Captain’s Blog: 1/31/2022
The structure of the Voynich Manuscript has often been categorized inaccurately in recent scholarship and popular interpretation, owing to a range of methodological and contextual factors. This study argues that the manuscript’s literary organization was designed to unfold in a manner analogous to Homer’s Iliad, specifically as an epic narrative modeled on the Trojan War. The following structural outline is excerpted from our recent publication, The Lost Language of Braveheart, and Robert de Bruce King of Scots.
“Form” refers to the organizational structure through which a composition is defined as a particular type of work. Although the form of the Voynich Manuscript (VM) has been extensively analyzed over the past century, it has often been misunderstood because such analyses have relied primarily on illustration rather than on knowledge of the manuscript’s language or historical context. The VM appears to follow a structure comparable to that of Greek tragedy, particularly Homer’s Iliad.
The structure of the Voynich Manuscript may be interpreted through the conventions of Greek tragedy. In this framework, the work begins with a prologue, derived from pro and logos, meaning “preliminary speech,” in which the creator/author introduces the manuscript and provides the background for the ensuing narrative. The prologue is followed by the parodos, or entry of the characters or group/clans (πάροδος), after which the narrative unfolds through three or more episodes (ἐπεισόδια, epeisodia). These episodes are interspersed with stasima (στάσιμον, stasimon), choral interludes that explain or comment on the developing situation within the manuscript. In the episodes, interaction typically occurs between the authors and the reader/sea captians. The tragedy concludes with the exodus (ἔξοδος), which marks the completion of the journey.
Introduction (Prologue): Folio 1r. Opening letter and statement of the VM’s purpose.
Section A: Folios 1v–74v.
Parodos: Folio 1r. In Greek theatre, parodos literally refers to “passageways.” In this section, the chorus—that is, “the authors”—explains the VM’s illusory structure, the function of its passageways, and the mathematical principles underlying them.
Episodes: Folios 1v–57r. Maps and legends representing geographic locations, roads, ocean currents, and wind currents, accompanied by brief poetic navigational instructions.
Stasimon:
-Folios 57–66. Instructions for calculating lighthouse placement, determining construction sites, and using the associated measuring instruments.
-Folios 67–74. Devices used to perform the mathematical calculations represented in MS 408.
Section B (Episode): Folios 75–84. Epic battle scene in which military strategy is represented through code words and star clusters denoting attack positions.
Section C (Stasimon)
Folios 85v–86r: Map of North Pole and its wind cycles
Section A1 (Episode): Folios 87r–87v. Maps and legends.
Section A2 (Stasimon): Folios 88r–90r. Ship schematic.
Section A3 (Episode): Folio 91 – 96v. A New World
Section A4 (Stasimon): Folios 99r–102v. “Recipes for Disaster”: the Trojan Horse.
Section E (Exodus): Folios 103r–116r. A legal decree presented as a global peace treaty.
Conclusion: Folio 116v. An epic warning.
The Three Unities
The three Aristotelian unities of drama—time, place, and action—are presented here as interpretive principles that are consistently reflected in the Voynich Manuscript (VM). Although Aristotle emphasized the unity of action, the formulation of the three unities as formal dramatic rules emerged only later, during the medieval period in which the manuscript was produced.
- Unity of action: The VM appears to maintain a single primary action—strategy and tactics—with relatively few subordinate plots or secondary actions. Its central military objective is established and pursued throughout the manuscript.
- Unity of place: Each folio of the VM appears to represent a distinct physical location. The manuscript does not appear to compress geography or depict multiple places simultaneously within a single folio.
- Unity of time: The action represented on each folio of the VM appears to correspond to a twenty-four-hour period, structured according to the medieval clock systems that emerged around the time the manuscript was produced.
Aristotle argued that a dramatic work should be complete and unified; that is, it should possess a beginning, middle, and end. In this interpretation, the VM authors produced a complete atlas of the Earth and organized that atlas from an originating zero-degree point. Aristotle also distinguished the scope of epic poetry from that of tragedy, observing that tragedy generally attempts to unfold within “one revolution of the sun,” whereas epic poetry is not similarly limited in time. The military actions and tragic events described by the VM authors are therefore interpreted as occurring within periods no longer than twenty-four hours. The continued application of the knowledge encoded in the manuscript, however, is not constrained by a comparable temporal framework.
The Language
The Scottish-Greek dialects used in the Voynich Manuscript are the Attic dialect along with formal English derived from Latin for the parts said to be spoken or recited by an individual, and a literary Doric-Scots dialect called Galwegian for the choral odes. For the metre, the spoken parts mainly use the iambic (iambic trimeter) as a mathematical equation for geolocations, while the choral parts rely on a variety of meters in which the author of the folio will identify. Anapaests (metrical foot) is used as the chorus (fleet) or a character (specific ship) moved on or off the mapped region.
Tucker STEM Team 