LITMIR.BIZ

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you, and you will think it a great matter. For I tell you that they take quicksilver and sulphur, and mix them together, and make a drink of them, and then they drink this, and they say that it adds to their life; and in fact they do live much longer for it; and I tell you that they do this twice every month. And let me tell you that these people use this drink from their infancy in order to live longer, and without fail those who live so long as I have told you use this drink of sulphur and quicksilver." (See G. T. p. 213.)

      Such talk as this does not survive the solvent of translation; and we may be certain that we have here the nearest approach to the Traveller's reminiscences as they were taken down from his lips in the prison of Genoa.

      [Sidenote: Conclusive proof that the Old French Text is the source of all the others.]

      53. Another circumstance, heretofore I believe unnoticed, is in itself enough to demonstrate the Geographic Text to be the source of all other versions of the Work. It is this.

      In reviewing the various classes or types of texts of Polo's Book, which we shall hereafter attempt to discriminate, there are certain proper names which we find in the different texts to take very different forms, each class adhering in the main to one particular form.

      Thus the names of the Mongol ladies introduced at pp. 32 and 36 of this volume, which are in proper Oriental form Bulughán and Kukáchin, appear in the class of MSS. which Pauthier has followed as Bolgara and Cogatra; in the MSS. of Pipino's version, and those founded on it, including Ramusio, the names appear in the correcter forms Bolgana or Balgana and Cogacin. Now all the forms Bolgana, Balgana, Bolgara, and Cogatra, Cocacin appear in the Geographic Text.

      Kaikhátú Kaan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as Chiato, in the Pipinian as Acatu, in the Ramusian as Chiacato. All three forms, Chiato, Achatu, and Quiacatu are found in the Geographic Text.

      The city of Koh-banan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as Cabanant, in the Pipinian and Ramusian editions as Cobinam or Cobinan. Both forms are found in the Geographic Text.

      The city of the Great Kaan (Khanbalig) is called in the Pauthier MSS. Cambaluc, in the Pipinian and Ramusian less correctly Cambalu. Both forms appear in the Geographic Text.

      The aboriginal People on the Burmese Frontier who received from the Western officers of the Mongols the Persian name (translated from that applied by the Chinese) of Zardandán, or Gold-Teeth, appear in the Pauthier MSS. most accurately as Zardandan, but in the Pipinian as Ardandan (still further corrupted in some copies into Arcladam). Now both forms are found in the Geographic Text. Other examples might be given, but these I think may suffice to prove that this Text was the common source of both classes.

      In considering the question of the French original too we must remember what has been already said regarding Rusticien de Pise and his other French writings; and we shall find hereafter an express testimony borne in the next generation that Marco's Book was composed in vulgari Gallico.

      [Sidenote: Greatly diffused employment of French in that age.]

      54. But, after all, the circumstantial evidence that has been adduced from the texts themselves is the most conclusive. We have then every reason to believe both that the work was written in French, and that an existing French Text is a close representation of it as originally committed to paper. And that being so we may cite some circumstances to show that the use of French or quasi-French for the purpose was not a fact of a very unusual or surprising nature. The French language had at that time almost as wide, perhaps relatively a wider, diffusion than it has now. It was still spoken at the Court of England, and still used by many English writers, of whom the authors or translators of the Round Table Romances at Henry III.'s Court are examples.[7] In 1249 Alexander III. King of Scotland, at his coronation spoke in Latin and French; and in 1291 the English Chancellor addressing the Scotch Parliament did so in French. At certain of the Oxford Colleges as late as 1328 it was an order that the students should converse colloquio latino vel saltern gallico.[8] Late in the same century Gower had not ceased to use French, composing many poems in it, though apologizing for his want of skill therein:—

      "Et si jeo nai de Francois la faconde

       * * * * *

       Jeo suis Englois; si quier par tiele voie

       Estre excusé."[9]

      Indeed down to nearly 1385, boys in the English grammar-schools were taught to construe their Latin lessons into French.[10] 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.[11] Quasi-French at least was still spoken half a century later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo, as John Marignolli testifies;[12] and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords "spak Frensche righte wel!"[13] 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.[14] Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher spheres![15]

      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.[16] 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."[17] 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.[18] The like does the most notable example of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante's master, who wrote in French his encyclopaedic and once highly popular work Li Tresor.[19] 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?[20] 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 Mediaeval Travellers[21] seem to have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and committed to paper by other hands. I have

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