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The "key? f116v.1-2: a Latin Prayer to
Mary
This is an addendum to my earlier note on folio
116v.1-2 from 3 September 2005.
If we read line 1 as I did the day before yesterday
(?archicon ola dabas??) and if we read the sign in line 2 behind "si?, "mari?,
"mori? and "vi? as "s? (as Jorge Stolfi rightly proposed in an email from 13
April 1999) we get:
f116v.1: + árchicon óla dabás / +
multás / + #e + cárcere + pórtas +
f116v.2: sis + maris + moris + vis + apta + ma+ria + Now I think it is quite obvious that this is
nothing but a Latin prayer to the Virgin Mary: In Medieval theology Mary is
called the vessel (?vas?, sometimes ?aula?, ?templum?) which gives birth to the
Ruler (?archikos?), i.e. Christ. By that, she also gives us many doors out of
the prison (the body?, the Underworld?) ([#]?e carcere?) to Heaven, she is
called ?door to the Heavens? (?porta celi?). She is the force or essence (?vis?)
of man (?maris? from ?mas?) or of sea (?maris? from ?mare?, cf. Mary as ?stella
maris?) and the force of moral (?moris? from ?mos?), the neat Mary (?apta
Maria?).
Translation:
f116v.1: + You, vessel, gave the Ruler
and many doors out of the prison.
f116v.2: May you be the power of man and moral, neat Mary. + Conclusion:
The so-called ?key? to the Voynich manuscript (VMS f116v.1-2) is a prayer to the Virgin Mary in clear Medieval Latin. This prayer reflects Mary?s role as mother of Christ and as Porta celi. It is bound by metre (line 1 is a hexameter; line 2 has a somewhat metrical structure -- though it is no pentameter). There is absolutely no indication that these lines contain any cryptological key, null-letters or mess. Newbold?s and Brumbaugh?s readings were misleading. Furthermore, there seems to be a connection between the word ?archicon? in line 1 and the words ?oror.sheey? in line 3: ?archicon? probably is a ?translation? of ?or.sheey? (see my last mail). P.S.: Just a guess: If we assume the woman left to the lines on f116v is
Virgin Mary, then the animal above her could be a lamb and the thing above it a
vessel?
Any comments? Best regards,
Gregor Damschen ----------------------------------------------
Institut fuer
Philosophie
Martin-Luther-Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg Schleiermacherstr. 1 06114 Halle Germany |