The Travels of Marco Polo 9 – Yule · Verses Across
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The Travels of Marco Polo 9Preface (part 9)
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Literature · Adventure
The Travels of Marco Polo 9
Preface (part 9)
YuleEnglish
“Et si jeo nai de François la faconde
* * * *
Jeo suis Englois; si quier par tiele voie
Estre excusé.”
Indeed down to nearly 1385, boys in the English grammar-schools were taught to construe their Latin lessons into French. St. Francis of Assisi is said by some of his biographers to have had his original name changed to Francesco because of his early mastery of that language as a qualification for commerce. French had been the prevalent tongue of the Crusaders, and was that of the numerous Frank Courts which they established in the East, including Jerusalem and the states of the Syrian coast, Cyprus, Constantinople during the reign of the Courtenays, and the principalities of the Morea. The Catalan soldier and chronicler Ramon de Muntaner tells us that it was commonly said of the Morean chivalry that they spoke as good French as at Paris. Quasi-French at least was still spoken half a century later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo, as John Marignolli testifies; and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords “spak Frensche righte wel!” Gházán Kaan, the accomplished Mongol Sovereign of Persia, to whom our Traveller conveyed a bride from Cambaluc, is said by the historian Rashiduddin to have known something of the Frank tongue, probably French. Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher spheres!
Nor was Polo’s case an exceptional one even among writers on the East who were not Frenchmen. Maundevile himself tells us that he put his book first “out of Latyn into Frensche,” and then out of French into English. The History of the East which the Armenian Prince and Monk Hayton dictated to Nicolas Faulcon at Poictiers in 1307 was taken down in French. There are many other instances of the employment of French by foreign, and especially by Italian authors of that age. The Latin chronicle of the Benedictine Amato of Monte Cassino was translated into French early in the 13th century by another monk of the same abbey, at the particular desire of the Count of Militrée (or Malta), “Pour ce qu’il set lire et entendre fransoize et s’en delitte.” Martino da Canale, a countryman and contemporary of Polo’s, during the absence of the latter in the East wrote a Chronicle of Venice in the same language, as a reason for which he alleges its general popularity. The like does the most notable example of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, who wrote in French his encyclopædic and once highly popular work Li Tresor. Other examples might be given, but in fact such illustration is superfluous when we consider that Rusticiano himself was a compiler of French Romances.
But why the language of the Book as we see it in the Geographic Text should be so much more rude, inaccurate, and Italianized than that of Rusticiano’s other writings, is a question to which I can suggest no reply quite satisfactory to myself. Is it possible that we have in it a literal representation of Polo’s own language in dictating the story,—a rough draft which it was intended afterwards to reduce to better form, and which was so reduced (after a fashion) in French copies of another type, regarding which we shall have to speak presently? And, if this be the true answer, why should Polo have used a French jargon in which to tell his story? Is it possible that his own mother Venetian, such as he had carried to the East with him and brought back again, was so little intelligible to Rusticiano that French of some kind was the handiest medium of communication between the two? I have known an Englishman and a Hollander driven to converse in Malay; Chinese Christians of different provinces are said sometimes to take to English as the readiest means of intercommunication; and the same is said even of Irish-speaking Irishmen from remote parts of the Island.
It is worthy of remark how many notable narratives of the Middle Ages have been dictated instead of being written by their authors, and that in cases where it is impossible to ascribe this to ignorance of writing. The Armenian Hayton, though evidently a well-read man, possibly could not write in Roman characters. But Joinville is an illustrious example. And the narratives of four of the most famous Mediæval Travellers seem to have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and committed to paper by other hands. I have elsewhere remarked this as indicating how little diffused was literary ambition or vanity; but it would perhaps be more correct to ascribe it to that intense dislike which is still seen on the shores of the Mediterranean to the use of pen and ink. On certain of those shores at least there is scarcely any inconvenience that the majority of respectable and good-natured people will not tolerate—inconvenience to their neighbours be it understood—rather than put pen to paper for the purpose of preventing it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 232 chapters in the oldest French which we quote as the Geographic Text (or G. T.), 200 in Pauthier’s Text, 183 in the Crusca Italian.
The MS. has been printed by Baldelli as above, and again by Bartoli in 1863.
This is somewhat peculiar. I traced a few lines of it, which with Del Riccio’s note were given in facsimile in the First Edition.
The Crusca is cited from Bartoli’s edition.
French idioms are frequent, as l’uomo for the French on; quattro-vinti instead of ottanta; etc.
We have at p. 35, “Questo piano è molto cavo,” which is nonsense, but is explained by reference to the French (G. T.) “Voz di qu’il est celle plaingne mout chaue” (chaude).
The bread in Kerman is bitter, says the G. T. “por ce que l’eive hi est amer,” because the water there is bitter. The Crusca mistakes the last word and renders (p. 40) “e questi è per lo mare che vi viene.”
“Sachiés de voir qe endementiers,” know for a truth that whilst——, by some misunderstanding of the last word becomes (p. 129) “Sappiate di vero sanza mentire.”
“Mès de sel font-il monoie”—“They make money of salt,” becomes (p. 168) “ma fannole da loro,” sel being taken for a pronoun, whilst in another place sel is transferred bodily without translation.
“Chevoil,” “hair” of the old French, appears in the Tuscan (p. 20) as cavagli, “horses.”—“La Grant Provence Jereraus,” the great general province, appears (p. 68) as a province whose proper name is Ienaraus. In describing Kúblái’s expedition against Mien or Burma, Polo has a story of his calling on the Jugglers at his court to undertake the job, promising them a Captain and other help, “Cheveitain et aide.” This has fairly puzzled the Tuscan, who converts these (p. 186) into two Tartar tribes, “quegli d’Aide e quegli di Caveità.”
So also we have lievre for hare transferred without change; lait, milk, appearing as laido instead of latte; très, rendered as “three”; bue, “mud,” Italianised as buoi, “oxen,” and so forth. Finally, in various places when Polo is explaining Oriental terms we find in the Tuscan MS. “cioè a dire in Francesco.”
The blunders mentioned are intelligible enough as in a version from the French; but in the description of the Indian pearl-fishery we have a startling one not so easy to account for. The French says, “the divers gather the sea-oysters (hostrige de Mer), and in these the pearls are found.” This appears in the Tuscan in the extraordinary form that the divers catch those fishes called Herrings (Aringhe), and in those Herrings are found the Pearls!
As examples of these Italianisms: “Et ont del olio de la lanpe dou sepolchro de Crist”; “L’Angel ven en vision pour mesajes de Deu à un Veschevo qe mout estoient home de sante vite”; “E certes il estoit bien beizongno”; “ne trop caut ne trop fredo”; “la crense” (credenza); “remort” for noise (rumore); “inverno”; “jorno”; “dementiqué” (dimenticato); “enferme” for sickly; “leign” (legno); “devisce” (dovizia); “ammalaide” (ammalato), etc. etc.
Professor Bianconi points out that there are also traces of
Venetian dialect, as Pare for père; Mojer for wife;
Zabater, cobbler; cazaor, huntsman, etc.
I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of mixed language are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse called Macaire (Altfranzösische Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften, von Adolf Mussafia, Wien, 1864), the language of which is not unlike this jargon of Rustician’s, e.g.:—
“‘Dama,’ fait-il, ‘molto me poso merviler De ves enfant quant le fi batecer De un signo qe le vi sor la spal’a droiturer Qe non ait nul se no filz d’inperer.’”—(p. 41)
As examples of such Orientalisms: Bonus, “ebony,” and calamanz, “pencases,” seem to represent the Persian abnús and ḳalamdàn; the dead are mourned by les mères et les Araines, the Harems; in speaking of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the Arabic Muláhidah, “Heretics,” he explains this term as meaning “des Aram” (Ḥarám, “the reprobate”). Speaking of the Viceroys of Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts yearly to the Safators of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an Oriental word. Sir H. Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for dafátir (“registers or public books”), pl. of daftar. This seems probable, and in that case the true reading may have been dafators.
Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces himself thus:— “Je Luces, Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de Salebieres, comme chevaliers amoureus enprens à translater du Latin en François une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache gramment de François, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure à la manière de l’Engleterre que à celle de France, comme cel qui fu en Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je en langue françoise le translaterai.” (Hist. Litt. de La France, xv. 494.)
Hist. Litt. de la France, xv. 500.
Ibid. 508.
Tyrwhitt’s Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon’s Ed. 1852.)
Chroniques Etrangères, p. 502.
“Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro.” (See Cathay, p. 332.)
Page 138.
Hammers Ilchan, II. 148.
After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000 Saracen prisoners to be executed:—
“They wer brought out off the toun,
Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun.
They wer led into the place ful evene:
Ther they herden Aungeles off Hevene:
They sayde: ‘SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ!
‘Spares hem nought! Behedith these!’
Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys,
And thankyd God, and the Holy Croys.”
—Weber, II. 144.
Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently pronounced “Too-eese! Too-eese!”
[Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the T’oung Pao, Vol. II., No. 4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville. Also App. L. 13—H. C.]
L’Ystoire de li Normand, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v.
“Porce que lengue Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable à lire et à oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de translater l’ancien estoire des Veneciens de Latin en Franceis.” (Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 268.)
“Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, selonc le langage des François, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por. ij. raisons: l’une, car nos somes en France; et l’autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune à toutes gens.” (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.)
It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano’s hasty and abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing of French; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as perlinage (pelerinage), peseries (espiceries), proque (see vol. ii. p. 370), oisi (G. T. p. 208), thochere (toucher), etc. (See Bianconi, 2nd Mem. pp. 30–32.)
Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.
X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO’S BOOK.
Four Principal Types of Text. First, that of the Geographic, or oldest French.
55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo’s Book we must necessarily go into some irksome detail.
Those Texts that have come down to us may be classified under Four principal Types.
I. The First Type is that of the Geographic Text of which we have already said so much. This is found nowhere complete except in the unique MS. of the Paris Library, to which it is stated to have come from the old Library of the French Kings at Blois. But the Italian Crusca, and the old Latin version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the Geographic Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though both are considerably abridged. It is also demonstrable that neither of these copies has been translated from the other, for each has passages which the other omits, but that both have been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the other as a translation, from an intermediate Italian copy. A special difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into three Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division. I shall show in a tabular form the filiation of the texts which these facts seem to demonstrate (see Appendix G).
There are other Italian MSS. of this type, some of which show signs of having been derived independently from the French; but I have not been able to examine any of them with the care needful to make specific deductions regarding them.
Second; the remodelled French Text, followed by Pauthier.
56. II. The next Type is that of the French MSS. on which M. Pauthier’s Text is based, and for which he claims the highest authority, as having had the mature revision and sanction of the Traveller. There are, as far as I know, five MSS. which may be classed together under this type, three in the Great Paris Library, one at Bern, and one in the Bodleian.
The high claims made by Pauthier on behalf of this class of MSS. (on the first three of which his Text is formed) rest mainly upon the kind of certificate which two of them bear regarding the presentation of a copy by Marco Polo to Thibault de Cepoy, which we have already quoted (supra, p. 69). This certificate is held by Pauthier to imply that the original of the copies which bear it, and of those having a general correspondence with them, had the special seal of Marco’s revision and approval. To some considerable extent their character is corroborative of such a claim, but they are far from having the perfection which Pauthier attributes to them, and which leads him into many paradoxes.
It is not possible to interpret rigidly the bearing of this so-called certificate, as if no copies had previously been taken of any form of the Book; nor can we allow it to impugn the authenticity of the Geographic Text, which demonstratively represents an older original, and has been (as we have seen) the parent of all other versions, including some very old ones, Italian and Latin, which certainly owe nothing to this revision.
The first idea apparently entertained by d’Avezac and Paulin Paris was that the Geographic Text was itself the copy given to the Sieur de Cepoy, and that the differences in the copies of the class which we describe as Type II. merely resulted from the modifications which would naturally arise in the process of transcription into purer French. But closer examination showed the differences to be too great and too marked to admit of this explanation. These differences consist not only in the conversion of the rude, obscure, and half Italian language of the original into good French of the period. There is also very considerable curtailment, generally of tautology, but also extending often to circumstances of substantial interest; whilst we observe the omission of a few notably erroneous statements or expressions; and a few insertions of small importance. None of the MSS. of this class contain more than a few of the historical chapters which we have formed into Book IV.
The only addition of any magnitude is that chapter which in our translation forms chapter xxi. of Book II. It will be seen that it contains no new facts, but is only a tedious recapitulation of circumstances already stated, though scattered over several chapters. There are a few minor additions. I have not thought it worth while to collect them systematically here, but two or three examples are given in a note.
There are also one or two corrections of erroneous statements in the G. T. which seem not to be accidental and to indicate some attempt at revision. Thus a notable error in the account of Aden, which seems to conceive of the Red Sea as a river, disappears in Pauthier’s MSS. A and B. And we find in these MSS. one or two interesting names preserved which are not found in the older Text.
But on the other hand this class of MSS. contains many erroneous readings of names, either adopting the worse of two forms occurring in the G. T. or originating blunders of its own.
M. Pauthier lays great stress on the character of these MSS. as the sole authentic form of the work, from their claim to have been specially revised by Marco Polo. It is evident, however, from what has been said, that this revision can have been only a very careless and superficial one, and must have been done in great measure by deputy, being almost entirely confined to curtailment and to the improvement of the expression, and that it is by no means such as to allow an editor to dispense with a careful study of the Older Text.
The Bern MS. and two others form a sub-class of this Type.
57. There is another curious circumstance about the MSS. of this type, viz., that they clearly divide into two distinct recensions, of which both have so many peculiarities and errors in common that they must necessarily have been both derived from one modification of the original text, whilst at the same time there are such differences between the two as cannot be set down to the accidents of transcription. Pauthier’s MSS. A and B (Nos. 16 and 15 of the List in App. F) form one of these subdivisions: his C (No. 17 of List), Bern (No. 56), and Oxford (No. 6), the other. Between A and B the differences are only such as seem constantly to have arisen from the whims of transcribers or their dialectic peculiarities. But between A and B on the one side, and C on the other, the differences are much greater. The readings of proper names in C are often superior, sometimes worse; but in the latter half of the work especially it contains a number of substantial passages which are to be found in the G. T., but are altogether absent from the MSS. A and B; whilst in one case at least (the history of the Siege of Saianfu, vol. ii. p. 159) it diverges considerably from the G. T. as well as from A and B.
I gather from the facts that the MS. C represents an older form of the work than A and B. I should judge that the latter had been derived from that older form, but intentionally modified from it. And as it is the MS. C, with its copy at Bern, that alone presents the certificate of derivation from the Book given to the Sieur de Cepoy, there can be no doubt that it is the true representative of that recension.
Third; Friar Pipino’s Latin.
58. III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar Pipino’s Latin version. It is the type of which MSS. are by far the most numerous. In it condensation and curtailment are carried a good deal further than in Type II. The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does not seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the ruder and perhaps older Latin version of which we have already spoken under Type I. And we have demonstrated that this ruder Latin is a translation from an Italian copy. It is probable therefore that an Italian version similarly divided was the common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of Pipino’s more condensed version.
Pipino’s version appears to have been executed in the later years of Polo’s life. But I can see no ground for the idea entertained by Baldelli-Boni and Professor Bianconi that it was executed with Polo’s cognizance and retouched by him.
The Latin of Grynæus a translation at fifth hand.
59. The absence of effective publication in the Middle Ages led to a curious complication of translation and retranslation. Thus the Latin version published by Grynæus in the Novus Orbis (Basle, 1532) is different from Pipino’s, and yet clearly traceable to it as a base. In fact it is a retranslation into Latin from some version (Marsden thinks the printed Portuguese one) of Pipino. It introduces many minor modifications, omitting specific statements of numbers and values, generalizing the names and descriptions of specific animals, exhibiting frequent sciolism and self-sufficiency in modifying statements which the Editor disbelieved. It is therefore utterly worthless as a Text, and it is curious that Andreas Müller, who in the 17th century devoted himself to the careful editing of Polo, should have made so unfortunate a choice as to reproduce this fifth-hand Translation. I may add that the French editions published in the middle of the 16th century are translations from Grynæus. Hence they complete this curious and vicious circle of translation: French—Italian—Pipino’s Latin—Portuguese?—Grynæus’s Latin—French!
Fourth; Ramusio’s Italian.
60. IV. We now come to a Type of Text which deviates largely from any of those hitherto spoken of, and the history and true character of which are involved in a cloud of difficulty. We mean that Italian version prepared for the press by G. B. Ramusio, with most interesting, though, as we have seen, not always accurate preliminary dissertations, and published at Venice two years after his death, in the second volume of the Navigationi e Viaggi.
The peculiarities of this version are very remarkable. Ramusio seems to imply that he used as one basis at least the Latin of Pipino; and many circumstances, such as the division into Books, the absence of the terminal historical chapters and of those about the Magi, and the form of many proper names, confirm this. But also many additional circumstances and anecdotes are introduced, many of the names assume a new shape, and the whole style is more copious and literary in character than in any other form of the work.
Whilst some of the changes or interpolations seem to carry us further from the truth, others contain facts of Asiatic nature or history, as well as of Polo’s own experiences, which it is extremely difficult to ascribe to any hand but the Traveller’s own. This was the view taken by Baldelli, Klaproth, and Neumann; but Hugh Murray, Lazari, and Bartoli regard the changes as interpolations by another hand; and Lazari is rash enough to ascribe the whole to a rifacimento of Ramusio’s own age, asserting it to contain interpolations not merely from Polo’s own contemporary Hayton, but also from travellers of later centuries, such as Conti, Barbosa, and Pigafetta. The grounds for these last assertions have not been cited, nor can I trace them. But I admit to a certain extent indications of modern tampering with the text, especially in cases where proper names seem to have been identified and more modern forms substituted. In days, however, where an Editor’s duties were ill understood, this was natural.
Injudicious tamperings in Ramusio.
61. Thus we find substituted for the Bastra (or Bascra) of the older texts the more modern and incorrect Balsora, dear to memories of the Arabian Nights; among the provinces of Persia we have Spaan (Ispahan) where older texts read Istanit; for Cormos we have Ormus; for Herminia and Laias, Armenia and Giazza; Coulam for the older Coilum; Socotera for Scotra. With these changes may be classed the chapter-headings, which are undisguisedly modern, and probably Ramusio’s own. In some other cases this editorial spirit has been over-meddlesome and has gone astray. Thus Malabar is substituted wrongly for Maabar in one place, and by a grosser error for Dalivar in another. The age of young Marco, at the time of his father’s first return to Venice, has been arbitrarily altered from 15 to 19, in order to correspond with a date which is itself erroneous. Thus also Polo is made to describe Ormus as on an Island, contrary to the old texts and to the fact; for the city of Hormuz was not transferred to the island, afterwards so famous, till some years after Polo’s return from the East. It is probably also the editor who in the notice of the oil-springs of Caucasus (i. p. 46) has substituted camel-loads for ship-loads, in ignorance that the site of those alluded to was probably Baku on the Caspian.
Other erroneous statements, such as the introduction of window-glass as one of the embellishments of the palace at Cambaluc, are probably due only to accidental misunderstanding.
Genuine statements peculiar to Ramusio.
62. Of circumstances certainly genuine, which are peculiar to this edition of Polo’s work, and which it is difficult to assign to any one but himself, we may note the specification of the woods east of Yezd as composed of date trees (vol. i pp. 88–89); the unmistakable allusion to the subterranean irrigation channels of Persia (p. 123); the accurate explanation of the term Mulehet applied to the sect of Assassins (pp. 139–142); the mention of the Lake (Sirikul?) on the plateau of Pamer, of the wolves that prey on the wild sheep, and of the piles of wild rams’ horns used as landmarks in the snow (pp. 171–177). To the description of the Tibetan Yak, which is in all the texts, Ramusio’s version alone adds a fact probably not recorded again till the present century, viz., that it is the practice to cross the Yak with the common cow (p. 274). Ramusio alone notices the prevalence of goître at Yarkand, confirmed by recent travellers (i. p. 187); the vermilion seal of the Great Kaan imprinted on the paper-currency, which may be seen in our plate of a Chinese note (p. 426); the variation in Chinese dialects (ii. p. 236); the division of the hulls of junks into water-tight compartments (ii. p. 249); the introduction into China from Egypt of the art of refining sugar (ii. p. 226). Ramusio’s account of the position of the city of Sindafu (Ch’êng-tu fu) encompassed and intersected by many branches of a great river (ii. p. 40), is much more just than that in the old text, which speaks of but one river through the middle of the city. The intelligent notices of the Kaan’s charities as originated by his adoption of “idolatry” or Buddhism; of the astrological superstitions of the Chinese, and of the manners and character of the latter nation, are found in Ramusio alone. To whom but Marco himself, or one of his party, can we refer the brief but vivid picture of the delicious atmosphere and scenery of the Badakhshan plateaux (i. p. 158), and of the benefit that Messer Marco’s health derived from a visit to them? In this version alone again we have an account of the oppressions exercised by Kúblái’s Mahomedan Minister Ahmad, telling how the Cathayans rose against him and murdered him, with the addition that Messer Marco was on the spot when all this happened. Now not only is the whole story in substantial accordance with the Chinese Annals, even to the name of the chief conspirator, but those annals also tell of the courageous frankness of “Polo, assessor of the Privy Council,” in opening the Kaan’s eyes to the truth.
Many more such examples might be adduced, but these will suffice. It is true that many of the passages peculiar to the Ramusian version, and indeed the whole version, show a freer utterance and more of a literary faculty than we should attribute to Polo, judging from the earlier texts. It is possible, however, that this may be almost, if not entirely, due to the fact that the version is the result of a double translation, and probably of an editorial fusion of several documents; processes in which angularities of expression would be dissolved.
Hypothesis of the sources of the Ramusian Version.
63. Though difficulties will certainly remain, the most probable explanation of the origin of this text seems to me to be some such hypothesis as the following:—I suppose that Polo in his latter years added with his own hand supplementary notes and reminiscences, marginally or otherwise, to a copy of his book; that these, perhaps in his lifetime, more probably after his death, were digested and translated into Latin; and that Ramusio, or some friend of his, in retranslating and fusing them with Pipino’s version for the Navigationi, made those minor modifications in names and other matters which we have already noticed. The mere facts of digestion from memoranda and double translation would account for a good deal of unintentional corruption.
That more than one version was employed in the composition of Ramusio’s edition we have curious proof in at least one passage of the latter. We have pointed out at p. 410 of this volume a curious example of misunderstanding of the old French Text, a passage in which the term Roi des Pelaines, or “King of Furs,” is applied to the Sable, and which in the Crusca has been converted into an imaginary Tartar phrase Leroide pelame, or as Pipino makes it Rondes (another indication that Pipino’s Version and the Crusca passed through a common medium). But Ramusio exhibits both the true reading and the perversion: “E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle pelli” (there is the true reading), “E gli animali si chiamano Rondes” (and there the perverted one).
We may further remark that Ramusio’s version betrays indications that one of its bases either was in the Venetian dialect, or had passed through that dialect; for a good many of the names appear in Venetian forms, e.g., substituting the z for the sound of ch, j, or soft g, as in Goza, Zorzania, Zagatay, Gonza (for Giogiu), Quenzanfu, Coiganzu, Tapinzu, Zipangu, Ziamba.
Summary in regard to Text of Polo.
64. To sum up. It is, I think, beyond reasonable dispute that we have, in what we call the Geographic Text, as nearly as may be an exact transcript of the Traveller’s words as originally taken down in the prison of Genoa. We have again in the MSS. of the second type an edition pruned and refined, probably under instructions from Marco Polo, but not with any critical exactness. And lastly, I believe, that we have, imbedded in the Ramusian edition, the supplementary recollections of the Traveller, noted down at a later period of his life, but perplexed by repeated translation, compilation, and editorial mishandling.
And the most important remaining problem in regard to the text of Polo’s work is the discovery of the supplemental manuscript from which Ramusio derived those passages which are found only in his edition. It is possible that it may still exist, but no trace of it in anything like completeness has yet been found; though when my task was all but done I discovered a small part of the Ramusian peculiarities in a MS. at Venice.
65. Whilst upon this subject of manuscripts of our Author, I will give some particulars regarding a very curious one, containing a version in the Irish language.
Notice of a curious Irish Version of Polo.
This remarkable document is found in the Book of Lismore, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. That magnificent book, finely written on vellum of the largest size, was discovered in 1814, enclosed in a wooden box, along with a superb crozier, on opening a closed doorway in the castle of Lismore. It contained Lives of the Saints, the (Romance) History of Charlemagne, the History of the Lombards, histories and tales of Irish wars, etc., etc., and among the other matter this version of Marco Polo. A full account of the Book and its mutilations will be found in O’Curry’s Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, p. 196 seqq., Dublin, 1861. The Book of Lismore was written about 1460 for Finghin MacCarthy and his wife Catharine Fitzgerald, daughter of Gerald, Eighth Earl of Desmond.
The date of the Translation of Polo is not known, but it may be supposed to have been executed about the above date, probably in the Monastery of Lismore (county of Waterford).
From the extracts that have been translated for me, it is obvious that the version was made, with an astounding freedom certainly, from Friar Francesco Pipino’s Latin.
Both beginning and end are missing. But what remains opens thus; compare it with Friar Pipino’s real prologue as we give it in the Appendix!
[Irish text] &c.
——“Kings and chieftains of that city. There was then in the city a princely Friar in the habit of St. Francis, named Franciscus, who was versed in many languages. He was brought to the place where those nobles were, and they requested of him to translate the book from the Tartar (!) into the Latin language. ‘It is an abomination to me,’ said he, ‘to devote my mind or labour to works of Idolatry and Irreligion.’ They entreated him again. ‘It shall be done,’ said he; ‘for though it be an irreligious narrative that is related therein, yet the things are miracles of the True God; and every one who hears this much against the Holy Faith shall pray fervently for their conversion. And he who will not pray shall waste the vigour of his body to convert them.’ I am not in dread of this Book of Marcus, for there is no lie in it. My eyes beheld him bringing the relics of the holy Church with him, and he left [his testimony], whilst tasting of death, that it was true. And Marcus was a devout man. What is there in it, then, but that Franciscus translated this Book of Marcus from the Tartar into Latin; and the years of the Lord at that time were fifteen years, two score, two hundred, and one thousand” (1255).
It then describes Armein Bec (Little Armenia), Armein Mor (Great Armenia), Musul, Taurisius, Persida, Camandi, and so forth. The last chapter is that on Abaschia:—
“ABASCHIA also is an extensive country, under the government of Seven Kings, four of whom worship the true God, and each of them wears a golden cross on the forehead; and they are valiant in battle, having been brought up fighting against the Gentiles of the other three kings, who are Unbelievers and Idolaters. And the kingdom of ADEN; a Soudan rules over them.
“The king of Abaschia once took a notion to make a pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Jesus. ‘Not at all,’ said his nobles and warriors to him, ‘for we should be afraid lest the infidels through whose territories you would have to pass, should kill you. There is a Holy Bishop with you,’ said they; ‘send him to the Sepulchre of Jesus, and much gold with him’”——
The rest is wanting.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- In the following citations, the Geographic Text (G. T.) is quoted by page from the printed edition (1824); the Latin published in the same volume (G. L.) also by page; the Crusca, as before, from Bartoli’s edition of 1863. References in parentheses are to the present translation:—
A. Passages showing the G. L. to be a translation from the Italian, and derived from the same Italian text as the Crusca.
Page (1). G.T. 17 (I. 43). Il hi se laborent le souran tapis dou monde.
Crusca, 17 .. E quivi si fanno i sovrani tappeti del mondo.
G.L. 311 .. Et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulcriores de mundo.
(2). G.T. 23 (I. 69). Et adonc le calif mande par tuit les cristiez ... que en sa tere estoient.
Crusca, 27 .. Ora mandò lo aliffo per tutti gli
Cristiani ch’erano di là.
G.L. 316 .. Or misit califus pro Christianis qui erant ultra fluvium (the last words being clearly a misunderstanding of the Italian di là).
(3). G.T. 198 (II. 313). Ont sosimain (sesamum) de coi il font le olio.
Crusca, 253 .. Hanno sosimai onde fanno l’olio.
G.L. 448 .. Habent turpes manus (taking sosimani for sozze mani “Dirty hands”!).
(4). Crusca, 52 (I. 158). Cacciare e uccellare v’è lo migliore del mondo.
G.L. 332 .. Et est ibi optimum caciare et ucellare.
(5). G.T. 124 (II. 36). Adonc treuve ... une Provence qe est encore de le confin dou Mangi.
Crusca, 162–3 .. L’uomo truova una Provincia ch’è chiamata ancora delle confine de’ Mangi.
G.L. 396 .. Invenit unam Provinciam quae vocatur Anchota de confinibus Mangi.
(6). G.T. 146 (II. 119). Les dames portent as jambes et es braces, braciaus d’or et d’arjent de grandisme vailance.
Crusca, 189 .. Le donne portano alle braccia e alle gambe bracciali d’oro e d’ariento di gran valuta.
G.L. 411 .. Dominæ eorum portant ad brachia et ad gambas brazalia de auro et de argento magni valoris.
B. Passages showing additionally the errors, or other peculiarities of a translation from a French original, common to the Italian and the Latin.
(7). G.T. 32 (I. 97). Est celle plaingne mout chaue
(chaude).
Crusca, 35 .. Questo piano è molto cavo.
G.L. 322 .. Ista planities est multum cava.
(8). G.T. 36 (I. 110). Avent por ce que l’eive hi est amer.
Crusca, 40 .. E questo è per lo mare che vi viene.
G.L. 324 .. Istud est propter mare quod est ibi.
(9). G.T. 18 (I. 50). Un roi qi est apelés par tout tens Davit Melic, que veut à dir en fransois Davit Roi.
Crusca, 20 .. Uno re il quale si chiama sempre David Melic, ciò è a dire in francesco David Re.
G.L. 312 .. Rex qui semper vocatur David Mellic, quod sonat in gallico David Rex.
These passages, and many more that might be quoted, seem to me to demonstrate (1) that the Latin and the Crusca have had a common original, and (2) that this original was an Italian version from the French.
Thus the Pucci MS. at Florence, in the passage regarding the Golden King (vol. ii. p. 17) which begins in G. T. “Lequel fist faire jadis un rois qe fu apellés le Roi Dor,” renders “Lo quale fa fare Jaddis uno re,” a mistake which is not in the Crusca nor in the Latin, and seems to imply derivation from the French directly, or by some other channel (Baldelli Boni).
In the Prologue (vol. i. p. 34) this class of MSS. alone names the King of England.
In the account of the Battle with Nayan (i. p. 337) this class alone speaks of the two-stringed instruments which the Tartars played whilst awaiting the signal for battle. But the circumstance appears elsewhere in the G. T. (p. 250).
In the chapter on Malabar (vol. ii. p. 390), it is said that the ships which go with cargoes towards Alexandria are not one-tenth of those that go to the further East. This is not in the older French.
In the chapter on Coilun (ii. p. 375), we have a notice of the Columbine ginger so celebrated in the Middle Ages, which is also absent from the older text.
See vol. ii. p. 439. It is, however, remarkable that a like mistake is made about the Persian Gulf (see i. 63, 64). Perhaps Polo thought in Persian, in which the word darya means either sea or a large river. The same habit and the ambiguity of the Persian sher led him probably to his confusion of lions and tigers (see i. 397).
Such are Pasciai-Dir and Ariora Kesciemur (i. p. 98.)
Thus the MSS. of this type have elected the erroneous readings Bolgara, Cogatra, Chiato, Cabanant, etc., instead of the correcter Bolgana, Cocacin, Quiacatu, Cobinan, where the G. T. presents both (supra, p. 86). They read Esanar for the correct Etzina; Chascun for Casvin; Achalet for Acbalec; Sardansu for Sindafu, Kayteu, Kayton, Sarcon for Zaiton or Caiton; Soucat for Locac; Falec for Ferlec, and so on, the worse instead of the better. They make the Mer Occeane into Mer Occident; the wild asses (asnes) of the Kerman Desert into wild geese (oes); the escoillez of Bengal (ii. p. 115) into escoliers; the giraffes of Africa into girofles, or cloves, etc., etc.
There are about five-and-thirty such passages altogether.
The Bern MS. I have satisfied myself is an actual copy of the Paris MS. C.
The Oxford MS. closely resembles both, but I have not made the comparison minutely enough to say if it is an exact copy of either.
The following comparison will also show that these two Latin versions have probably had a common source, such as is here suggested.
At the end of the Prologue the Geographic Text reads simply:—
“Or puis que je voz ai contez tot le fat dou prolegue ensi con voz avés oï, adonc (commencerai) le Livre.”
Whilst the Geographic Latin has:—
“Postquam recitavimus et diximus facta et condictiones morum, itinerum et ea quae nobis contigerunt per vias, incipiemus dicere ea quae vidimus. Et primo dicemus de Minore Hermenia.”
And Pipino:—
“Narratione facta nostri itineris, nunc ad ea narranda quae vidimus accedamus. Primo autem Armeniam Minorem describemus breviter.”
Friar Francesco Pipino of Bologna, a Dominican, is known also as the author of a lengthy chronicle from the time of the Frank Kings down to 1314; of a Latin Translation of the French History of the Conquest of the Holy Land, by Bernard the Treasurer; and of a short Itinerary of a Pilgrimage to Palestine in 1320. Extracts from the Chronicle, and the version of Bernard, are printed in Muratori’s Collection. As Pipino states himself to have executed the translation of Polo by order of his Superiors, it is probable that the task was set him at a general chapter of the order which was held at Bologna in 1315. (See Muratori, IX. 583; and Quétif, Script. Ord. Praed. I. 539). We do not know why Ramusio assigned the translation specifically to 1320, but he may have had grounds.
See Bianconi, 1st Mem. 29 seqq.
C. Dickens somewhere narrates the history of the equivalents for a sovereign as changed and rechanged at every frontier on a continental tour. The final equivalent received at Dover on his return was some 12 or 13 shillings; a fair parallel to the comparative value of the first and last copies in the circle of translation.
The Ramusios were a family of note in literature for several generations. Paolo, the father of Gian Battista, came originally from Rimini to Venice in 1458, and had a great repute as a jurist, besides being a littérateur of some eminence, as was also his younger brother Girolamo. G. B. Ramusio was born at Treviso in 1485, and early entered the public service. In 1533 he became one of the Secretaries of the Council of X. He was especially devoted to geographical studies, and had a school for such studies in his house. He retired eventually from public duties, and lived at Villa Ramusia, near Padua. He died in the latter city, 10th July, 1557, but was buried at Venice in the Church of S. Maria dell’Orto. There was a portrait of him by Paul Veronese in the Hall of the Great Council, but it perished in the fire of 1577; and that which is now seen in the Sala dello Scudo is, like the companion portrait of Marco Polo, imaginary. Paolo Ramusio, his son, was the author of the well-known History of the Capture of Constantinople. (Cicogna, II. 310 seqq.)
The old French texts were unknown in Marsden’s time. Hence this question did not present itself to him.
Wangcheu in the Chinese Annals; Vanchu in Ramusio. I assume that Polo’s Vanchu was pronounced as in English; for in Venetian the ch very often has that sound. But I confess that I can adduce no other instance in Ramusio where I suppose it to have this sound, except in the initial sound of Chinchitalas and twice in Choiach (see II. 364).
Professor Bianconi, who has treated the questions connected with the Texts of Polo with honest enthusiasm and laborious detail, will admit nothing genuine in the Ramusian interpolations beyond the preservation of some oral traditions of Polo’s supplementary recollections. But such a theory is out of the question in face of a chapter like that on Ahmad.
Old Purchas appears to have greatly relished Ramusio’s comparative lucidity: “I found (says he) this Booke translated by Master Hakluyt out of the Latine (i.e. among Hakluyt’s MS. collections). But where the blind leade the blind both fall: as here the corrupt Latine could not but yeeld a corruption of truth in English. Ramusio, Secretarie to the Decemviri in Venice, found a better Copie and published the same, whence you have the worke in manner new: so renewed, that I have found the Proverbe true, that it is better to pull downe an old house and to build it anew, then to repaire it; as I also should have done, had I knowne that which in the event I found. The Latine is Latten, compared to Ramusio’s Gold. And hee which hath the Latine hath but Marco Polo’s carkasse or not so much, but a few bones, yea, sometimes stones rather then bones; things divers, averse, adverse, perverted in manner, disjoynted in manner, beyond beliefe. I have seene some Authors maymed, but never any so mangled and so mingled, so present and so absent, as this vulgar Latine of Marco Polo; not so like himselfe, as the Three Polo’s were at their returne to Venice, where none knew them.... Much are wee beholden to Ramusio, for restoring this Pole and Load-starre of Asia, out of that mirie poole or puddle in which he lay drouned.” (III. p. 65.)
Of these difficulties the following are some of the more prominent:—
1. The mention of the death of Kúblái (see note 7, p. 38 of this volume), whilst throughout the book Polo speaks of Kúblái as if still reigning.
2. Mr. Hugh Murray objects that whilst in the old texts Polo appears to look on Kúblái with reverence as a faultless Prince, in the Ramusian we find passages of an opposite tendency, as in the chapter about Ahmad.
3. The same editor points to the manner in which one of the Ramusian additions represents the traveller to have visited the Palace of the Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be inconsistent with Marco’s position as an official of the Mongol Government. (See vol. ii. p. 208.)
If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew’s book, this hypothesis would remove almost all difficulty.
One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at which these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original. In the chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the Prince Chagatai is said in the old texts to have occurred “not a great while ago” (il ne a encore grament de tens). But in Ramusio the supposed event is fixed at “one hundred and twenty-five years since.” This number could not have been uttered with reference to 1298, the year of the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo’s own life. Hence it is probable that the original note contained a date or definite term which was altered by the compiler to suit the date of his own compilation, some time in the 14th century.
In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the following passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions; but as even the first edition was issued after Ramusio’s own death, I do not see that any stress can be laid on this:
“A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written in Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the original as it came from M. Marco’s own hand, has been often consulted by me and compared with that which we now publish, having been lent me by a nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca’ Ghisi.”
For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part of the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at Rome. A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title “Alcuni primi capi del Libro di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto di PAOLO RANNUSIO.” But it proved to be of no importance. One brief passage of those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio, viz., the reference to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see p. 43 of this volume), is found also in the Geographic Latin.
It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60) of those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat abridged Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent antiquary Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.) This fact induced me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS. throughout, and, though I could give little time to it, the result was very curious.
I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least seven of the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been one of the elements that went to the formation of his text. Yet of his more important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad’s oppressions and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there is no indication. The seven passages alluded to are as follows; the words corresponding to Ramusian peculiarities are in italics, the references are to my own volumes.
1. In the chapter on Georgia:
“Mare quod dicitur Gheluchelan vel ABACU”....
“Est ejus stricta via et dubia. Ab una parte est mare quod dixi de ABACU et ab aliâ nemora invia,” etc. (See I. p. 59, note 8.)
2. “Et ibi optimi austures dicti AVIGI” (I. 50).
3. After the chapter on Mosul is another short chapter, already alluded to:
“Prope hanc civitatem (est) alia provincia dicta MUS e MEREDIEN in quâ nascitur magna quantitas bombacis, et hic fiunt bocharini et alia multa, et sunt mercatores homines et artiste.” (See i. p. 60.)
4. In the chapter on Tarcan (for Carcan, i.e. Yarkand):
“Et maior pars horum habent unum ex pedibus grossum et habent gosum in gulâ; et est hic fertilis contracta.” (See i. p. 187.)
5. In the Desert of Lop:
“Homines trasseuntes appendunt bestiis suis capanullas [i.e. campanellas] ut ipsas senciant et ne deviare possint” (i. p. 197.)
6. “Ciagannor, quod sonat in Latino STAGNUM ALBUM.” (i. p. 296.)
7. “Et in medio hujus viridarii est palacium sive logia, tota super columpnas. Et in summitate cujuslibet columnæ est draco magnus circundans totam columpnam, et hic substinet eorum cohoperturam cum ore et pedibus; et est cohopertura tota de cannis hoc modo,” etc. (See i. p. 299.)
My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage in O’Curry’s Lectures. I then procured the extracts and further particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish Transcriber and Translator in Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the Book of Lismore, in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf. Anecdota Oxoniensia. Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, edited with a translation ... by Whitley Stokes, Oxford, 1890.—Marco Polo forms fo. 79 a, 1–fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., and is described pp. xxii.–xxiv. of Mr. Whitley Stokes’ Book, who has since published the Text in the Zeit. f. Celtische Philol. (See Bibliography, vol. ii. p. 573.)— H. C.]
XI. SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
Grounds of Polo’s pre-eminence among mediæval travellers.
66. That Marco Polo has been so universally recognised as the King of Mediæval Travellers is due rather to the width of his experience, the vast compass of his journeys, and the romantic nature of his personal history, than to transcendent superiority of character or capacity.
The generation immediately preceding his own has bequeathed to us, in the Report of the Franciscan Friar William de Rubruquis, on the Mission with which St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, the narrative of one great journey, which, in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me to form a Book of Travels of much higher claims than any one series of Polo’s chapters; a book, indeed, which has never had justice done to it, for it has few superiors in the whole Library of Travel.
Enthusiastic Biographers, beginning with Ramusio, have placed Polo on the same platform with Columbus. But where has our Venetian Traveller left behind him any trace of the genius and lofty enthusiasm, the ardent and justified previsions which mark the great Admiral as one of the lights of the human race? It is a juster praise that the spur which his Book eventually gave to geographical studies, and the beacons which it hung out at the Eastern extremities of the Earth helped to guide the aims, though scarcely to kindle the fire, of the greater son of the rival Republic. His work was at least a link in the Providential chain which at last dragged the New World to light.
His true claims to glory.
67. Surely Marco’s real, indisputable, and, in their kind, unique claims to glory may suffice! He was the first Traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of ASIA, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes; the Deserts of PERSIA, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of BADAKHSHAN, the jade-bearing rivers of KHOTAN, the MONGOLIAN Steppes, cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant Court that had been established at CAMBALUC: The first Traveller to reveal CHINA in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of TIBET with its sordid devotees; of BURMA with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of LAOS, of SIAM, of COCHIN CHINA, of JAPAN, the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that Museum of Beauty and Wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, source of those aromatics then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark; of JAVA the Pearl of Islands; of SUMATRA with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of NICOBAR and ANDAMAN; of CEYLON the Isle of Gems with its Sacred Mountain and its Tomb of Adam; of INDIA THE GREAT, not as a dream-land of Alexandrian fables, but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in mediæval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian Empire of ABYSSINIA, and the semi-Christian Island of SOCOTRA; to speak, though indeed dimly, of ZANGIBAR with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant MADAGASCAR, bordering on the Dark Ocean of the South, with its Ruc and other monstrosities; and, in a remotely opposite region, of SIBERIA and the ARCTIC OCEAN, of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses.
That all this rich catalogue of discoveries should belong to the revelations of one Man and one Book is surely ample ground enough to account for and to justify the Author’s high place in the roll of Fame, and there can be no need to exaggerate his greatness, or to invest him with imaginary attributes.
His personal attributes seen but dimly.
68. What manner of man was Ser Marco? It is a question hard to answer. Some critics cry out against personal detail in books of Travel; but as regards him who would not welcome a little more egotism! In his Book impersonality is carried to excess; and we are often driven to discern by indirect and doubtful indications alone, whether he is speaking of a place from personal knowledge or only from hearsay. In truth, though there are delightful exceptions, and nearly every part of the book suggests interesting questions, a desperate meagreness and baldness does extend over considerable tracts of the story. In fact his book reminds us sometimes of his own description of Khorasan:—“On chevauche par beaus plains et belles costieres, là où il a moult beaus herbages et bonne pasture et fruis assez.... Et aucune fois y treuve l’en un desert de soixante milles ou de mains, esquels desers ne treuve l’en point d’eaue; mais la convient porter o lui!”
