In the Voynich manuscript we find a text in search of a metaphor. We can observe and describe the text, but we lack a metaphor through which to conceptualize it and make sense of it. It is not an unimportant task: once the data has been accumulated, there is the question of what it all amounts to. In crime detection, once the evidence is assembled, a plausible scenario that explains the evidence is put together.
My wider hypothesis tries to give the whole work an historical and geographical context. I do this mainly on the evidence of the illustrations. But then, from within that wider context, I try to supply a more exact context and explanation for the text such as we find it.
The proposal I offer is: the language of the nymphs.
Briefly: the author has presented his text as material from (or by) the nymphs who are the protagonists in the work.
Further: I suggest the plaintext was in fact tables of records, or catalogues, or reports, collected in a formuaelic manner. But, these have been presented like running prose because we are to believe it is the testimony of the nymphs. The author collected records, but has written them as if they were collected by (or from) the nymphs. (The text looks like prose but on closer inspection it is more like lists.)
Further: I observe that the nymphs are shown measuring. I suggest the content of the records are certain weights and measures in a calendrical manner.
I have suggested the work is like a set of records kept by a medieval Water Steward, or Land Surveyor, but presented as if the records were kept by the nature spirits of the land itself.
I contend that this scenario could account for many of the odd phenomena we see in the text.
My wider hypothesis tries to give the whole work an historical and geographical context. I do this mainly on the evidence of the illustrations. But then, from within that wider context, I try to supply a more exact context and explanation for the text such as we find it.
The proposal I offer is: the language of the nymphs.
Briefly: the author has presented his text as material from (or by) the nymphs who are the protagonists in the work.
Further: I suggest the plaintext was in fact tables of records, or catalogues, or reports, collected in a formuaelic manner. But, these have been presented like running prose because we are to believe it is the testimony of the nymphs. The author collected records, but has written them as if they were collected by (or from) the nymphs. (The text looks like prose but on closer inspection it is more like lists.)
Further: I observe that the nymphs are shown measuring. I suggest the content of the records are certain weights and measures in a calendrical manner.
I have suggested the work is like a set of records kept by a medieval Water Steward, or Land Surveyor, but presented as if the records were kept by the nature spirits of the land itself.
I contend that this scenario could account for many of the odd phenomena we see in the text.
* * *
I find the best match for my scenario in some of the probing studies of Patrick Feaster. At the end of one: Transitional Probabilities in the Voynich Manuscript, September, 2021, he is searching for a metaphor to describe the observable cyclic nature of the text. He writes:
I’ve been toying with the idea of using the annual cycle as a metaphor for the structure of Voynichese text, much as Stolfi used a core-mantle-crust metaphor for one of his. Curvelet sequences could be associated with planting, and minim sequences with harvesting. The loopdown flourish (y, l) could be associated with winter. Much as the new year falls during the winter season, word breaks occur in winter, so that “winter glyphs” tend to appear near word boundaries, either at the beginnings or ends of words. Gallows could be associated with the summer solstice, which may occur before, during, or after planting. Successive seasons can see the same events happening for two or more years in a row, or events can alternate as with the rotation of crops, or maybe following an even longer schedule as with cicada broods. Sometimes there’s a bad year with no harvest, but there’s scarcely ever a harvest without any planting. Sometimes the summer solstice isn’t celebrated, in which case the following new year is less likely to be acknowledged as such.
It’s a fun metaphor, and it might even work decently in practice, exposing “entanglements” across cycles even more starkly than word-based analysis has. Of course, I still couldn’t say what any of this means.
In the last statement he is echoing an infamous utterance by Currier who described similar aspects of the text’s behavior but said, “It doesn’t mean anything, but there you have it.”
* * *
The metaphor offered by Feaster is much the same as I have suggested for the content of the text. This is the best metaphor Feaster can think of for what he sees in the text. I add to that, that this material is being presented in the way it is – giving the very distinct appearance of ‘normal’ running text – as records kept by the nymphs of the landscape. It is the sort of record kept by a guardian of a landscape – the work of a medieval steward or a marshal.
Feaster’s metaphor is too agricultural. There is no evidence of agriculture in the Voynich manuscript. This is a common mistaken assumption. Rather, as I have argued on other pages, it is a herb gathering tradition that is depicted. The cycles are not so agricultural and, I would think, concern the rise and fall of alpine lakes and watercourses relative to seasons and star cycles.
In any case, I find evidence in Feaster's studies, especially, that the Voynich text is both cyclic and numerical in nature. As I see it the "nymphs" gather data about the natural cycles of the mountains. We merely need to understand the literary device involved. We need the right metaphor.
The text consists of numerical lists, yes, but in cyclic patterns. This is data gathered about a landscape (and its skies.)
* * *
Consider the plight of the alpine herb gatherer. Some of the rarest but most valuable herbs are only found in remote valleys, difficult and often dangerous to access. Moreover, they flower for only brief seasons.
Living lower down the mountain, the herb gatherer can judge the snow thaw and conditions higher up from measuring water flows. He doesn't want to march to remote valleys just hoping the herbs are in flower. He needs to know his landscape intimately and keep records thereof.
In the case of the Ladin alpine herbal tradition, the landscape and waterways were populated by and regulated by the nymphs of the Ladin mythology and Ladin belief.
R. B.
No comments:
Post a Comment