[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: VMs as Divine Comedy Was: VMs: Something for the list to check out.
elillie@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hello to the list:
...
In reply to Elmar:
If your reference to "qokedy" looking like "gotham" is meant to suggest
that I assigned the transcription "daiin" to "Dante" because of the way it
looks, you are wrong. I focused on it because of where it turned up as a
label in relation to the diagrams that I've identified in the manuscript.
This appears to be a kind of circular reasoning to me. After you decided
that the topic of the VM would be the Comedia, you chose one of the most
frequent words to represent the name of Dante. This in itself proves not a
whole lot.
If I decided the VM was about Star Wars, "daiin" would be "the force" -- so?
As to my "coincidences" being trivial and marginal, perhaps if there were
only a few I could see how that would be construed as coincidental, but
when I've plotted a correspondence between the two that matches them
together from start to finish , IN ORDER --- how can that possibly be
coincidental?
Thanks to your matches being far-fetched and arbitrary (this is what I meant
with my use of the word, see below).
For example, if I see correctly, the "forest" in the introduction of the
Comedia is mentioned exactly twice, and neither time with much detail -- it
very obviously serves as a metaphor for "being lost". You assume that the
whole herbal section of the VM is dedicated to the details of the forest,
which is simply completely irrelevant for the Comedia as such.
On a different occassion, you identify one of the the red "Chinese" wierdoes
on the first page as the astrological sign for Aries (not universally
accepted, AFAIK), which you match to --
"This fell at the first widening of the dawn
as the sun was climbing Aries with those stars
that rode with him to light the new creation."
Using Henry Cary Francis' translation from Project Gutenberg, the same
sequence reads --
"The hour was morning's prime, and on his way
Aloft the sun ascended with those stars,
That with him rose, when Love divine first mov'd"
With no mention of Aries.
The original reads
"Temp'era dal principio del mattino,
e 'l sol montava 'n su` con quelle stelle
ch'eran con lui quando l'amor divino"
And again I can't identify Aries. I think you fell for the whim of your
translator here.
Furthermore, if we read for a few more lines:
"A lion came, 'gainst me, as it appear'd,
With his head held aloft and hunger-mad
That e'en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf
Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem'd
...
He answer'd: "Now not man, man once I was,
And born of Lombard parents, Mantuana both
By country, when the power of Julius yet
Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past
Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time..."
So, here we have symbols of lions, wolves, Lombardy and Mantua, Cesar, Rome,
and Augustus. If you discovered one of these symbols (like the arms of
Lombardy) on the VM, would you say it's compelling evidence for the
connection? Probably not. The Comedia is _poetry_ -- it's full of images and
symbols, and it's large enough to find an image of virtually everything.
And where is your "in order" matching?
You write that you found the Dante string for the first time next to the
clining figure on f66r, more than halfway through the VM, which according to
you corresponds to the very opening lines of the Comedia.
You identify King Midas on one of the pages on the grounds of it... being a
human face, and it fitting your theory.
All your arguments work backwards -- "it _could_ be Midas, because it
wouldn't contradict my theory". But you're missing the forward evidence,
something which _first_ compellingly identifies Midas, and _then_ fits him
in the context of the VM.
This is nicely illustrated in your comments:
the
Voynich author may not have even included [Vergil] in his comentary for unknown
reasons. This is illustrated by the fact that the VMs rendition of
Cocytus(the ninth circle of the Inferno/ Folio 70R2) is barely represented
but Dante's drean of the Siren (Canto 19 of Purgatory) is extended in the
VMs to cover three folios (79R/79V/80R).
Here you are saying, "The fact that Vergil is (apparently) missing doesn't
invalidate my theory, because other parts of the Comedia are represented
disproportionately, too."
Of course, you could also forward-read this: "Vergil is missing, and other
parts of the Comedia are grossly misrepresented (as to their relevance) as
well, both of which points to the VM not being a discussion of the Comedia."
> ...
"matching vague stanzas arbitrarily with in this case even more vague VM
images"
I believe the only place I made use of the word "arbitrary" in my paper
You didn't use the word, I did to intensify the feeling of vagueness I had
about your matches.
...They are the result of sitting down and carefully
examining each individual drawing for the tiny details that define them.
That is how you get around the vague VM images.
I beg to differ. IMHO you've proven the wonderful abilities of the human
mind to find patterns and relations whether there are any or not. Nothing more.
...
Thank you
My pleasure.
Erni
I sincerely appreciate your efforts and the dedicated work you put into your
theory; please don't get me wrong. I still think, though, that Dante's not
the answer.
Elmar
--
Elmar Vogt / Königswarterstr. 18 / 90762 Fürth / GERMANY
elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx / www.beamends.de / Tel.: (++49/0)911 - 31 52 58
"It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities -
respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that
we come to life in God's eyes." (Bruce Springsteen, "Vote for Change")
______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list