Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[Barbrey]

Someone emailed to ask how “thirst” fits with the Myrrha story. Myrrha becomes the Myrhh tree and spends most of the story trying to resist her incestual desire for her own father. Again and again she expresses this temptation. It’s not an accident the page has a penis and a snake-like vessel. But I honestly had no idea what that other figure with the third hand seemingly drinking was. The other three I knew about: the bear replaced by a sheep or ram, the bloody head replaced by a red flower head and the goldfinch connection, the second spike on a crossbeam. But the only conjecture I had was that stigmata might play a role until I saw the pseudo-Arnaldus schema. 

Christ at the end expresses how thirsty he is. The Roman soldiers offer him wine mixed with myrhh but he rejects it though the temptation is there. Right before he dies, a Roman soldier gives him a cup of wine vinegar. The “third” hand, in my interpretation, is the hand of the Roman soldier offering him the cup. 

So the association is the temptation of the wine mixed with myrhh.