The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

from the texts themselves is the most conclusive. We have then every reason to believe both that the work was written in French, and that an existing French Text is a close representation of it as originally committed to paper. And that being so we may cite some circumstances to show that the use of French or quasi-French for the purpose was not a fact of a very unusual or surprising nature. The French language had at that time almost as wide, perhaps relatively a wider, diffusion than it has now. It was still spoken at the Court of England, and still used by many English writers, of whom the authors or translators of the Round Table Romances at Henry III.’s Court are examples.[7] In 1249 Alexander III. King of Scotland, at his coronation spoke in Latin and French; and in 1291 the English Chancellor addressing the Scotch Parliament did so in French. At certain of the Oxford Colleges as late as 1328 it was an order that the students should converse _colloquio latino vel saltem gallico_.[8] Late in the same century Gower had not ceased to use French, composing many poems in it, though apologizing for his want of skill therein:— “Et si jeo nai de François la faconde * * * * Jeo suis Englois; si quier par tiele voie Estre excusé.”[9] Indeed down to nearly 1385, boys in the English grammar-schools were taught to construe their Latin lessons into French.[10] St. Francis of Assisi is said by some of his biographers to have had his original name changed to Francesco because of his early mastery of that language as a qualification for commerce. French had been the prevalent tongue of the Crusaders, and was that of the numerous Frank Courts which they established in the East, including Jerusalem and the states of the Syrian coast, Cyprus, Constantinople during the reign of the Courtenays, and the principalities of the Morea. The Catalan soldier and chronicler Ramon de Muntaner tells us that it was commonly said of the Morean chivalry that they spoke as good French as at Paris.[11] Quasi-French at least was still spoken half a century later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo, as John Marignolli testifies;[12] and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords “_spak Frensche righte wel!_”[13] Gházán Kaan, the accomplished Mongol Sovereign of Persia, to whom our Traveller conveyed a bride from Cambaluc, is said by the historian Rashiduddin to have known something of the Frank tongue, probably French.[14] Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher spheres![15] Nor was Polo’s case an exceptional one even among writers on the East who were not Frenchmen. Maundevile himself tells us that he put his book first “out of Latyn into Frensche,” and then out of French into English.[16] The History of the East which the Armenian Prince and Monk Hayton dictated to Nicolas Faulcon at Poictiers in 1307 was taken down in French. There are many other instances of the employment of French by foreign, and especially by Italian authors of that age. The Latin chronicle of the Benedictine Amato of Monte Cassino was translated into French early in the 13th century by another monk of the same abbey, at the particular desire of the Count of Militrée (or Malta), “_Pour ce qu’il set lire et entendre fransoize et s’en delitte._”[17] Martino da Canale, a countryman and contemporary of Polo’s, during the absence of the latter in the East wrote a Chronicle of Venice in the same language, as a reason for which he alleges its general popularity.[18] The like does the most notable example of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, who wrote in French his encyclopædic and once highly popular work _Li Tresor_.[19] Other examples might be given, but in fact such illustration is superfluous when we consider that Rusticiano himself was a compiler of French Romances. But why the language of the Book as we see it in the Geographic Text should be so much more rude, inaccurate, and Italianized than that of Rusticiano’s other writings, is a question to which I can suggest no reply quite satisfactory to myself. Is it possible that we have in it a literal representation of Polo’s own language in dictating the story,—a rough draft which it was intended afterwards to reduce to better form, and which was so reduced (after a fashion) in French copies of another type, regarding which we shall have to speak presently?[20] And, if this be the true answer, why should Polo have used a French jargon in which to tell his story? Is it possible that his own mother Venetian, such as he had carried to the East with him and brought back again, was so little intelligible to Rusticiano that French of some kind was the handiest medium of communication between the two? I have known an Englishman and a Hollander driven to converse in Malay; Chinese Christians of different provinces are said sometimes to take to English as the readiest means of intercommunication; and the same is said even of Irish-speaking Irishmen from remote parts of the Island. It is worthy of remark how many notable narratives of the Middle Ages have been dictated instead of being written by their authors, and that in cases where it is impossible to ascribe this to ignorance of writing. The Armenian Hayton, though evidently a well-read man, possibly could not write in Roman characters. But Joinville is an illustrious example. And the narratives of four of the most famous Mediæval Travellers[21] seem to have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and committed to paper by other hands. I have elsewhere remarked this as indicating how little diffused 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_ (_Altfranzösische 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 _ḳalamdàn_; 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_” (_Ḥarám_, “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 François, 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] 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.]