In the somewhat 2d world of anime fandom, fans (whether Weeaboo or Wapanese) express their like / preference / undying love for a specific female character within a given anime / show / political party / whatever by describing them as their ‘best girl‘, e.g. “Kim Pine = Totally. Best. Girl. Ever.”, or “Angela Merkel ist meine Best Girl” (possibly, though perhaps only if you happen to think German politics is a bit two-dimensional).
Are Voynich researchers as shallow as this? I wouldn’t like to say. But if you asked me for my personal vote for Voynich best girl (ok, “best nymph”), it would have to go to one of the three crowned zodiac nymphs.
There’s Miss Cancer (where I think the crown is clearly a later addition)…
…Miss Leo (where the crown seems original)…
…and Miss Libra (where I think the crown is also a later addition)…
Of the three, Miss Leo would appear to be the real deal, a specific ‘red letter’ day within the zodiac calendar that the author was so strongly attached to that he/she felt compelled to mark its date with a crown while composing the page (as if to prove my point, you can even see the red paint within the crown). And who, later, then also felt compelled to try to visually conceal its presence (to a certain degree, admittedly) by adding two spurious crowns to other non-red-letter day zodiac nymphs.
Hence Miss Leo is my Voynich best girl, original crown and all. And why ever would anyone think a different nymph could be better than that? I mean, what kind of Voyanese loser would say that one of those poxy balneo nymphs was his/her Voynich best girl? Now that would be completely insane, right? :-p
@Nick : None of those which you put up for viewing. However, my favorite is the folio which has what looks like a giant blimp/balloon. Two women appear to be bouncing the ‘blimp’ into the air above them. A third woman stands on the edge of a ravine not far away.
I posted my take on that particular folio several weeks/months ago. At that time, I referred to that huge specimen as being used as a sedative (tiny pieces of it), I don’t know if you posted my comment. I stick to my analysis: it was not eaten. It was burned, so that the smoke from it was inhaled as a potent sedative which also had hallucinogenitive effects which sometimes lingered after a particular medical episode : child-birth or battlefield injuries.
bd
I shall now go away — I think today’s note echoes my previous discussion (of why this particular “squash-like” vegetable was so valuable).
bd
Miss Leo is rather Mr Leo. The nymph does not have breasts at the origin, short hair, serious face, probably old.
Thanks for this post, the Best Nymph contest led me to look at the Zodiac nymphs again and discover a nymph I hadn’t paid attention to before: Sagittarius nymph n°9.
She doesn’t wear a crown and she just might be a man with breasts, but she has my vote for now!
I’ll stand by my my little nympho at the end of the bucket line; the one with the red pail, entwined by the letter ‘L’ and known to one and all as Lilly. I think the reference is f93v from memory.
Hi Nick,
I would bet Miss Leo or Mr Leo is actually Missr i.e. quite trans-genderový typ. That would of course put the whole VM in another light . . .
I guess if we call her/him “Queen Leo” we’ve got all our bases covered.
As far as the most interesting nymph goes, there are so many. You’ve certainly made a good choice: the shape of this most original of the three crowns is remarkable.
I myself might go with the cross nymph, for the paradoxes she embodies if one wishes to read her object as the christian Cross.
The latest discussion reminds me of a song our Fifth Grade teacher taught us:
‘Paint the Alamena……. paint her black, and raise the flag….. ‘
It was another five years later that I realized that it was a Pirate Ship’s song…….
bd
Without wishing to lower the tone, do you not think it possible that the inclusion of the naked nymphs was primarily for reasons of titillation rather than necessity? I mean, could it not just be some form of medieval pornography? Don’t get be wrong clearly the inclusion of human figures served other purposes in the manuscript and clearly this was to some extension a peripheral aspect of the manuscript; witness the fact that some are obviously clothed. However it does seem to me that the extent of the inclusion of drawings of female figures was over and above what was really required in the manuscript. It is true that by modern standards the crude drawings are not exactly sexually stimulating, but that was the best that they could manage as a reflection of sexual fantasies at that time.
That’s some really weird sexual fantasies, Mark, even for the time. To me it seems more likely that the nymphs are naked because they are em-body-ments of abstract concepts. It is for the same reason that constellation figures can still be naked in the middle ages. This has nothing to do with titillation.
Additionally, I’d think that if it was really pornographic, there would be more man-woman interaction, as in Roman examples: http://www.antiquanova.com/fotky6187/fotos/_vyr_287ssp1t.jpg
Such images and coins were explicitly made for use and display in erotic context such as brothels, so we know they are what caused arousal.
I’m less familiar with medieval examples though, but perhaps you have looked into this matter?
Let’s cut to the quick folks and admit, not withstanding our sexual preferences; not a single one of the nymphs is what anyone would call a stunner by any stretchh. So why are they made to look so uninviting in the context of the Voynich manuscript’s general theme of good health, sound practical knowledge of medicinal herbs, human interaction with our solar system for the betterment of society &c. Perhaps the reason was to simply divert attention away from the accompanying unfathomable text, which contains no message worth contemplating. Also to fill a few left over pages of preserved medieval velum, with the creator’s own mid life crisis frustrations of never having experienced the joy of conception or childbirth.
Koen: You may well be right. It is certainly not something that I have researched in detail. It was merely speculation on my behalf and perhaps I was mistakenly trying to understand the drawings from a modern eye. It is a question which is very peripheral to my main line of research, but nevertheless I thought I would speculate on it. I guess I wonder why the author chose to draw mostly women rather than men; though I suppose if they were men then some could say it was homoerotic. It just seems rather odd if that is not the case, but then again there is a lot about the Voynich which rather odd from a modern eye.
So in short I don’t really know about this.
Must be blogosphere ratings week . . .
;-p
Delores Haze: lol! Though please be reassured that posting it altered Cipher Mysteries’ footfall by not one jot. 🙂
Delores Haze: Just look at it as a sort Voynichois bonding or mating ritual that we use to counter our normal antagonism towards one another. It could well work for your mob too; all four of you.
;-C
John Sanders wrote: “Let’s cut to the quick folks and admit, not withstanding our sexual preferences; not a single one of the nymphs is what anyone would call a stunner by any stretchh. So why are they made to look so uninviting in the context of the Voynich manuscript’s general theme of good health, sound practical knowledge of medicinal herbs, human interaction with our solar system for the betterment of society &c. Perhaps the reason was to simply divert attention away from the accompanying unfathomable text, which contains no message worth contemplating. Also to fill a few left over pages of preserved medieval velum, with the creator’s own mid life crisis frustrations of never having experienced the joy of conception or childbirth.”
Maybe they are drawn that way because that is what women really looked like. They were constantly pregnant from the time they were 15 or 16 years old, had to care for 9 to 16 children (half of whom would be dead by the age of 5). They were very aged by their mid-30s, and they usually died in childbirth or from infections related to childbirth (or all the other kinds of infections that were common at the time) by their 40s.
If the VMS were designed by a medieval version of an ob/gyn, for example, then it would contain information on plants (medicine), astrology (a required subject in medieval medical schools), healthful bathing practices (a common topic in medicine at the time), and less idealized women than are seen in illustrations intended to impress or titillate.
And I guess J.K. that would also have to include bdid1dr’s Nahuatl’s, as favoured by the Comegys twins; also the light toned, blue eyed blond Kalash lasses that our True Thomas has the hots for. My young own young lovelies were created from a very much later historical period, by a modern day characterturist, who may have had neither talent or any real inkling as to female life expectency for the era that people like your good self have adjusted your own time frames to for different reasons.
JKP: I agree that the women not looking at the prime of their health may just be a reflection of reality as it was. But that still poses some problems which reditect our attention to artistic skills AND/OR stylistic preferences.
For example, I don’t think that hundreds of women with the head accounting for 1/3 of the total body length is a representative sample of any population, no matter what some theorists might propose. In real life, these women would all oficially be dwarfs. Which brings us back to Mark’s weird porn fantasies?
It seems clear to me that some thought was put into the nymphs’ poses and appearance. Either way, the questions remain largely open. Why are the figures naked? Why mostly female? Why are they drawn the way they are?
I’ll vote for the one Koen suggested is Philomela
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f80r/0.868/0.097/5.00
It is not about the looks or the status 🙂
Is she worth chasing and catching? 🙂
The crown might be of astrological origin, the star Regulus is in Leo.
Anon, if you are correct about the possible astrological interpretation of the crown, it might fit in with some of the ideas K. Gheuens has posted.
Today we were allowed back into our property on New Long Valley Road, Clear Lake Oaks, (Lake County) CA. Minor damage to the roadside top of our property. Cal-Fire Engines and Airplanes stomped on the fire before it did minor damage to our “Patio-Garden” midway down the length of our property (to the creek).
We are VERY GRATEFUL to the CAL-FIRE crews . (Also, many thanks to our neighbors, the Prather Family).
bd
Glad to hear you and your property came out on the good side, bd. Someone I know in Cal almost lost everything to wildfires three years ago. Firefighters managed to stop the fire just before it reached their house. Sadly, the neighbor two doors away lost everything.
My little nympho mit red bucket is actually f84r (not f93v). Agreed none of our maidens are stunners and our artist has been quite effective in her quest for a homely presentation. I for once agree with Koen wholeheartedly about the deliberately posed settings which are most significant ; such as the message depicted with my group of bathers, if anyone can see what I mean.