(06-12-2024, 06:59 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But I'm still sceptical.
‘te - cere - portas’ ( you - wax - gates ).
What does that mean?

We must take into account the cases here. Te is not tu. Cerae is not cera.

Also portas can be a verb form:  carry, bring, wear...

   

How should I understand this?
Do we already have a problem with the translator?
It's not the same in German, but it is in English.

If cere is a reference to wax trhere is a weak way to relationate miltos with cere: miltos was prepared in the form of tablets impressed with a seal.

Searching meanings for cere in an online latin dictionary:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. meanings: 4 wax image or seal

A reference about miltos:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. pag. 177:

52. iron mines also contain red ochre.

This shows clearly enough that the term miltos was applied to earthy hematite containing a high proportion of ferric oxide as well as to red ochre in the modern sense.


52. the Lemnian kind.
...
These statements seem to identify this variety of red ochre as the Lemnian medicinal earth,
since this is known to have been prepared in the form of tablets impressed with a seal.

So I wonder... If we allow phonetic spelling, like by someone who is learning Latin or is mostly used to hearing it. Why not serae portas? Latin sera is literally "a bar or bolt for fastening doors".

This is the only place where I found serae portas: a romanticized later account of early 15th century Swiss events: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The cases of both words are incompatible, so you will only find them in full sentences.

I can't speak for the language as I can't read it, but in the context of spells/charms etc "wax" may be referring to sealing a metaphysical object shut or binding it to a physical object as a symbolic act, it would entirely depend on the surrounding text (which I can't read  ), but it would tie in with both ideas of physically sealing something with wax, or locking a door. If the context is summoning something to do something for you for example sealing/locking the gate would be in keeping. 

Just food for thought. I really do need to bite the bullet and learn some latin...

We have collectively written 105 pages of text about those four lines: what I am writing here has certainly been written before in this thread.

Lines 2 and 3 appear to be Latin and they include crosses, while lines 1 and 4 appear to be German, without crosses. Something similar can be seen in other manuscripts, e.g. Buitzruss's notebook You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: compare "rax pax fax ++++ in christo +" with "marix + morix + vix + abia + maria +". When the text is separated by crosses, it typically is a charm and it is not grammatical language but a mix of Latin words, pseudo-Latin and holy names like Jesus, Maria, Adonai etc.  (See You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and following pages, e.g. this probably pseudo-Latin parallel for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

The Voynich manuscript has been studied by a number of professional palaeographers and manuscript experts (e.g. Richard Salomon, Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Jennifer M. Rampling, Lisa Fagin Davis). In my opinion, if lines 2 and 3 were plain Latin, they would have been translated by those scholars. Personally, I feel rather sure that lines 2 and 3 are not grammatical Latin.

For the "German" lines 1 and 4, there is some hope that they are actual language, since there are no crosses and at least Salomon believed he could read a bit of the bottom line which makes sense grammatically (so nim geismi[l]ch).
Also, the first word "poxleber" is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
But the first two words of line 4 are written in Voynichese, so recovering the whole meaning (if any) of that line is not just a matter of making sense of a few German words. Also, nobody has been able to make fully sense of line 1. It's normal that some characters are hard to read, usually grammar helps solve those problems: here that has not happened so maybe the German is not grammatical as well. My feeling is that grammatical / ungrammatical are about equally likely for the two "German" lines.

I fully agree, Marco. It has a lot in common with one of those manuscript pages that have notes and scribbles all over. And the three parts are disconnected.

To the best of our knowledge, both of the German lines draw from recipes though, so they may have been inspired by the same interest of the writer. A few posts beneath the one you link, Rene refers to a line "so nim pocches lebere", nicely illustrating this.

Regarding the charm, I'm also suspicious of interpretations that claim they're able to read and connect it all. However, the section around "te, cere, portas, name" might have some meaning. Personal pronoun, two nouns/verbs, name insert of the person...

Thanks Marco, my comments on being unable to read latin/know context were aimed at the document Ada provided just to be clear, but you provided a lot of good info there. 
I must admit I missed the "Poxleber" post. My personal thoughts prior was that the "p" might just be a red herring as the same "p" is in other marginalia (f1r and f66r) as a stand alone symbol, so it may have just been "ox leber" (ox liver) with the same "p" as maybe a reference, but this post would suggest otherwise.

I just noticed that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists 6 descendents from the Latin word. One of them is the Romanian You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... curious