in the Pipinian as Acatu, in the Ramusian as Chiacato. All three forms, Chiato, Achatu, and Quiacatu are found in the Geographic Text. The city of Koh-banan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as Cabanant, in the Pipinian and Ramusian editions as Cobinam or Cobinan. Both forms are found in the Geographic Text. The city of the Great Kaan (Khanbalig) is called in the Pauthier MSS. Cambaluc, in the Pipinian and Ramusian less correctly Cambalu. Both forms appear in the Geographic Text. The aboriginal People on the Burmese Frontier who received from the Western officers of the Mongols the Persian name (translated from that applied by the Chinese) of Zardandán, or Gold-Teeth, appear in the Pauthier MSS. most accurately as Zardandan, but in the Pipinian as Ardandan (still further corrupted in some copies into Arcladam). Now both forms are found in the Geographic Text. Other examples might be given, but these I think may suffice to prove that this Text was the common source of both classes. In considering the question of the French original too we must remember what has been already said regarding Rusticien de Pise and his other French writings; and we shall find hereafter an express testimony borne in the next generation that Marco's Book was composed in vulgari Gallico. diffused em French in that age. 54. But, after all, the circumstantial evidence that has been adduced from the texts themselves is the most conclusive. We Greatly have then every reason to believe both that the work ployment of 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.* In 1249 Alexander III. King of Scotland, at his coro *Luces de Gast, one of the first of these introduces himself thus :- -"Je Luces, Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochains de Salebières, comme chevaliers amoureus enprens à translater du Latin en François une partie de cette nation 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.* 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 Francois la faconde Jeo suis Englois ; si quier par tiele voie Indeed down to nearly 1385 boys in the English grammarschools were taught to construe their Latin lessons into French. 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. QuasiFrench at least was still spoken half a century later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo, as John Marignolli testifies; and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords "spak Frensche righte wel!"¶ Ghazan 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.** estoire; non mie pour ce que je sache gramment de François, ainz appartient 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). *Hist. Litt. de la France, xv. 500. + Ibid. 508. Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., &c. of Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed. 1852.) 66 P. 332.) Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro." (See Cathay, **Hammer's Ilchan, II. 148. ¶ P. 138. Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher spheres! * 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. 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."† 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. 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.§ 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, * 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 sayde: 'SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ! Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently pronounced "Too-eese! Too-eese!" L'Ystoire de li Normand, &c., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v. 66 + 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.) 66 § Et se aucun demandoit porquoi cist livre 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.) 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?* 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 Irishspeaking 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 Medieval Travellers † 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. 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. 352), oisi (G. T. p. 208), thochere (toucher), &c. (See Bianconi, 2nd Mem. pp. 30-32.) Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta. X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK. 55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo's Book we must necessarily go into some irksome detail. Four Principal Types of Text. First, that of the Geographic, or oldest French. 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.* A special difference lies in the fact *In the following citations, the Geographic Text (G. T.) is quoted by page from the printed edition (1824); the Latin published in the same volume (G. L.) also by page; the Crusca, as before, from Bartoli's edition of 1863. References in parentheses are to the present translation: A. Passages showing the G.L. to be a translation from the Italian, and derived from the same Italian text as the Crusca. 46). Il hi se laborent le souran tapis dou monde. E quivi si fanno i sovrani tappeti del mondo. Et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulcriores de mundo. 70). Et adonc le calif mande partuit les cristienz . . qui en sa tere estoient. Ora mandò lo califfo per tutti gli Cristiani ch' erano di là. Or misit califfus pro Cristianis qui erant ultra fluvium (the last words being clearly a misunderstanding of the Italian di là). 198 (II. 295). Ont sosimain (sesamum) de coi il font de olio. Crusca, 27 (3). G.T. |