Meres et les Araines, the Harems; in speaking
of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the
Arabic Mulahidah, "Heretics," he explains this term as meaning "des
Aram" (Haram, "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
dafatir ("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 a translater du Latin en
Francois une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache
gramment de Francois, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure a
la maniere de l'Engleterre que a celle de France, comme cel qui fu en
Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je
en langue francoise 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 Etrangeres, 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 a lire et a 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 a
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] Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.
X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK.
[Sidenote: 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.[1] 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;[2] but I have not been
able to examine any of them with the care needful to make specific
deductions regarding them.
[Sidenote: 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.