23-11-2020, 08:56 PM
I would appreciate further clarification on the passage in post #28, where a German source, in translation, makes the statement: "and discovers her snake body."
What German word was used for 'snake' in the original text? Was is Schlange? Is there another word? Schlange is also a serpent. There may not be a lot of difference between snakes and serpents from a modern perspective, but from a medieval perspective, if one sees snakes as snakes and serpents to include mythological personas, then there is a more significant difference.
And so the artist painted what it said; a snake. No frills, no fins, no wings - a snake. The image really is one of the plainest and simplest representations of Melusine's lower half - and no wings. Snakes don't fly. Snakes don't have wings. Only mythological serpents can fly.
The old 1960 Encyclopedia Britannica, which was dated at the time, calls Melusine a "tutelary fairy", calls her a serpent and says she "flew away in serpent form." Serpents have wings, like the dragon of Lusignan.
Language itself can be tricky. The heraldic terminology for the nebuly line has its Latin derivation and its German equivalent (gewolkt) both referring to clouds. It is something that is a shared interpretation in both the Latin and Germanic language groups.
On the other hand, the obscure heraldic fur that has a clear scale-like pattern and was known known in English and French as papelonne, was known in German simply as 'scale covered', without any innate connection to the butterflies referenced in the French/English term. The presence of these heraldic images and their placement, along with the "PAPE" sound, is essential to interpreting this VMs puzzle. Pape refers to the Genoese popes of VMs White Aries. In this case the potential for a canted interpretation is more language specific and doesn't work in German because the "PAPE" sound or its equivalent referential term is not used.
What German word was used for 'snake' in the original text? Was is Schlange? Is there another word? Schlange is also a serpent. There may not be a lot of difference between snakes and serpents from a modern perspective, but from a medieval perspective, if one sees snakes as snakes and serpents to include mythological personas, then there is a more significant difference.
And so the artist painted what it said; a snake. No frills, no fins, no wings - a snake. The image really is one of the plainest and simplest representations of Melusine's lower half - and no wings. Snakes don't fly. Snakes don't have wings. Only mythological serpents can fly.
The old 1960 Encyclopedia Britannica, which was dated at the time, calls Melusine a "tutelary fairy", calls her a serpent and says she "flew away in serpent form." Serpents have wings, like the dragon of Lusignan.
Language itself can be tricky. The heraldic terminology for the nebuly line has its Latin derivation and its German equivalent (gewolkt) both referring to clouds. It is something that is a shared interpretation in both the Latin and Germanic language groups.
On the other hand, the obscure heraldic fur that has a clear scale-like pattern and was known known in English and French as papelonne, was known in German simply as 'scale covered', without any innate connection to the butterflies referenced in the French/English term. The presence of these heraldic images and their placement, along with the "PAPE" sound, is essential to interpreting this VMs puzzle. Pape refers to the Genoese popes of VMs White Aries. In this case the potential for a canted interpretation is more language specific and doesn't work in German because the "PAPE" sound or its equivalent referential term is not used.