[Sidenote: General statement of what the Book contains.]
50. The Book itself consists essentially of Two Parts. First, of a Prologue, as it is termed, the only part which is actual personal narrative, and which relates, in a very interesting but far too brief manner, the circumstances which led the two elder Polos to the Kaan's Court, and those of their second journey with Mark, and of their return to Persia through the Indian Seas. Secondly, of a long series of chapters of very unequal length, descriptive of notable sights and products, of curious manners and remarkable events, relating to the different nations and states of Asia, but, above all, to the Emperor Kúblái, his court, wars, and administration. A series of chapters near the close treats in a verbose and monotonous manner of sundry wars that took place between the various branches of the House of Chinghiz in the latter half of the 13th century. This last series is either omitted or greatly curtailed in all the copies and versions except one; a circumstance perfectly accounted for by the absence of interest as well as value in the bulk of these chapters. Indeed, desirous though I have been to give the Traveller's work complete, and sharing the dislike that every man who uses books must bear to abridgments, I have felt that it would be sheer waste and dead-weight to print these chapters in full.
[Illustration: Temple of 500 Genii at Canton after a Drawing by FELIX REGAMEY]
This second and main portion of the Work is in its oldest forms undivided, the chapters running on consecutively to the end.[1] In some very early Italian or Venetian version, which Friar Pipino translated into Latin, it was divided into three Books, and this convenient division has generally been adhered to. We have adopted M. Pauthier's suggestion in making the final series of chapters, chiefly historical, into a Fourth.
[Sidenote: Language of the original Work.]
51. As regards the language in which Marco's Book was first committed to writing, we have seen that Ramusio assumed, somewhat arbitrarily, that it was Latin; Marsden supposed it to have been the Venetian dialect; Baldelli Boni first showed, in his elaborate edition (Florence, 1827), by arguments that have been illustrated and corroborated by learned men since, that it was French.
That the work was originally written in some Italian dialect was a natural presumption, and slight contemporary evidence can be alleged in its favour; for Fra Pipino, in the Latin version of the work, executed whilst Marco still lived, describes his task as a translation de vulgari. And in one MS. copy of the same Friar Pipino's Chronicle, existing in the library at Modena, he refers to the said version as made "ex vulgari idiomate Lombardico." But though it may seem improbable that at so early a date a Latin version should have been made at second hand, I believe this to have been the case, and that some internal evidence also is traceable that Pipino translated not from the original but from an Italian version of the original.
The oldest MS. (it is supposed) in any Italian dialect is one in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence, which is known in Italy as L'Ottima, on account of the purity of its Tuscan, and as Della Crusca from its being one of the authorities cited by that body in their Vocabulary.[2] It bears on its face the following note in Italian:—
"This Book called the Navigation of Messer Marco Polo, a noble Citizen of Venice, was written in Florence by Michael Ormanni my great grandfather by the Mother's side, who died in the Year of Grace One Thousand Three Hundred and Nine; and my mother brought it into our Family of Del Riccio, and it belongs to me Pier del Riccio and to my Brother; 1452."
As far as I can learn, the age which this note implies is considered to be supported by the character of the MS. itself.[3] If it be accepted, the latter is a performance going back to within eleven years at most of the first dictation of the Travels. At first sight, therefore, this would rather argue that the original had been written in pure Tuscan. But when Baldelli came to prepare it for the press he found manifest indications of its being a Translation from the French. Some of these he has noted; others have followed up the same line of comparison. We give some detailed examples in a note.[4]
[Sidenote: Old French Text published by the Société de Géographie.]
52. The French Text that we have been quoting, published by the Geographical Society of Paris in 1824, affords on the other hand the strongest corresponding proof that it is an original and not a Translation. Rude as is the language of the manuscript (Fr. 1116, formerly No. 7367, of Paris Library), it is, in the correctness of the proper names, and the intelligible exhibition of the itineraries, much superior to any form of the Work previously published.
The language is very peculiar. We are obliged to call it French, but it is not "Frenche of Paris." "Its style," says Paulin Paris, "is about as like that of good French authors of the age, as in our day the natural accent of a German, an Englishman, or an Italian, is like that of a citizen of Paris or Blois." The author is at war with all the practices of French grammar; subject and object, numbers, moods, and tenses, are in consummate confusion. Even readers of his own day must at times have been fain to guess his meaning. Italian words are constantly introduced, either quite in the crude or rudely Gallicized.[5] And words also, we may add, sometimes slip in which appear to be purely Oriental, just as is apt to happen with Anglo-Indians in these days.[6] All this is perfectly consistent with the supposition that we have in this MS. a copy at least of the original words as written down by Rusticiano a Tuscan, from the dictation of Marco an Orientalized Venetian, in French, a language foreign to both.
But the character of the language as French is not its only peculiarity. There is in the style, apart from grammar or vocabulary, a rude angularity, a rough dramatism like that of oral narrative; there is a want of proportion in the style of different parts, now over curt, now diffuse and wordy, with at times even a hammering reiteration; a constant recurrence of pet colloquial phrases (in which, however, other literary works of the age partake); a frequent change in the spelling of the same proper names, even when recurring within a few lines, as if caught by ear only; a literal following to and fro of the hesitations of the narrator; a more general use of the third person in speaking of the Traveller, but an occasional lapse into the first. All these characteristics are strikingly indicative of the unrevised product of dictation, and many of them would necessarily disappear either in translation or in a revised copy.
Of changes in representing the same proper name, take as an example that of the Kaan of Persia whom Polo calls Quiacatu (Kaikhátú), but also Acatu, Catu, and the like.
As an example of the literal following of dictation take the following:—
"Let us leave Rosia, and I will tell you about the Great Sea (the Euxine), and what provinces and nations lie round about it, all in detail; and we will begin with Constantinople—First, however, I should tell you about a province, etc. … There is nothing more worth mentioning, so I will speak of other subjects—but there is one thing more to tell you about Rosia that I had forgotten. … Now then let us speak of the Great Sea as I was about to do. To be sure many merchants and others have been here, but still there are many again who know nothing about it, so it will be well to include it in our Book. We will do so then, and let us begin first with the Strait of Constantinople.
"At the Straits leading into the Great Sea, on the West Side, there is a hill called the Faro.—But since beginning on this matter I have changed my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it in our description but go on to something else." (See vol. ii. p. 487 seqq.)
And so on.
As a specimen of tautology and hammering reiteration the following can scarcely be surpassed. The Traveller is speaking of the Chughi, i.e. the Indian Jogis:—
"And there are among them certain devotees, called Chughi; these are longer-lived than the other people, for they live from 150 to 200 years; and yet they are so hale of body that they can go and come wheresoever they please, and do all the service needed for their monastery or their idols, and do it just as well as if they were younger; and that comes of the great abstinence that they practise, in eating little food and only what is wholesome; for they use to eat rice and milk more than anything else. And again I tell you that these Chughi who live such a long time as I have told you, do also eat what I