauer im Fegefeuer (1552). Expressions:
- "schendt sie pox leber und lung!" May God's liver and lung harm her!
Okay, sorry. I wasn't really sure how you turned "pox" into "God". Now it's clear, it's Koen who did it.
Well, I think it is wrong approach. "Pox" is a goat and nothing more. It may replace "God" but you shouldn't translate it as a "God". Just like you shouldn't translate English "gosh" as "God".
Or in Polish we have an exclamation "Rany koguta!" - wounds of a rooster. It obviously is a replacement of "wounds of Christ". But you should never translate "kogut" as Christ, it means a rooster and nothing more.
Or is"pox" really a form of "
Gott"? Can you find it in any sentences without "leber" like "
Pox ist groß und Jesus ist sein Sohn"?
(Yesterday, 03:21 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It may replace "God" but you shouldn't translate it as a "God". Just like you shouldn't translate English "gosh" as "God".
In this case, it will be translated as “God.” The translation is based on meaning.
Don’t ask me and don’t try to argue, because I don’t know anything myself
I know that for some reason “goat” turned into “God”. But I see this as, most likely, some kind of irony.
(17-09-2026, 08:04 PM)Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, it's referred to as a Mediterranean phenomenon. In Italian, the word for billy goat is the same as that for c***.
Hmm I'm not sure about that. In Italian billy goat is 'becco' (which also means 'beak'), but it's not used to refer to the c*** (at least, I never heard it).
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Second entry
Rafal: these are the kinds of question to ask when you'd want to publish a critical translation: how do we render "pox" in a way the audience understands?
In Ebendorfer (source mentioned in the overview post) it is absolutely clear that he knows about the God meaning. But it's also clear that he sees the "buck" meaning. So it's really both.
The reason why I choose to translate as "God" is that these phrases have their origin in God-swearing. "Sammer pox" comes from "so mir Gott hilfe", "so help me God".
I could translate by gosh, but that's also awful because of the connotation. For us, saying "gosh" is hardly a curse, it could be done by a very religious person without issues. It's about the tamest thing you could say. But minced oaths in the Middle Ages were extremely offensive. Since they were very much aware of the religious origin of the word, I translate as "God". Translating as anything else would ignore the impact these phrases had for the medieval audience.