01-05-2016, 09:11 PM
Well, I don't know, this looks like a classic case of finding a few details that match by pure coincidence, and ignoring the many points that don't match.
To start with, while it does look like the pair at the far right could be interpreted as depicting the male figure holding the female hostage, it isn't really clear that her hands are tied, much less that her hair is being used to tie them. It's not clear if she's holding some sort of ring with her hands, or if that's part of her clothing, or part of her hair, or what. I have trouble seeing a clear spindle there, though, and if it's really her attribute I would think the illustrator would want to make that obvious.
The nymphs all have different hairstyles, as they do throughout the VMS, which I've always interpreted as a way to convey that the nymphs are different from one another, but here you have nymphs with several different hairstyles all representing Philomena. That seems like a hard claim to justify.
You've interpreted the nymph with the "arms bent backward" posture as "rushing off", but we see the same posture in the nymph that you interpret as having just had her tongue cut out, and we can see it as well in a nymph in the left margin of 77v, who doesn't look like she's rushing off to anywhere since she's standing in a small tub. Maybe the same posture has a different meaning in different circumstances, but the postures of the nymphs in general seem to be precise and to serve some sort of purpose.
The "one arm behind back" posture does seem relatively rare, but I was able to find at least one other instance of it - the second nymph from the top in the left margin of 79r. It doesn't seem likely that it represents "hiding one's attribute" in that case, which I think reduces the chances that it represents it here.
The headgear on the nymph you identify as the queen receiving the messenger isn't obviously a crown. There are more distinctive and obvious crowns on nymphs elsewhere, including on what you refer to as the queen in disguise, which seems backwards from what you'd expect.
Similar concerns as those raised above apply to the green hair and the "signs with her hands" nymphs - we see these things elsewhere.
I wasn't familiar with this story before, but after reading some summaries of it obviously some important parts are left out in your interpretation, and some relatively minor aspects are included, which increases the likelihood that this is just a coincidence. I suppose you could argue that some of these portions were left out because they are violent, and we never see violence in the VMS, so maybe the illustrator didn't like showing it. Then again, maybe we never see it because it's never relevant to the subject matter.
The line at the bottom of this illustration is strange, and I have thought about it before. You interpret it as a piece of thread, but if it's thread, then why are the nymph's feet and everything else below it cut off? That doesn't really make sense. (Actually, I suspect cutting off the nymphs' feet from view is precisely the purpose of this line, since it seems that everywhere in the VMS the illustrator wants the nymphs' feet to be hidden by default and only visible in certain circumstances, but this topic will probably need a separate post of its own.)
Anyway, as you acknowledge, the VMS doesn't seem to be a story book generally, so it's not clear what a snippet from Ovid's Metamorphoses would be doing here. Arguably this concern is irrelevant if the evidence that it is indeed a depiction of something from Ovid is strong enough, but I don't think it's that strong. Although this scene is perhaps somewhat atypical of the Bio section, it still looks like it belongs there and forms part of a coherent whole. So if the rest of it isn't about Ovid, then it's unlikely that this bit is either. You've argued that it might be a mnemonic of some kind, which might adequately address this concern about it being out of place, but it's hard to see what it would be a mnemonic for, and it would seem that someone would have to know this particular story quite well in order to recognize it in this imagery and make use of such a mnemonic. Taken all together, your interpretation of this scene doesn't seem very likely to be correct to me.
To start with, while it does look like the pair at the far right could be interpreted as depicting the male figure holding the female hostage, it isn't really clear that her hands are tied, much less that her hair is being used to tie them. It's not clear if she's holding some sort of ring with her hands, or if that's part of her clothing, or part of her hair, or what. I have trouble seeing a clear spindle there, though, and if it's really her attribute I would think the illustrator would want to make that obvious.
The nymphs all have different hairstyles, as they do throughout the VMS, which I've always interpreted as a way to convey that the nymphs are different from one another, but here you have nymphs with several different hairstyles all representing Philomena. That seems like a hard claim to justify.
You've interpreted the nymph with the "arms bent backward" posture as "rushing off", but we see the same posture in the nymph that you interpret as having just had her tongue cut out, and we can see it as well in a nymph in the left margin of 77v, who doesn't look like she's rushing off to anywhere since she's standing in a small tub. Maybe the same posture has a different meaning in different circumstances, but the postures of the nymphs in general seem to be precise and to serve some sort of purpose.
The "one arm behind back" posture does seem relatively rare, but I was able to find at least one other instance of it - the second nymph from the top in the left margin of 79r. It doesn't seem likely that it represents "hiding one's attribute" in that case, which I think reduces the chances that it represents it here.
The headgear on the nymph you identify as the queen receiving the messenger isn't obviously a crown. There are more distinctive and obvious crowns on nymphs elsewhere, including on what you refer to as the queen in disguise, which seems backwards from what you'd expect.
Similar concerns as those raised above apply to the green hair and the "signs with her hands" nymphs - we see these things elsewhere.
I wasn't familiar with this story before, but after reading some summaries of it obviously some important parts are left out in your interpretation, and some relatively minor aspects are included, which increases the likelihood that this is just a coincidence. I suppose you could argue that some of these portions were left out because they are violent, and we never see violence in the VMS, so maybe the illustrator didn't like showing it. Then again, maybe we never see it because it's never relevant to the subject matter.
The line at the bottom of this illustration is strange, and I have thought about it before. You interpret it as a piece of thread, but if it's thread, then why are the nymph's feet and everything else below it cut off? That doesn't really make sense. (Actually, I suspect cutting off the nymphs' feet from view is precisely the purpose of this line, since it seems that everywhere in the VMS the illustrator wants the nymphs' feet to be hidden by default and only visible in certain circumstances, but this topic will probably need a separate post of its own.)
Anyway, as you acknowledge, the VMS doesn't seem to be a story book generally, so it's not clear what a snippet from Ovid's Metamorphoses would be doing here. Arguably this concern is irrelevant if the evidence that it is indeed a depiction of something from Ovid is strong enough, but I don't think it's that strong. Although this scene is perhaps somewhat atypical of the Bio section, it still looks like it belongs there and forms part of a coherent whole. So if the rest of it isn't about Ovid, then it's unlikely that this bit is either. You've argued that it might be a mnemonic of some kind, which might adequately address this concern about it being out of place, but it's hard to see what it would be a mnemonic for, and it would seem that someone would have to know this particular story quite well in order to recognize it in this imagery and make use of such a mnemonic. Taken all together, your interpretation of this scene doesn't seem very likely to be correct to me.