What do other herbals actually talk about? Here's an example.

[gerrydelasel]

Since deciphering Voynichese will probably involve identifying an image and then guessing at what the text and labels might say about it, I wondered, what do other herbals actually say about their plants? I couldn't find any complete transcriptions online, only vague descriptions, so I translated one myself. Maybe you will find this useful too (especially if you want to become invisible or have trouble with farting!). At the very least it shows that the first word on the page is not necessarily the name of the plant, nor a name that is easy to predict.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a good example from the 14th century. On page 66r & 66v we find the castor oil plant, which is quite similar to Voynich You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
         

Here is my transcription of the Latin. If you can fill in any of the gaps, please let me know!
   

And here is the English translation:

1. Herb name: Pentadatillus; others call it Palma Christi, others Castos Oro guardian of the garden, others
2. Priapiscus, and others Girasol; the Greeks call it Tebeet, and the Gauls call it Perga Major. Herb grows
3. in gardens, fields, and mountains, similar to hellebore. Herb has broad leaves,
4. split like a wild fig tree, and it bears a certain round pod like wild burdock.
5. In this small pod, something is enclosed that resembles a certain worm,
6. common name: cetha. This herb is called Girasol because its leaves turn
7. according to the turning of the sun; just as the sun beams brightly, so these leaves turn themselves with the sun. The flower
8. does the same. The crushed seed of this plant's black pods, when drunk with wine,
9. warm, relieves [indecipherable]. [Indecipherable] is spherical, and [indecipherable]
10. madness, and when eaten it is beneficial against bloating/flatulence, which it solves. Likewise, its seed gives
11. the virtue of walking invisibly, according to what is found in Dioscorides, who
12. says expressly: 'Take nine seeds of this herb during the harvest, and plant them
13. inside the head of a black [indecipherable], and place it in the earth.'
14. And [he says words over the seeds] so that he may know that
15. in the name of the Father he will be seen by no one. This herb must obey.
16. It is to be gathered in October; crescent moon. And while you are gathering it,
17. be clean and wash your hands, feet, and face with clean holy water.
18. And when you gather it, say this prayer: '[Indecipherable], O herb,
19. by the great name of the Lord Atah Gibor Leolam Adonai, and by Blessed Mary, and
20. by the virtues through which God created heaven, earth, the sea, and all things that are in them,
21. and by the saints of heaven and earth: O Lord God of Hosts,
22. hear my prayer, so that you may grant to this herb power and victory, that it may be of help
23. to me in any of my needs.' Say the Lord's prayer.

[pjburkshire]

Since deciphering Voynichese will probably involve identifying an image and then guessing at what the text and labels might say about it, I wondered, what do other herbals actually say about their plants? 

Do you think that knowing the meaning in the text would help with translation?  Years ago I thought that it would.  After reading on the forum for a couple of years, I got the impression that the language folks think it is all to be done with numbers and statistics and that the meaning is not relevant.

[nablator]

At the very least it shows that the first word on the page is not necessarily the name of the plant, nor a name that is easy to predict.

Well, "nomen herba" or any other frequent starting formula is not something that the VMS has, too bad.

This page should be a translation of Dioscorides Materia Medica but I can't find anything like it in books:

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In Matthiolis commentarius (above the commentary):

Cap. CLVIII
Κίκι ἣ κρότων – RICINUS

CICI, aut croton, nomen accepit a ricini animalis similitudine. Arbor provenit parvae ficus altitudine, folio platani, maiore, laeviore, et nigriore: ramis, caudicibusque cavis, in arundinis morem: semine in uvis asperis, quod corticibus exutum ricinum animal repraesentat. ex quo oleum nomine cicinum exprimitur, cibis foedum, lucernis emplastrisque utile. Grana triginta numero purgata, trita potu pituitas, bilem, aquamque per alvum extrahunt, vomitionesque movent. sed iniucunda admodum est, et molesta purgatio. siquidem stomachum vehementer subvertir. Tusa et imposita, vitia cutis in facie, varosque expurgat. Folia cum polenta trita, inflammationes oculorum, tumoresque leniunt: turgentes mammas cohibent. eadem ex aceto illita, ignes sacros restinguunt.

Dioscorides Longobardus (oldest Latin translation):

Cici aut sisamo agreste aut seseli ciprion aut crotona esse multi dixerunt. semen habet simile supracripte. frutex est alborosa sicut fici, sed minor. folia habet platano similia, sed maiora et lenia et nigriora, hastas ipsas uallosas, cannae similes, semen ut botrum conpositu et asperu, purgatu uero simile est crotonis animalis. unde et exprimitur oleu cicinu dicitur, quod utile est medicaminibus et emplastris. unde si .XXX. grana purgata fuerint et accepta colera et flegma uentri deponit, uomitum prouocat. gustu non bono haec purgatio stomacu ledet. siccus tritus et inpositus maculas limpidat. folia eius trita cum pulenta tumores oculorum sparget, duritias omnes, mammarum tumores conpescit, igne acrum extinguet sola et aceto mixta.

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It's actually linked to the Pseudo-Apuleius tradition not Dioscorides. My bad.

Let's see.. not a good match either:

II. HERBA QVINQVEFOLIVM
A Graecis dicitur pentafillos, alii pseudoselinon, alii callipetalon, alii xiloloton, alii aspaltion, alii tymatitis, Aegyptii asufi, alii thebeoti, profetae ibeos onix, alii ptereon ibeos, alii + pecusideon, alii Hermu dactilon, Galli pinpedonum, Daci procedila, Itali quinquefolium, Romani manus Martis, Graeci pentafillon, Democritus theon astron(?), Siculi pentafillos, alii pentapetes, alii pentadactylon, alii pentaquinon.
Nascitur in pratis et locis cultis et mundis, gustu aspero, tactu molli. Legis eam mense Augusto.
1. Ad uitia articulorum siue percussa fuerint.
Herba quinquefolium tunsa cum axungia sine sale inposita sanabit.
2. Ad uentris dolorem.
Herba quinquefolium tunsa, sucum eius dabis bibere, sine mora dolorem tollit, coclearia II dabis.
3. Ad uitia oris aut linguae aut gulae.
Herbae quinquefolii radices ex aqua coctas dabis, gargarizet, etiam ubi sanies, tollet et arteriam purgat.
3. Ad oris uitia aut linguae aut gulae.
Herba quinquefolium in puluerem redactam et admixto melle os perfrica uel linguam etiam arteriam purgat.
4. Ad capitis dolorem.
Herbam quinquefolium circumscribito ter, digito medio et pollice sublata et trita et capiti inlita efficaciter sanat; peracto remedio loco puro reponi conuenit.
5. Ad sanguinem de naribus nimis profluentem.
Herbae quinquefolii sucus potus uel inlitus restringit sanguinem.
6. Ad ancen remedium.
Herbae quinquefolii sucus ciati III potui datur.
7. Ad morsum serpentis.
Herba quinquefolium contrita et sucus eius expressus, cum uino potui datus mirifice remediat.
8. Ad combustum.
Herbam quinquefolium portatam prodesse plures auctores adfirmant.
9. Ad cancrum exsiccandum.
Herba quinquefolium cum uino et cum adipe suilla ueteri sine sale pisata de ligno in ligno, uino sane ueteri aspargis et sic inponis, rem unicam experieris.

Interpolationes ex Diosc. II 200, 2 sqq. (conf. Plin. XXV, 109).
Nascitur habitaculis uicina siue in transitu semitarum, ramis longitudine bipalmis, tenuibus, in quibus semina et folia saepius quina serratim scissa, flore pallido, radice longa, rubra.

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Other examples exist in which the same iconographies are used for different treatises. Manuscript O. 2. 48 in the collection of Cambridge’s Trinity College, produced in Germany at some point between the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, presents many peculiarities. It includes, besides the Herbarium corpus, additional pharmacopeial texts that have not yet been identified. These are characterized by a clear leaning towards miraculous, esoteric, and magical matters.

Tome 2_ Plants. Botany, Gardens, ›Materia Medica‹, Ethnopharmacology - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[rikforto]

After reading on the forum for a couple of years, I got the impression that the language folks think it is all to be done with numbers and statistics and that the meaning is not relevant.

Oh goodness, no. There is a real chance that a breakthrough will be statistical, but even then old-fashioned linguistic know-how is likely to be decisive in both designing the statistical tests and interpreting the results. 

To pick a particular hobby-horse of mine, a lot of people analyzing the text would benefit from reading comparative studies about alphabets. The expectation is not what in the 21st century we would call a "narrow transcription" because alphabets generally don't distinguish words based on their spoken form, but instead their conceptual forms, more like a "broad transcription". It's a subtle distinction, but it is a world of difference when doing alphabet design. And even if that expectation is contravened, either a bit or entirely, knowing the difference between a phone and a phoneme is vital to creating corpora and running tests on them to claim that Voynichese might encode one instead of the other. As a rule, careful humanities work often underwrites good datasets, and this is acutely true in linguistics!

Anyway, my example is a little O/T, but thank you @gerrydelasel, these kinds of transcriptions are useful for thinking about likely plaintexts, and translations are actually useful for answering what content a plaintext might have! This kind of work at scale is the raw fuel of quant work and it is appreciated

[pjburkshire]

There is still great debate about the text:

-  It is meaningless gibberish created by a crazy person (and cult) or a charlatan
-  It is encrypted/enciphered/encoded natural language (probably Latin)
-  It is a constructed or lost language
-  It isn't gibberish or a language, it is numbers or some other kind of data

Many people with a curiosity about the Voynich Manuscript fall into one of these categories and are not even bothering to look at the words on the page.

There is great debate about the middle Stars & Nymphs & Rosettes section but I think most people believe that the Herbal Section is what it looks like.  I would expect such Herbal pages to contain words like:  herb, plant, root, leaves, flowers, seeds, pod, harvest, etc.  I would also expect it to contain colors.

The example kindly shared by gerrydelasel contains:

herb: 8
leaves: 3
pod: 3
flower: 1
seed/seeds: 4
harvest: 1
gather/gathering/gathered: 3
black: 2
green: 0
brown: 0
red: 0
yellow: 0
October: 1
sun: 3
moon: 1
God: 2
Mary: 1

Not as many colors as I expected.  I didn't expect a month name to be listed (I thought it would just say the season) but I see it said "It is to be gathered in October; crescent moon."  (We should hurry, I think the next one is in 6 days.)  There has been a lot of discussion of month names regarding the Zodiac pages.  I also didn't expect God or Mary.

[Koen G]

The Trinity herbal has normal parts, but overall it is the second most mysterious herbal manuscript I've ever encountered. Caution is advised when positing it as a typical example.

[pjburkshire]

The physical materials of the Voynich Manuscript seem to be typical but none of the creative content seems to be typical so I'm not sure if focusing only on typical known Latin/German herbal manuscript examples would be the best path to follow.

[MarcoP]

My attempt at filling some of the gaps. Old text in parenthesis, new tentative text uppercase. 

---

1 Nomen (herba) herbe, pentadatillus, alii palma (X) CHRISTI, alii (castos oro) CUSTOS ORTI, alii
2 priapiscus, alii (girasol) GIRASOLIS, graeci tebeet, galli perga maior. Herba nascitur
3 in hortis, et campis, et montibus (similis in veratro) SIMILITER INVENITUR. Herba habet folia lata
4 et scissa ut ficus agrestis, habet quendam globum ut Lappa (capria) CAPRINA,
5 in quo globulo est (quiddam) SEMEN inclusum quod assimilatur (cuidam) QUODAM (vermi[?]) VERMIS quod dicitur
6 vulgariter cetha. Herba haec (Girasol) GIRASOLIS dicitur quia folia eius a solis eversu
7 quitant [?]; et sicut sol irradiat, ita heac folia (secum [ad]) SEQUUNTUR SOLEM. Idem
8 facit flos (. ocreae[?]) CICOREE nigrae huius semen (pisatum) PISTATUM et cum vino callida [calido]
9 potatum [?] VENTREM solvit. (? eius globosus et ? ?) STIPES EIUS, COMBUSTA ET CATAPLASMATA … CUM AXA?
10 (vesana [?]) URSINA et (prodest esu) IMPOSITA, OMNES inflationes solvit. Item semen eius habet ...
11 virtutem eundi invisibiliter, secundum quod invenitur in Dioscorides, qui
12 dicit (sig[ante]r accipe) SI QUIS ACCEPERIT IX semina huius herbae et in (messe ? ?) MENSE MARCII IN PRIMA DIE
13 in capite (? ? nigrae) ALICUIUS GATTI NIGRI totis(?) plantavit. et in terra posuit
14 (et ait ? ? in illis ? ? ut sciat quod dum in hac) CUM SEMINIS … IN ILLIS SEMINIBUS INVENITUR III SEMINA QUOD DUM 1(?) HORA
15 (huius nomen patris[?] videbitur) … NON POTERI VIDERI ab alico. Haec herba (habet seram debendi) VEL SEMINA DEBERI
16 Colligi mensse (Octobri?) DECEMBRI?, luna crescente. Et dum colligis EAM,
17 esto mundus et lavato manibus et pedibus et facie aqua (munda[?]) BENEDICTA.
18 Et quando vis colligere, dicas hanc precem: ADJURO(?) te herba
19 ? per magnum nomen Domini A. G. L. A et per beatam (Mariam [?]) MATREM SUAM et PER
20 virtutes quas creavit Deus caelum et terram et mare[?] et omnia quae in eis sunt[?]
21 et per (santes ?) OMNES VIRTUTES caeli et terrae, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. PRECOR PER SANCTISSIMA NOMINA
22 (tuam) TUA ut des huic herbae virtutem et victoriam, ut sit mihi (auxilio[?]) ADJUVO
23 in (aliquibus) OMNIBUS meis necessitatibus. Pater Noster III dicatur.

[nablator]

7 (quitant) CONVERTANTUR? CONVERTANTUM?

[MarcoP]

7 (quitant) CONVERTANTUR? CONVERTANTUM?

This seems plausible to me. Maybe "folia eius a solis cursa convertuntur"