f73r. Zodiac folios: Scorpio

f73r, Scorpio. Voynich Manuscript. Credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

The Scorpio folio is assigned to the month of October and the events for this month are shown below.

October

8^th

14^th

19^th

Venus at inferior conjunction

Mercury greatest elongation W.

Penumbral eclipse of the Moon – barely perceivable

There are no main markers visible on this folio but the central figure is holding a star which may represent SN 1604 which lies closest to the zodiacal constellation of Scorpio, alternatively (but more unlikely) it refers back to SN 363, which occurred in the tail of Scorpio. The tail of the Scorpion points directly down to a “blob” star which may represent the location of SN 1604 which is located directly under the tail. Its foot when treated as a marker best fits the tail of Scorpio and SN 1604 in relation to the NCP and the inferior conjunction of Venus.

Unlike other nymphs which I have suggested represent Venus by standing in what looks like a tub there is no such image here, this may be due to the lack of visibility of Venus at this time. The label for the nymph suggested to be Venus I translate as “Venus”. The four nymphs at the very top, outermost ring of nymphs may refer to the inferior conjunction of Venus depicting the Sun and Venus approaching and appearing to just touch.

There are no obvious male looking nymphs but there has been a lot of later? (darker) ink adjustments to the nymphs which may have included changing the appearance of certain nymphs from male to female, if the penumbral eclipse of the Moon was included I would expect a male nymph to be present. There are nymphs almost but no quite in the “Conjunction” pose which may indicate conjunctions which are not very close or in the case of the eclipse of the Moon, not easily visible.

f73r, Scorpio. Voynich Manuscript. Credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Overlay by P. Han showing possible inferior conjunction of Venus and conjunction nymphs.


f73r, Scorpio. Voynich Manuscript. Credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Overlay by P. Han showing foot and tail marker of central scorpion figure, and points of interest.	Celestial North Pole centred star map, 8/10/1054 AD, North China. Credit: Redshift6/f73r, cropped, Scorpio, Voynich Manuscript. Credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Overlay by P. Han showing foot and tail marker of central scorpion figure compared to actual star map in relation to Venus, Scorpio, NCP and SN 1604.