The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко Поло
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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.
[1] 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.
[2] The MS. has been printed by Baldelli as above, and again by Bartoli in 1863.
[3] 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.
[4] 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!
[5] 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 (Altfranzosische 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)
[6] As examples of such Orientalisms: Bonus, "ebony," and calamanz, "pencases," seem to represent the Persian abnús and kalamdàn; 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" (Harám, "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.
[7] 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.)
[8] Hist. Litt. de la France, xv. 500.
[9] Ibid. 508.
[10] Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed. 1852.)
[11] Chroniques Etrangères, p. 502.
[12] "Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro." (See Cathay p. 332.)
[13] Page 138.
[14] Hammers Ilchan, II. 148.
[15] 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!"
[16] [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.]
[17] L'Ystoire de li Normand, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v.
[18] "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.)
[19] "Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, selonc le langage des Francois, 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.)
[20] 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.)
[21]