As far as I can
judge, the translation of a translated compilation from two or more
translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its matter,
inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and style of the original
narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well in adopting for the text of his
edition the MSS. which I have classed as of the second Type, the more as
there had hitherto been no publication from those texts. But editing a
text in the original language, and translating, are tasks substantially
different in their demands.
[Sidenote: Eclectic formation of the English Text of this Translation.]
90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding pages that I
should not regard as a fair or full representation of Polo's Work, a
version on which the Geographic Text did not exercise a material
influence. But to adopt that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and
tautologies, as the absolute subject of translation, would have been a
mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, to translate
from Pauthier's Text. The process of abridgment in this text, however it
came about, has been on the whole judiciously executed, getting rid of the
intolerable prolixities of manner which belong to many parts of the
Original Dictation, but as a general rule preserving the matter.
