Astraea
This is fascinating, Kenji. Thank you for sharing these images. So nice to see you!
This is fascinating, Kenji. Thank you for sharing these images. So nice to see you!
I've been just fine, Kenji, and I hope the same is true of you!Wow Astraea, how have you been? Thanks and I am glad to see you here again!
The other figure has elements resembling some of those in the folios showing nude human figures in tubs of liquid. A cloud-like form at the top, from which conventionalized rays emanate, represents God; immediately below, the figure of a man or angel breathes into the mouth of a bulbous alchemical vessel; his breath is clearly indicated in exactly the way that the vapors or liquids are shown passing through the elaborate "plumbing" on the Voynich manuscript folios.On the vessel are a sun (with a face) above and within a crescent moon; from each of these, vapors or emanations are shown descending through the vessel. The round bottom of the vessel is provided with seven spouts, spaced around its curved circumference, and the vapor emerges from all of these and trickles down over two nude, plump human figures locking arms and holding hands; these figures, while better drawn than the Voynich manuscript nudes, are short-legged and "hippy", with fat tummies, in a very similar style. Two dragons standing on their heads and a toad complete the composition. The style of the seven spouts on the vessel is so close to that of similar spouts and vents on the pipe-like forms in the manuscripts as to be almost indistinguishable, and the symbolic use of conventionalized forms to create a new synthetic whole with a complex meaning also seems closely akin to the methods of the Voynich manuscript's scribe or scribes. While these drawings are identified only as "anonymous" in Ashomole's collection, I have discovered some highly similar figures in other works where they are associated with the writings of George Ripley, a fifteenth-century alchemist who produced numerous treatises with a strong Christian flavor (Philalethes 1678, Ripley 1591, 1756). De Rola (1973, figure 64) shows a figure similar to the second described above, citing its source as De Erroribus, by John Dastin (British Museum, Egerton 845, folio 17v).
One of the earliest appearances of the Toad symbol in alchemical literature and iconography seems to be that in the works of George Ripley, in which it plays a very prominent, or even central, part. His short poem The Vision describes an alchemical process veiled in symbols. The Toad first drinks "juice of Grapes" until it is so filled up that "casts it Venom" and "begins to swell" as a result of poisoning. Then the Toad dies in its "Cave" and the usual sequence of colour changes follows: black, various colours, white and red. Thus the Venom is changed into powerful Medicine.
The famous Ripley Scrowle has not been available to me in its entirety but from several published fragments it seems that it presents a similar, though considerably extended, process of the Toad undergoing various chemical changes. It reappears in various points of this symbolic road, clearly suggesting continuity. In some versions the Toad is also the final symbol of the Philosophers' Stone.
Eirenaeus Philalethes in his comentary to Ripley's Vision says that the Toad symbolizes gold. This view may have been influenced by Michael Sendivogius's statement that the Philosophers' Stone is nothing else but "gold digested to the highest degree", especially as Philalethes was his admirer and adopted his pseudonym of Cosmopolita. As we do not know the First Matter of Ripley, it is difficult to say whether Eirenaeus Philalethes is right. Ripley himself in his most famous work The Twelve Gates, which is less symbolic and uses early chemical terminology, remarks in the first Gate (Calcination): ....
The well known illustration from Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum shows the Toad at the bottom of the symbolic process, probably indicating its beginning. It is interesting that it joins the male and female figures, as if it symbolized the power of attraction with some sexual overtones. The whole figure is entitled "Spiritus, Anima, Corpus", of which the Corpus or Body is the male-female pair. The whole possible sexual aspect of alchemy is still completely unknown and waiting to be explained but it may be interesting to note that Thomas Vaughan, who illustrated Ashmole's collection, made numerous sexual references in his own alchemical works, especially Aula Lucis. In his notebooks Vaughan explained how he had made the "oil of Halcali" with the help of his wife. According to A.E. Waite this oil is the First Matter which connects it with our Toad symbol.
Cleopatra, dressed in royal garments, followed her Anthony. Lying down next to him, she opened the veins of her arms and put two asps in the openings in order to die. Some say that they cause death in sleep.
FIG. 39. Benignita: BOUNTY.
A noble Lady cloth'd in sky-colour'd Apparel, with Stars of Gold: she presses her Duggs with both Hands, from which flows abundance of Milk, which several Animals drink up: on her left Side is an Altar with Fire kindled upon it.
The squeezing her Breasts declares Bounty towards Subjects; the sky-colour, &c. shews that it ought to be shewn upon the account of Religion, therein imitating God himself.