Previously been taken of any form of
the Book; nor can we allow it to impugn the authenticity of the Geographic
Text, which demonstratively represents an older original, and has been (as
we have seen) the parent of all other versions, including some very old
ones, Italian and Latin, which certainly owe nothing to this revision.
The first idea apparently entertained by d'Avezac and Paulin Paris was
that the Geographic Text was itself the copy given to the Sieur de
Cepoy, and that the differences in the copies of the class which we
describe as Type II. merely resulted from the modifications which would
naturally arise in the process of transcription into purer French. But
closer examination showed the differences to be too great and too marked
to admit of this explanation. These differences consist not only in the
conversion of the rude, obscure, and half Italian language of the original
into good French of the period. There is also very considerable
curtailment, generally of tautology, but also extending often to
circumstances of substantial interest; whilst we observe the omission of a
few notably erroneous statements or expressions; and a few insertions of
small importance. None of the MSS. of this class contain more than a few
of the historical chapters which we have formed into Book IV.
The only addition of any magnitude is that chapter which in our
translation forms chapter xxi. of Book II. It will be seen that it
contains no new facts, but is only a tedious recapitulation of
circumstances already stated, though scattered over several chapters.
There are a few minor additions. I have not thought it worth while to
collect them systematically here, but two or three examples are given in a
note.[3]
There are also one or two corrections of erroneous statements in the G. T.
which seem not to be accidental and to indicate some attempt at revision.
Thus a notable error in the account of Aden, which seems to conceive of
the Red Sea as a river, disappears in Pauthier's MSS. A and B.[4] And we
find in these MSS. one or two interesting names preserved which are not
found in the older Text.[5]
But on the other hand this class of MSS. contains many erroneous readings
of names, either adopting the worse of two forms occurring in the G. T. or
originating blunders of its own.[6]
M. Pauthier lays great stress on the character of these MSS. as the sole
authentic form of the work, from their claim to have been specially
revised by Marco Polo. It is evident, however, from what has been said,
that this revision can have been only a very careless and superficial one,
and must have been done in great measure by deputy, being almost entirely
confined to curtailment and to the improvement of the expression, and that
it is by no means such as to allow an editor to dispense with a careful
study of the Older Text.
[Sidenote: The Bern MS. and two others form a sub-class of this Type.]
57. There is another curious circumstance about the MSS. of this type,
viz., that they clearly divide into two distinct recensions, of which both
have so many peculiarities and errors in common that they must necessarily
have been both derived from one modification of the original text,
whilst at the same time there are such differences between the two as
cannot be set down to the accidents of transcription. Pauthier's MSS. A
and B (Nos. 16 and 15 of the List in App. F) form one of these
subdivisions: his C (No. 17 of List), Bern (No. 56), and Oxford (No. 6),
the other. Between A and B the differences are only such as seem
constantly to have arisen from the whims of transcribers or their
dialectic peculiarities. But between A and B on the one side, and C on the
other, the differences are much greater. The readings of proper names in C
are often superior, sometimes worse; but in the latter half of the work
especially it contains a number of substantial passages[7] which are to be
found in the G. T., but are altogether absent from the MSS. A and B;
whilst in one case at least (the history of the Siege of Saianfu, vol. ii.
p. 159) it diverges considerably from the G. T. as well as from A and
B.[8]
I gather from the facts that the MS. C represents an older form of the
work than A and B. I should judge that the latter had been derived from
that older form, but intentionally modified from it. And as it is the MS.
C, with its copy at Bern, that alone presents the certificate of
derivation from the Book given to the Sieur de Cepoy, there can be no
doubt that it is the true representative of that recension.
[Sidenote: Third; Friar Pipino's Latin.]
58. III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar Pipino's Latin
version. It is the type of which MSS. are by far the most numerous. In it
condensation and curtailment are carried a good deal further than in Type
II. The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does not
seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the ruder and
perhaps older Latin version of which we have already spoken under Type I.
And we have demonstrated that this ruder Latin is a translation from an
Italian copy. It is probable therefore that an Italian version similarly
divided was the common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of
Pipino's more condensed version.[9]
