17-08-2019, 04:11 AM
On an academia website, I recently received a private message insinuating that some of my posts in this forum here were hard to understand. I don't know if that included my last post but I imagine it is possible that some of you were mystified as to how and why I explain a marginalia macron by resorting to a macron found in an English-language poem.
I'd like to assure everyone that my theories are not as whimsical as they might seem. There's logic behind the macron connection beginning, a few years ago, when I downloaded the Herball encyclopedia of 1597 with view to seeing if it depicted any of the VMS plants. To my great surprise, I found something in the opening pages of Herball that I would never expect to find in a scientific work: a reference to the publication of the VMS prophecies:
![[Image: img-herball-nostra.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-herball-nostra.jpg)
Note that Salonensis Gallo (Salon, France) makes it unambiguous. Thus, the relationship between VMS and Herball goes far beyond the mere depiction of plants from top to bottom. There has to be a direct connection.
In the VMS, on the top of f17r, we find a mysterious macron and over to the right of it there is an image in the shape of a fleur de lys which, one can presume, might be the gateway to resolving the mystery of the macron. On the title page of Herball, we also find an image (now upside down) in the form of a fleur de lys. Here you see the two images:
![[Image: img-vms-herball-fleur.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-vms-herball-fleur.jpg)
The symbols on the Herball image are noteworthy. Firstly, on the top left, we can distinguish a "4" with a horizontal line that turns downward with a short offshoot that suddenly turns to the left and strikes the middle of the "o" below. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that a prominent VMS glyph looks like a "4" and has a horizontal line that strikes the middle of the "o" that follows:
![[Image: img-vms-4-o-glyph.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-vms-4-o-glyph.jpg)
On numbers, we can distinguish an Arabic "4", an Arabic "1" (or a Roman "I") being the extended downward shaft of the "4" (the part below the offshoot), a Roman numeral "L" on the top right, and a sequence of three Roman numerals "X" on the bottom. By my calculation, these numbers add up to 85 (L + X + X + X + 4 + 1) and in the foldout pages for f85 in the VMS we find what was surely the original inspiration for the fleur-de-lys design:
![[Image: img-vms-boy-fleur.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-vms-boy-fleur.jpg)
In effect, the Herball encyclopedia links back to the VMS.
The fleur-de-lys image on the title page of Herball is found on the pedestal of a poet (a poet laureate by virtue of his headband) who is depicted holding a flower in his right hand. This here is the poet and his flower followed by a Wikimedia color photograph of said flower:
![[Image: img-herball-poet-flower.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-herball-poet-flower.jpg)
Poets write poems and the introductory pages of Herball allude to a specific poem:
![[Image: img-herbal-adonis.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-herbal-adonis.jpg)
At the bottom of the penultimate page of that poem (printed in 1593, just three years after publication of the complete prophecies), we find something of interest:
![[Image: img-poem-flower-macron.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-poem-flower-macron.jpg)
As you can see, the first line accurately describes the poet's flower, and observe that there's a macron in the last line. Another macron cannot be found elsewhere in that lengthy poem and, as a general rule, macrons are not normally employed in the English language.
Note that there is an isolated letter "H" just below the word "their" that follows the macron. Since this "H" was not placed in the middle of the page where one might expect to find it, it seems reasonable to assume a hint to replace the "their" with an "H", effectively giving us a macron followed by an "H".
![[Image: img-vms-macron-letter-h.jpg]](http://manuscrit-de-voynich.com/img-vms-macron-letter-h.jpg)
As you can see, like the poem's macron, the VMS macron is followed by the letter "H" albeit here a small "h" but nonetheless an "h". In effect, the English poem, like the English herbal, links back to the VMS.
Recall that the letter "h" (or "H") is the first letter seen on all medieval depictions of the Sigillum Dei. This is relevant because, to the left of the VMS macron, the marginalia alludes to the divine names Allah, Rabur and Christus (Pax symbol) of said Sigillum Dei.
Know that the poem in question is based on a classical myth whose storyline was altered in order to create an unambiguous (Is there another purple flower checkered white?) pathway to the macron. In effect, we are being informed that the VMS macron stands for the Latin letters on, pon, or pō (which would imply a double macron, one underneath the other) and presumably this information will help us to decode the VMS.
In conclusion, methinks it was very nice of the author of the VMS marginalia to provide us with a self-portrait, wasn't it?
I'd like to assure everyone that my theories are not as whimsical as they might seem. There's logic behind the macron connection beginning, a few years ago, when I downloaded the Herball encyclopedia of 1597 with view to seeing if it depicted any of the VMS plants. To my great surprise, I found something in the opening pages of Herball that I would never expect to find in a scientific work: a reference to the publication of the VMS prophecies:
Note that Salonensis Gallo (Salon, France) makes it unambiguous. Thus, the relationship between VMS and Herball goes far beyond the mere depiction of plants from top to bottom. There has to be a direct connection.
In the VMS, on the top of f17r, we find a mysterious macron and over to the right of it there is an image in the shape of a fleur de lys which, one can presume, might be the gateway to resolving the mystery of the macron. On the title page of Herball, we also find an image (now upside down) in the form of a fleur de lys. Here you see the two images:
The symbols on the Herball image are noteworthy. Firstly, on the top left, we can distinguish a "4" with a horizontal line that turns downward with a short offshoot that suddenly turns to the left and strikes the middle of the "o" below. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that a prominent VMS glyph looks like a "4" and has a horizontal line that strikes the middle of the "o" that follows:
On numbers, we can distinguish an Arabic "4", an Arabic "1" (or a Roman "I") being the extended downward shaft of the "4" (the part below the offshoot), a Roman numeral "L" on the top right, and a sequence of three Roman numerals "X" on the bottom. By my calculation, these numbers add up to 85 (L + X + X + X + 4 + 1) and in the foldout pages for f85 in the VMS we find what was surely the original inspiration for the fleur-de-lys design:
In effect, the Herball encyclopedia links back to the VMS.
The fleur-de-lys image on the title page of Herball is found on the pedestal of a poet (a poet laureate by virtue of his headband) who is depicted holding a flower in his right hand. This here is the poet and his flower followed by a Wikimedia color photograph of said flower:
Poets write poems and the introductory pages of Herball allude to a specific poem:
At the bottom of the penultimate page of that poem (printed in 1593, just three years after publication of the complete prophecies), we find something of interest:
As you can see, the first line accurately describes the poet's flower, and observe that there's a macron in the last line. Another macron cannot be found elsewhere in that lengthy poem and, as a general rule, macrons are not normally employed in the English language.
Note that there is an isolated letter "H" just below the word "their" that follows the macron. Since this "H" was not placed in the middle of the page where one might expect to find it, it seems reasonable to assume a hint to replace the "their" with an "H", effectively giving us a macron followed by an "H".
As you can see, like the poem's macron, the VMS macron is followed by the letter "H" albeit here a small "h" but nonetheless an "h". In effect, the English poem, like the English herbal, links back to the VMS.
Recall that the letter "h" (or "H") is the first letter seen on all medieval depictions of the Sigillum Dei. This is relevant because, to the left of the VMS macron, the marginalia alludes to the divine names Allah, Rabur and Christus (Pax symbol) of said Sigillum Dei.
Know that the poem in question is based on a classical myth whose storyline was altered in order to create an unambiguous (Is there another purple flower checkered white?) pathway to the macron. In effect, we are being informed that the VMS macron stands for the Latin letters on, pon, or pō (which would imply a double macron, one underneath the other) and presumably this information will help us to decode the VMS.
In conclusion, methinks it was very nice of the author of the VMS marginalia to provide us with a self-portrait, wasn't it?