CHAPTER X. HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AGAIN DEPARTED FROM VENICE, ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE GREAT KAAN, AND TOOK WITH THEM MARK, THE SON OF MESSER NICOLAS.
When the Two Brothers had tarried as long as I have told you, and saw that never a Pope was made, they said that their return to the Great Kaan must be put off no longer. So they set out from Venice, taking Mark along with them, and went straight back to Acre, where they found the Legate of whom we have spoken. They had a good deal of discourse with him concerning the matter, and asked his permission to go to JERUSALEM to get some Oil from the Lamp on the Sepulchre, to carry with them to the Great Kaan, as he had enjoined.[NOTE 1] The Legate giving them leave, they went from Acre to Jerusalem and got some of the Oil, and then returned to Acre, and went to the Legate and said to him: "As we see no sign of a Pope's being made, we desire to return to the Great Kaan; for we have already tarried long, and there has been more than enough delay." To which the Legate replied: "Since 'tis your wish to go back, I am well content." Wherefore he caused letters to be written for delivery to the Great Kaan, bearing testimony that the Two Brothers had come in all good faith to accomplish his charge, but that as there was no Pope they had been unable to do so.
NOTE 1.—In a Pilgrimage of date apparently earlier than this, the Pilgrim says of the Sepulchre: "The Lamp which had been placed by His head (when He lay there) still burns on the same spot day and night. We took a blessing from it (i.e. apparently took some of the oil as a beneficent memorial), and replaced it." (Itinerarium Antonini Placentini in Bollandists, May, vol. ii. p. xx.)
["Five great oil lamps," says Daniel, the Russian Hégoumène, 1106-1107 (Itinéraires russes en Orient, trad. pour la Soc. de l'Orient Latin, par Mme. B. de Khitrowo, Geneva, 1889, p. 13), "burning continually night and day, are hung in the Sepulchre of Our Lord."—H. C.]
The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello of
Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XI. HOW THE TWO BROTHERS SET OUT FROM ACRE, AND MARK ALONG WITH THEM.
When the Two Brothers had received the Legate's letters, they set forth from Acre to return to the Grand Kaan, and got as far as Layas. But shortly after their arrival there they had news that the Legate aforesaid was chosen Pope, taking the name of Pope Gregory of Piacenza; news which the Two Brothers were very glad indeed to hear. And presently there reached them at Layas a message from the Legate, now the Pope, desiring them, on the part of the Apostolic See, not to proceed further on their journey, but to return to him incontinently. And what shall I tell you? The King of Hermenia caused a galley to be got ready for the Two Ambassador Brothers, and despatched them to the Pope at Acre.[NOTE 1]
[Illustration: Portrait of Pope Gregory X.]
NOTE 1.—The death of Pope Clement IV. occurred on St Andrew's Day (29th November), 1268; the election of Tedaldo or Tebaldo of Piacenza, a member of the Visconti family, and Archdeacon of Liège, did not take place till 1st September, 1271, owing to the factions among the cardinals. And it is said that some of them, anxious only to get away, voted for Theobald in full belief that he was dead. The conclave, in its inability to agree, had named a committee of six with full powers which the same day elected Theobald, on the recommendation of the Cardinal Bishop of Portus (John de Toleto, said, in spite of his name, to have been an Englishman). This facetious dignitary had suggested that the roof should be taken off the Palace at Viterbo where they sat, to allow the divine influences to descend more freely on their counsels (quia nequeunt ad nos per tot tecta ingredi). According to some, these doggerel verses, current on the occasion, were extemporised by Cardinal John in the pious exuberance of his glee:—
The Archdeacon, a man of great weight of character, in consequence of differences with his Bishop (of Liège), who was a disorderly liver, had gone to the Holy Land, and during his stay there he contracted great intimacy with Prince Edward of England (Edward I.). Some authors, e.g. John Villani (VIII. 39), say that he was Legate in Syria; others, as Rainaldus, deny this; but Polo's statement, and the authority which the Archdeacon took on himself in writing to the Kaan, seem to show that he had some such position.
He took the name of Gregory X., and before his departure from Acre, preached a moving sermon on the text, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," etc. Prince Edward fitted him out for his voyage.
Gregory reigned barely four years, dying at Arezzo 10th January, 1276. His character stood high to the last, and some of the Northern Martyrologies enrolled him among the saints, but there has never been canonisation by Rome. The people of Arezzo used to celebrate his anniversary with torch-light gatherings at his tomb, and plenty of miracles were alleged to have occurred there. The tomb still stands in the Duomo at Arezzo, a handsome work by Margaritone, an artist in all branches, who was the Pope's contemporary. There is an engraving of it in Gonnelli, Mon. Sepolc. di Toscana.
(Fra Pipino in Muratori, IX. 700; Rainaldi Annal. III. 252 seqq.; Wadding, sub. an. 1217: Bollandists, 10th January; Palatii, Gesta Pontif. Roman. vol. iii., and Fasti Cardinalium, I. 463, etc.)
When the Two Brothers had received the Legate's letters, they set forth from Acre to return to the Grand Kaan, and got as far as Layas. But shortly after their arrival there they had news that the Legate aforesaid was chosen Pope, taking the name of Pope Gregory of Piacenza; news which the Two Brothers were very glad indeed to hear. And presently there reached them at Layas a message from the Legate, now the Pope, desiring them, on the part of the Apostolic See, not to proceed further on their journey, but to return to him incontinently. And what shall I tell you? The King of Hermenia caused a galley to be got ready for the Two Ambassador Brothers, and despatched them to the Pope at Acre.[NOTE 1]
[Illustration: Portrait of Pope Gregory X.]
NOTE 1.—The death of Pope Clement IV. occurred on St Andrew's Day (29th November), 1268; the election of Tedaldo or Tebaldo of Piacenza, a member of the Visconti family, and Archdeacon of Liège, did not take place till 1st September, 1271, owing to the factions among the cardinals. And it is said that some of them, anxious only to get away, voted for Theobald in full belief that he was dead. The conclave, in its inability to agree, had named a committee of six with full powers which the same day elected Theobald, on the recommendation of the Cardinal Bishop of Portus (John de Toleto, said, in spite of his name, to have been an Englishman). This facetious dignitary had suggested that the roof should be taken off the Palace at Viterbo where they sat, to allow the divine influences to descend more freely on their counsels (quia nequeunt ad nos per tot tecta ingredi). According to some, these doggerel verses, current on the occasion, were extemporised by Cardinal John in the pious exuberance of his glee:—
"Papatûs munus tulit Archidiaconus unus
Quem Patrem Patrum fecit discordia Fratrum."
The Archdeacon, a man of great weight of character, in consequence of differences with his Bishop (of Liège), who was a disorderly liver, had gone to the Holy Land, and during his stay there he contracted great intimacy with Prince Edward of England (Edward I.). Some authors, e.g. John Villani (VIII. 39), say that he was Legate in Syria; others, as Rainaldus, deny this; but Polo's statement, and the authority which the Archdeacon took on himself in writing to the Kaan, seem to show that he had some such position.
He took the name of Gregory X., and before his departure from Acre, preached a moving sermon on the text, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," etc. Prince Edward fitted him out for his voyage.
Gregory reigned barely four years, dying at Arezzo 10th January, 1276. His character stood high to the last, and some of the Northern Martyrologies enrolled him among the saints, but there has never been canonisation by Rome. The people of Arezzo used to celebrate his anniversary with torch-light gatherings at his tomb, and plenty of miracles were alleged to have occurred there. The tomb still stands in the Duomo at Arezzo, a handsome work by Margaritone, an artist in all branches, who was the Pope's contemporary. There is an engraving of it in Gonnelli, Mon. Sepolc. di Toscana.
(Fra Pipino in Muratori, IX. 700; Rainaldi Annal. III. 252 seqq.; Wadding, sub. an. 1217: Bollandists, 10th January; Palatii, Gesta Pontif. Roman. vol. iii., and Fasti Cardinalium, I. 463, etc.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XII. HOW THE TWO BROTHERS PRESENTED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE NEW POPE.
And when they had been thus honourably conducted to Acre they proceeded to the presence of the Pope, and paid their respects to him with humble reverence. He received them with great honour and satisfaction, and gave them his blessing. He then appointed two Friars of the Order of Preachers to accompany them to the Great Kaan, and to do whatever might be required of them. These were unquestionably as learned Churchmen as were to be found in the Province at that day—one being called Friar Nicolas of Vicenza, and the other Friar William of Tripoli.[NOTE 1] He delivered to them also proper credentials, and letters in reply to the Great Kaan's messages [and gave them authority to ordain priests and bishops, and to bestow every kind of absolution, as if given by himself in proper person; sending by them also many fine vessels of crystal as presents to the Great Kaan].[NOTE 2] So when they had got all that was needful, they took leave of the Pope, receiving his benediction; and the four set out together from Acre, and went to Layas, accompanied always by Messer Nicolas's son Marco.
Now, about the time that they reached Layas, Bendocquedar, the Soldan of Babylon, invaded Hermenia with a great host of Saracens, and ravaged the country, so that our Envoys ran a great peril of being taken or slain. [NOTE 3] And when the Preaching Friars saw this they were greatly frightened, and said that go they never would. So they made over to Messer Nicolas and Messer Maffeo all their credentials and documents, and took their leave, departing in company with the Master of the Temple.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1.—Friar William, of Tripoli, of the Dominican convent at Acre, appears to have served there as early as 1250. [He was born circa 1220, at Tripoli, in Syria, whence his name.—H. C.] He is known as the author of a book, De Statu Saracenorum post Ludovici Regis de Syriâ reditum, dedicated to Theoldus, Archdeacon of Liège (i.e. Pope Gregory). Of this some extracts are printed in Duchesne's Hist. Francorum Scriptores. There are two MSS. of it, with different titles, in the Paris Library, and a French version in that of Berne. A MS. in Cambridge Univ. Library, which contains among other things a copy of Pipino's Polo, has also the work of Friar William:—"Willelmus Tripolitanus, Aconensis Conventus, de Egressu Machometi et Saracenorum, atque progressu eorumdem, de Statu Saracenorum," etc. It is imperfect; it is addressed THEOBALDO Ecclesiarcho digno Sancte Terre Peregrino Sancto. And from a cursory inspection I imagine that the Tract appended to one of the Polo MSS. in the British Museum (Addl. MSS., No. 19,952) is the same work or part of it. To the same author is ascribed a tract called Clades Damiatae. (Duchesne, V. 432; D'Avezac in Rec. de Voyages, IV. 406; Quétif, Script. Ord. Praed. I. 264-5; Catal. of MSS. in Camb. Univ. Library, I. 22.)
NOTE 2.—I presume that the powers, stated in this passage from Ramusio to have been conferred on the Friars, are exaggerated. In letters of authority granted in like cases by Pope Gregory's successors, Nicolas III. (in 1278) and Boniface VIII. (in 1299), the missionary friars to remote regions are empowered to absolve from excommunication and release from vows, to settle matrimonial questions, to found churches and appoint idoneos rectores, to authorise Oriental clergy who should publicly submit to the Apostolic See to enjoy the privilegium clericale, whilst in the absence of bishops those among the missionaries who were priests might consecrate cemeteries, altars, palls, etc., admit to the Order of Acolytes, but nothing beyond. (See Mosheim, Hist. Tartar. Eccles. App. Nos. 23 and 42.)
NOTE 3.—The statement here about Bundúkdár's invasion of Cilician Armenia is a difficulty. He had invaded it in 1266, and his second devastating invasion, during which he burnt both Layas and Sis, the king's residence, took place in 1275, a point on which Marino Sanuto is at one with the Oriental Historians. Now we know from Rainaldus that Pope Gregory left Acre in November or December, 1271, and the text appears to imply that our travellers left Acre before him. The utmost corroboration that I can find lies in the following facts stated by Makrizi:—
On the 13th Safar, A.H. 670 (20th September 1271), Bundúkdár arrived unexpectedly at Damascus, and after a brief raid against the Ismaelians he returned to that city. In the middle of Rabi I. (about 20-25 October) the Tartars made an incursion in northern Syria, and the troops of Aleppo retired towards Hamah. There was great alarm at Damascus; the Sultan sent orders to Cairo for reinforcements, and these arrived at Damascus on the 9th November. The Sultan then advanced on Aleppo, sending corps likewise towards Marash (which was within the Armenian frontier) and Harran. At the latter place the Tartars were attacked and those in the town slaughtered; the rest retreated. The Sultan was back at Damascus, and off on a different expedition, by 7th December. Hence, if the travellers arrived at Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably find alarm existing at the advance of Bundúkdár, though matters did not turn out so serious as they imply.
"Babylon," of which Bundúkdár is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly so styled (Bambellonia d'Egitto) in that age. Babylon of Egypt is mentioned by Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy; it was the station of a Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives in the name of Babul, close to old Cairo.
Malik Dáhir Ruknuddín Bíbars Bundúkdári, a native of Kipchak, was originally sold at Damascus for 800 dirhems (about 18_l._), and returned by his purchaser because of a blemish. He was then bought by the Amir Aláuddín Aidekín Bundúkdár ("The Arblasteer") whose surname he afterwards adopted. He became the fourth of the Mameluke Sultans, and reigned from 1259 to 1276. The two great objects of his life were the repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria, so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity. William of Tripoli, in the work above mentioned, says: "Bondogar, as a soldier, was not inferior to Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero." He admits, however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects; whilst Makrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a devil in malignity as well as in activity. More than once he played tennis at Damascus and Cairo within the same week. A strange sample of the man is the letter which he wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to announce to him the capture of the former city. After an ironically polite address to Boemond as having by the loss of his great city had his title changed from Princeship (Al-Brensíyah) to Countship (Al-Komasíyah), and describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the attack of Antioch: "We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of Saturday, the 4th day of Ramadhán,… Hadst thou but seen thy Knights trodden under the hoofs of the horses! thy palaces invaded by plunderers and ransacked for booty! thy treasures weighed out by the hundredweight! thy ladies (Dámátaka, 'tes DAMES') bought and sold with thine own gear, at four for a dinár! hadst thou but seen thy churches demolished, thy crosses sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about before the sun, the tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground; thy foe the Moslem treading thy Holy of the Holies; the monk, the priest, the deacon slaughtered on the Altar; the rich given up to misery; princes of royal blood reduced to slavery! Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls; thy dead cast into the fires temporal with the fires eternal hard at hand; the churches of Paul and of Cosmas rocking and going down—, then wouldst thou have said, 'Would God that I were dust!' … As not a man hath escaped to tell thee the tale, I TELL IT THEE!"
A little later, when a mission went to treat with Boemond, Bibars himself accompanied it in disguise, to have a look at the defences of Tripoli. In drawing out the terms, the Envoys styled Boemond Count, not Prince, as in the letter just quoted. He lost patience at their persistence, and made a movement which alarmed them. Bibars nudged the Envoy Mohiuddin (who tells the story) with his foot to give up the point, and the treaty was made. On their way back the Sultan laughed heartily at their narrow escape, "sending to the devil all the counts and princes on the face of the earth."
(Quatremère's Makrizi, II. 92-101, and 190 seqq.; J. As. sér. I. tom. xi. p. 89; D'Ohsson, III. 459-474; Marino Sanuto in Bongars, 224-226, etc.)
NOTE 4.—The ruling Master of the Temple was Thomas Berard (1256-1273), but there is little detail about the Order in the East at this time. They had, however, considerable possessions and great influence in Cilician Armenia, and how much they were mixed up in its affairs is shown by a circumstance related by Makrizi. In 1285, when Sultan Mansúr, the successor of Bundúkdár, was besieging the Castle of Markab, there arrived in Camp the Commander of the Temple (Kamandúr-ul Dewet) of the Country of Armenia, charged to negotiate on the part of the King of Sis (i.e. of Lesser Armenia, Leon III. 1268-1289, successor of Hayton I. 1224-1268), and bringing presents from him and from the Master of the Temple, Berard's successor, William de Beaujeu (1273-1291). (III. 201.)—H. Y. and H. C.
And when they had been thus honourably conducted to Acre they proceeded to the presence of the Pope, and paid their respects to him with humble reverence. He received them with great honour and satisfaction, and gave them his blessing. He then appointed two Friars of the Order of Preachers to accompany them to the Great Kaan, and to do whatever might be required of them. These were unquestionably as learned Churchmen as were to be found in the Province at that day—one being called Friar Nicolas of Vicenza, and the other Friar William of Tripoli.[NOTE 1] He delivered to them also proper credentials, and letters in reply to the Great Kaan's messages [and gave them authority to ordain priests and bishops, and to bestow every kind of absolution, as if given by himself in proper person; sending by them also many fine vessels of crystal as presents to the Great Kaan].[NOTE 2] So when they had got all that was needful, they took leave of the Pope, receiving his benediction; and the four set out together from Acre, and went to Layas, accompanied always by Messer Nicolas's son Marco.
Now, about the time that they reached Layas, Bendocquedar, the Soldan of Babylon, invaded Hermenia with a great host of Saracens, and ravaged the country, so that our Envoys ran a great peril of being taken or slain. [NOTE 3] And when the Preaching Friars saw this they were greatly frightened, and said that go they never would. So they made over to Messer Nicolas and Messer Maffeo all their credentials and documents, and took their leave, departing in company with the Master of the Temple.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1.—Friar William, of Tripoli, of the Dominican convent at Acre, appears to have served there as early as 1250. [He was born circa 1220, at Tripoli, in Syria, whence his name.—H. C.] He is known as the author of a book, De Statu Saracenorum post Ludovici Regis de Syriâ reditum, dedicated to Theoldus, Archdeacon of Liège (i.e. Pope Gregory). Of this some extracts are printed in Duchesne's Hist. Francorum Scriptores. There are two MSS. of it, with different titles, in the Paris Library, and a French version in that of Berne. A MS. in Cambridge Univ. Library, which contains among other things a copy of Pipino's Polo, has also the work of Friar William:—"Willelmus Tripolitanus, Aconensis Conventus, de Egressu Machometi et Saracenorum, atque progressu eorumdem, de Statu Saracenorum," etc. It is imperfect; it is addressed THEOBALDO Ecclesiarcho digno Sancte Terre Peregrino Sancto. And from a cursory inspection I imagine that the Tract appended to one of the Polo MSS. in the British Museum (Addl. MSS., No. 19,952) is the same work or part of it. To the same author is ascribed a tract called Clades Damiatae. (Duchesne, V. 432; D'Avezac in Rec. de Voyages, IV. 406; Quétif, Script. Ord. Praed. I. 264-5; Catal. of MSS. in Camb. Univ. Library, I. 22.)
NOTE 2.—I presume that the powers, stated in this passage from Ramusio to have been conferred on the Friars, are exaggerated. In letters of authority granted in like cases by Pope Gregory's successors, Nicolas III. (in 1278) and Boniface VIII. (in 1299), the missionary friars to remote regions are empowered to absolve from excommunication and release from vows, to settle matrimonial questions, to found churches and appoint idoneos rectores, to authorise Oriental clergy who should publicly submit to the Apostolic See to enjoy the privilegium clericale, whilst in the absence of bishops those among the missionaries who were priests might consecrate cemeteries, altars, palls, etc., admit to the Order of Acolytes, but nothing beyond. (See Mosheim, Hist. Tartar. Eccles. App. Nos. 23 and 42.)
NOTE 3.—The statement here about Bundúkdár's invasion of Cilician Armenia is a difficulty. He had invaded it in 1266, and his second devastating invasion, during which he burnt both Layas and Sis, the king's residence, took place in 1275, a point on which Marino Sanuto is at one with the Oriental Historians. Now we know from Rainaldus that Pope Gregory left Acre in November or December, 1271, and the text appears to imply that our travellers left Acre before him. The utmost corroboration that I can find lies in the following facts stated by Makrizi:—
On the 13th Safar, A.H. 670 (20th September 1271), Bundúkdár arrived unexpectedly at Damascus, and after a brief raid against the Ismaelians he returned to that city. In the middle of Rabi I. (about 20-25 October) the Tartars made an incursion in northern Syria, and the troops of Aleppo retired towards Hamah. There was great alarm at Damascus; the Sultan sent orders to Cairo for reinforcements, and these arrived at Damascus on the 9th November. The Sultan then advanced on Aleppo, sending corps likewise towards Marash (which was within the Armenian frontier) and Harran. At the latter place the Tartars were attacked and those in the town slaughtered; the rest retreated. The Sultan was back at Damascus, and off on a different expedition, by 7th December. Hence, if the travellers arrived at Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably find alarm existing at the advance of Bundúkdár, though matters did not turn out so serious as they imply.
"Babylon," of which Bundúkdár is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly so styled (Bambellonia d'Egitto) in that age. Babylon of Egypt is mentioned by Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy; it was the station of a Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives in the name of Babul, close to old Cairo.
Malik Dáhir Ruknuddín Bíbars Bundúkdári, a native of Kipchak, was originally sold at Damascus for 800 dirhems (about 18_l._), and returned by his purchaser because of a blemish. He was then bought by the Amir Aláuddín Aidekín Bundúkdár ("The Arblasteer") whose surname he afterwards adopted. He became the fourth of the Mameluke Sultans, and reigned from 1259 to 1276. The two great objects of his life were the repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria, so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity. William of Tripoli, in the work above mentioned, says: "Bondogar, as a soldier, was not inferior to Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero." He admits, however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects; whilst Makrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a devil in malignity as well as in activity. More than once he played tennis at Damascus and Cairo within the same week. A strange sample of the man is the letter which he wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to announce to him the capture of the former city. After an ironically polite address to Boemond as having by the loss of his great city had his title changed from Princeship (Al-Brensíyah) to Countship (Al-Komasíyah), and describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the attack of Antioch: "We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of Saturday, the 4th day of Ramadhán,… Hadst thou but seen thy Knights trodden under the hoofs of the horses! thy palaces invaded by plunderers and ransacked for booty! thy treasures weighed out by the hundredweight! thy ladies (Dámátaka, 'tes DAMES') bought and sold with thine own gear, at four for a dinár! hadst thou but seen thy churches demolished, thy crosses sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about before the sun, the tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground; thy foe the Moslem treading thy Holy of the Holies; the monk, the priest, the deacon slaughtered on the Altar; the rich given up to misery; princes of royal blood reduced to slavery! Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls; thy dead cast into the fires temporal with the fires eternal hard at hand; the churches of Paul and of Cosmas rocking and going down—, then wouldst thou have said, 'Would God that I were dust!' … As not a man hath escaped to tell thee the tale, I TELL IT THEE!"
A little later, when a mission went to treat with Boemond, Bibars himself accompanied it in disguise, to have a look at the defences of Tripoli. In drawing out the terms, the Envoys styled Boemond Count, not Prince, as in the letter just quoted. He lost patience at their persistence, and made a movement which alarmed them. Bibars nudged the Envoy Mohiuddin (who tells the story) with his foot to give up the point, and the treaty was made. On their way back the Sultan laughed heartily at their narrow escape, "sending to the devil all the counts and princes on the face of the earth."
(Quatremère's Makrizi, II. 92-101, and 190 seqq.; J. As. sér. I. tom. xi. p. 89; D'Ohsson, III. 459-474; Marino Sanuto in Bongars, 224-226, etc.)
NOTE 4.—The ruling Master of the Temple was Thomas Berard (1256-1273), but there is little detail about the Order in the East at this time. They had, however, considerable possessions and great influence in Cilician Armenia, and how much they were mixed up in its affairs is shown by a circumstance related by Makrizi. In 1285, when Sultan Mansúr, the successor of Bundúkdár, was besieging the Castle of Markab, there arrived in Camp the Commander of the Temple (Kamandúr-ul Dewet) of the Country of Armenia, charged to negotiate on the part of the King of Sis (i.e. of Lesser Armenia, Leon III. 1268-1289, successor of Hayton I. 1224-1268), and bringing presents from him and from the Master of the Temple, Berard's successor, William de Beaujeu (1273-1291). (III. 201.)—H. Y. and H. C.
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XIII. HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO, ACCOMPANIED BY MARK, TRAVELLED TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN.
So the Two Brothers, and Mark along with them, proceeded on their way, and journeying on, summer and winter, came at length to the Great Kaan, who was then at a certain rich and great city, called KEMENFU.[NOTE 1] As to what they met with on the road, whether in going or coming, we shall give no particulars at present, because we are going to tell you all those details in regular order in the after part of this Book. Their journey back to the Kaan occupied a good three years and a half, owing to the bad weather and severe cold that they encountered. And let me tell you in good sooth that when the Great Kaan heard that Messers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo were on their way back, he sent people a journey of full 40 days to meet them; and on this journey, as on their former one, they were honourably entertained upon the road, and supplied with all that they required.
NOTE 1.—The French texts read Clemeinfu, Ramusio Clemenfu. The Pucci MS. guides us to the correct reading, having Chemensu (Kemensu) for Chemenfu. KAIPINGFU, meaning something like "City of Peace," and called by Rashiduddin Kaiminfu (whereby we see that Polo as usual adopted the Persian form of the name), was a city founded in 1256, four years before Kublai's accession, some distance to the north of the Chinese wall. It became Kublai's favourite summer residence, and was styled from 1264 Shangtu or "Upper Court." (See infra, Bk. I. ch. lxi.) It was known to the Mongols, apparently by a combination of the two names, as Shangdu Keibung. It appears in D'Anville's map under the name of Djao-Naiman Sumé. Dr. Bushell, who visited Shangtu in 1872, makes it 1103 li (367 miles) by road distance viâ Kalgan from Peking. The busy town of Dolonnúr lies 26 miles S.E. of it, and according to Kiepert's Asia that place is about 180 miles in a direct line north of Peking.
(See Klaproth in J. As. XI. 365; Gaubil, p. 115; Cathay, p. 260; J. R. G. S. vol. xiiii.)
So the Two Brothers, and Mark along with them, proceeded on their way, and journeying on, summer and winter, came at length to the Great Kaan, who was then at a certain rich and great city, called KEMENFU.[NOTE 1] As to what they met with on the road, whether in going or coming, we shall give no particulars at present, because we are going to tell you all those details in regular order in the after part of this Book. Their journey back to the Kaan occupied a good three years and a half, owing to the bad weather and severe cold that they encountered. And let me tell you in good sooth that when the Great Kaan heard that Messers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo were on their way back, he sent people a journey of full 40 days to meet them; and on this journey, as on their former one, they were honourably entertained upon the road, and supplied with all that they required.
NOTE 1.—The French texts read Clemeinfu, Ramusio Clemenfu. The Pucci MS. guides us to the correct reading, having Chemensu (Kemensu) for Chemenfu. KAIPINGFU, meaning something like "City of Peace," and called by Rashiduddin Kaiminfu (whereby we see that Polo as usual adopted the Persian form of the name), was a city founded in 1256, four years before Kublai's accession, some distance to the north of the Chinese wall. It became Kublai's favourite summer residence, and was styled from 1264 Shangtu or "Upper Court." (See infra, Bk. I. ch. lxi.) It was known to the Mongols, apparently by a combination of the two names, as Shangdu Keibung. It appears in D'Anville's map under the name of Djao-Naiman Sumé. Dr. Bushell, who visited Shangtu in 1872, makes it 1103 li (367 miles) by road distance viâ Kalgan from Peking. The busy town of Dolonnúr lies 26 miles S.E. of it, and according to Kiepert's Asia that place is about 180 miles in a direct line north of Peking.
(See Klaproth in J. As. XI. 365; Gaubil, p. 115; Cathay, p. 260; J. R. G. S. vol. xiiii.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XIV. HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO AND MARCO PRESENTED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE GREAT KAAN.
And what shall I tell you? when the Two Brothers and Mark had arrived at that great city, they went to the Imperial Palace, and there they found the Sovereign attended by a great company of Barons. So they bent the knee before him, and paid their respects to him, with all possible reverence [prostrating themselves on the ground]. Then the Lord bade them stand up, and treated them with great honour, showing great pleasure at their coming, and asked many questions as to their welfare, and how they had sped. They replied that they had in verity sped well, seeing that they found the Kaan well and safe. Then they presented the credentials and letters which they had received from the Pope, which pleased him right well; and after that they produced the Oil from the Sepulchre, and at that also he was very glad, for he set great store thereby. And next, spying Mark, who was then a young gallant,[NOTE 1] he asked who was that in their company? "Sire," said his father, Messer Nicolo, "'tis my son and your liegeman."[NOTE 2] "Welcome is he too," quoth the Emperor. And why should I make a long story? There was great rejoicing at the Court because of their arrival; and they met with attention and honour from everybody.
So there they abode at the Court with the other Barons.
NOTE 1.—"Joenne Bacheler."
NOTE 2.—"Sire, il est mon filz et vostre homme." The last word in the sense which gives us the word homage. Thus in the miracle play of Theophilus (13th century), the Devil says to Theophilus:—
So infra (Bk. I. ch. xlvii.) Aung Khan is made to say of Chinghiz: "Il est mon homes et mon serf." (See also Bk. II. ch. iv. note.) St. Lewis said of the peace he had made with Henry III.: "Il m'est mout grant honneur en la paix que je foiz au Roy d'Angleterre pour ce qu'il est mon home, ce que n'estoit pas devant." And Joinville says with regard to the king, "Je ne voz faire point de serement, car je n'estoie pas son home" (being a vassal of Champagne). A famous Saturday Reviewer quotes the term applied to a lady: "Eddeva puella homo Stigandi Archiepiscopi." (Théâtre Français au Moyen Age, p. 145; Joinville, pp. 21, 37; S. R., 6th September, 1873, p. 305.)
And what shall I tell you? when the Two Brothers and Mark had arrived at that great city, they went to the Imperial Palace, and there they found the Sovereign attended by a great company of Barons. So they bent the knee before him, and paid their respects to him, with all possible reverence [prostrating themselves on the ground]. Then the Lord bade them stand up, and treated them with great honour, showing great pleasure at their coming, and asked many questions as to their welfare, and how they had sped. They replied that they had in verity sped well, seeing that they found the Kaan well and safe. Then they presented the credentials and letters which they had received from the Pope, which pleased him right well; and after that they produced the Oil from the Sepulchre, and at that also he was very glad, for he set great store thereby. And next, spying Mark, who was then a young gallant,[NOTE 1] he asked who was that in their company? "Sire," said his father, Messer Nicolo, "'tis my son and your liegeman."[NOTE 2] "Welcome is he too," quoth the Emperor. And why should I make a long story? There was great rejoicing at the Court because of their arrival; and they met with attention and honour from everybody.
So there they abode at the Court with the other Barons.
NOTE 1.—"Joenne Bacheler."
NOTE 2.—"Sire, il est mon filz et vostre homme." The last word in the sense which gives us the word homage. Thus in the miracle play of Theophilus (13th century), the Devil says to Theophilus:—
"Or joing
Tes mains, et si devien mes hom.
Theoph. Vez ci que je vous faz hommage."
So infra (Bk. I. ch. xlvii.) Aung Khan is made to say of Chinghiz: "Il est mon homes et mon serf." (See also Bk. II. ch. iv. note.) St. Lewis said of the peace he had made with Henry III.: "Il m'est mout grant honneur en la paix que je foiz au Roy d'Angleterre pour ce qu'il est mon home, ce que n'estoit pas devant." And Joinville says with regard to the king, "Je ne voz faire point de serement, car je n'estoie pas son home" (being a vassal of Champagne). A famous Saturday Reviewer quotes the term applied to a lady: "Eddeva puella homo Stigandi Archiepiscopi." (Théâtre Français au Moyen Age, p. 145; Joinville, pp. 21, 37; S. R., 6th September, 1873, p. 305.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XV. HOW THE EMPEROR SENT MARK ON AN EMBASSY OF HIS.
Now it came to pass that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped wondrously in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their language, their manner of writing, and their practice of war; in fact he came in brief space to know several languages, and four sundry written characters. And he was discreet and prudent in every way, insomuch that the Emperor held him in great esteem.[NOTE 1] And so when he discerned Mark to have so much sense, and to conduct himself so well and beseemingly, he sent him on an ambassage of his, to a country which was a good six months' journey distant.[NOTE 2] The young gallant executed his commission well and with discretion. Now he had taken note on several occasions that when the Prince's ambassadors returned from different parts of the world, they were able to tell him about nothing except the business on which they had gone, and that the Prince in consequence held them for no better than fools and dolts, and would say: "I had far liever hearken about the strange things, and the manners of the different countries you have seen, than merely be told of the business you went upon;"—for he took great delight in hearing of the affairs of strange countries. Mark therefore, as he went and returned, took great pains to learn about all kinds of different matters in the countries which he visited, in order to be able to tell about them to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]
NOTE 1.—The word Emperor stands here for Seigneur.
What the four characters acquired by Marco were is open to discussion.
The Chronicle of the Mongol Emperors rendered by Gaubil mentions, as characters used in their Empire, the Uíghúr, the Persian and Arabic, that of the Lamas (Tibetan), that of the Niuché, introduced by the Kin Dynasty, the Khitán, and the Báshpah character, a syllabic alphabet arranged, on the basis of the Tibetan and Sanskrit letters chiefly, by a learned chief Lama so-called, under the orders of Kublai, and established by edict in 1269 as the official character. Coins bearing this character, and dating from 1308 to 1354, are extant. The forms of the Niuché and Khitán were devised in imitation of Chinese writing, but are supposed to be syllabic. Of the Khitán but one inscription was known, and no key. "The Khitan had two national scripts, the 'small characters' (hsiao tzu) and the 'large characters' (ta tzu)." S. W. Bushell, Insc. in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Cong. des Orientalistes, Paris, 1897.—Die Sprache und Schrift der Juchen von Dr. W. Grube, Leipzig, 1896, from a polyglot MS. dictionary, discovered by Dr. F. Hirth and now kept in the Royal Library, Berlin.—H. Y. and H. C.
Chinghiz and his first successors used the Uíghúr, and sometimes the Chinese character. Of the Uíghúr character we give a specimen in Bk. IV. It is of Syriac origin, undoubtedly introduced into Eastern Turkestan by the early Nestorian missions, probably in the 8th or 9th century. The oldest known example of this character so applied, the Kudatku Bilik, a didactic poem in Uíghúr (a branch of Oriental Turkish), dating from A.D. 1069, was published by Prof. Vámbéry in 1870. A new edition of the Kudatku Bilik was published at St. Petersburg, in 1891, by Dr. W. Radloff. Vámbéry had a pleasing illustration of the origin of the Uíghúr character, when he received a visit at Pesth from certain Nestorians of Urumia on a begging tour. On being shown the original MS. of the Kudatku Bilik, they read the character easily, whilst much to their astonishment they could not understand a word of what was written. This Uíghúr is the basis of the modern Mongol and Manchu characters. (Cf. E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, I. pp. 236, 263.)—H. Y. and H. C.
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the East side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the West side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[At the village of Keuyung Kwan, 40 miles north of Peking, in the sub- prefecture of Ch'ang Ping, in the Chih-li province, the road from Peking to Kalgan runs beyond the pass of Nankau, under an archway, a view of which will be found at the end of this volume, on which were engraved, in 1345, two large inscriptions in six different languages: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongol, Báshpah, Uíghúr, Chinese, and a language unknown till recently. Mr. Wylie's kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie's having since been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable Recueil des Documents de l'Époque Mongole, this latter is, by permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and Mongol inscriptions have been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes; the Tibetan by M. Sylvain Lévi (Jour. Asiat., Sept.-Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373); the Uíghúr, by Prof. W. Radloff (Ibid. Nov.-Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550); the Mongol by Prof. G. Huth. (Ibid. Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by A. Wylie (J. R. A. S. vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be Neuchih, Niuché, Niuchen or Juchen. M. Devéria has shown that the inscription is written in Si Hia, or the language of Tangut, and gave a facsimile of a stone stèle (pei) in this language kept in the great Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together with a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the slab. M. Devéria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of Tangut from the one derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese. (Stèle Si-Hia de Leang-tcheou … J. As., 1898; L'éctriture du royaumes de Si-Hia ou Tangout, par M. Devéria … Ext. des Mém … présentés à l'Ac. des. Ins. et B. Let. 1'ère Sér. XI., 1898.) Dr. S. W. Bushell in two papers (Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Actes du XI. Congrés Orientalistes, Paris, 1897, 2nd. sect., pp. 11, 35, and the Hsi Hsia Dynasty of Tangut, their Money and their peculiar Script, J. China Br. R. A. S., xxx. N.S. No. 2, pp. 142, 160) has also made a special study of the same subject. The Si Hia writing was adopted by Yuan Ho in 1036, on which occasion he changed the title of his reign to Ta Ch'ing, i.e. "Great Good Fortune." Unfortunately, both the late M. Devéria and Dr. S. W. Bushell have deciphered but few of the Si Hia characters.—H. C.]
The orders of the Great Kaan are stated to have been published habitually in six languages, viz., Mongol, Uíghúr, Arabic, Persian, Tangutan (Si-Hia), and Chinese.—H. Y. and H. C.
Gházán Khan of Persia is said to have understood Mongol, Arabic, Persian, something of Kashmiri, of Tibetan, of Chinese, and a little of the Frank tongue (probably French).
The annals of the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols in China, mention the establishment in the 11th moon of the 5th year Yong-lo (1407) of the Sse yi kwan, a linguistic office for diplomatic purposes. The languages to be studied were Niuché, Mongol, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Bokharan (Persian?) Uíghúr, Burmese, and Siamese. To these were added by the Manchu Dynasty two languages called Papeh and Pehyih, both dialects of the S.W. frontier. (See infra, Bk. II. ch. lvi.-lvii., and notes.) Since 1382, however, official interpreters had to translate Mongol texts; they were selected among the Academicians, and their service (which was independent of the Sse yi kwan when this was created) was under the control of the Han-lin-yuen. There may have been similar institutions under the Yuen, but we have no proof of it. At all events, such an office could not then be called Sse yi kwan (Sse yi, Barbarians from four sides); Niuché (Niuchen) was taught in Yong-lo's office, but not Manchu. The Sse yi kwan must not be confounded with the Hui t'ong kwan, the office for the reception of tributary envoys, to which it was annexed in 1748. (Gaubil, p. 148; Gold. Horde, 184; Ilchan. II. 147; Lockhart in J. R. G. S. XXXVI. 152; Koeppen, II. 99; G. Devéria, Hist. du Collége des Interprétes de Peking in Mélanges Charles de Harlez, pp. 94-102; MS. Note of Prof. A. Vissière; The Tangut Script in the Nan-K'ou Pass, by Dr. S. W. Bushell, China Review, xxiv. II. pp. 65-68.)—H. Y. and H. C.
Pauthier supposes Mark's four acquisitions to have been Báshpah-Mongol, Arabic, Uighúr, and Chinese. I entirely reject the Chinese. Sir H. Yule adds: "We shall see no reason to believe that he knew either language or character" [Chinese]. The blunders Polo made in saying that the name of the city, Suju, signifies in our tongue "Earth" and Kinsay "Heaven" show he did not know the Chinese characters, but we read in Bk. II. ch. lxviii.: "And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this Book speaks, did govern this city (Yanju) for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan." It seems to me [H. C.] hardly possible that Marco could have for three years been governor of so important and so Chinese a city as Yangchau, in the heart of the Empire, without acquiring a knowledge of the spoken language.—H. C. The other three languages seem highly probable. The fourth may have been Tibetan. But it is more likely that he counted separately two varieties of the same character (e.g. of the Arabic and Persian) as two "lettres de leur escriptures"—H. Y. and H. C.
NOTE 2.—[Ramusio here adds: "Ad und città, detta Carazan," which, as we shall see, refers to the Yun-nan Province.]—H. C.
NOTE 3.—From the context no doubt Marco's employments were honourable and confidential; but Commissioner would perhaps better express them than Ambassador in the modern sense. The word Ilchi, which was probably in his mind, was applied to a large variety of classes employed on the commissions of Government, as we may see from a passage of Rashiduddin in D'Ohsson, which says that "there were always to be found in every city from one to two hundred Ilchis, who forced the citizens to furnish them with free quarters," etc., III. 404. (See also 485.)
Now it came to pass that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped wondrously in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their language, their manner of writing, and their practice of war; in fact he came in brief space to know several languages, and four sundry written characters. And he was discreet and prudent in every way, insomuch that the Emperor held him in great esteem.[NOTE 1] And so when he discerned Mark to have so much sense, and to conduct himself so well and beseemingly, he sent him on an ambassage of his, to a country which was a good six months' journey distant.[NOTE 2] The young gallant executed his commission well and with discretion. Now he had taken note on several occasions that when the Prince's ambassadors returned from different parts of the world, they were able to tell him about nothing except the business on which they had gone, and that the Prince in consequence held them for no better than fools and dolts, and would say: "I had far liever hearken about the strange things, and the manners of the different countries you have seen, than merely be told of the business you went upon;"—for he took great delight in hearing of the affairs of strange countries. Mark therefore, as he went and returned, took great pains to learn about all kinds of different matters in the countries which he visited, in order to be able to tell about them to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]
NOTE 1.—The word Emperor stands here for Seigneur.
What the four characters acquired by Marco were is open to discussion.
The Chronicle of the Mongol Emperors rendered by Gaubil mentions, as characters used in their Empire, the Uíghúr, the Persian and Arabic, that of the Lamas (Tibetan), that of the Niuché, introduced by the Kin Dynasty, the Khitán, and the Báshpah character, a syllabic alphabet arranged, on the basis of the Tibetan and Sanskrit letters chiefly, by a learned chief Lama so-called, under the orders of Kublai, and established by edict in 1269 as the official character. Coins bearing this character, and dating from 1308 to 1354, are extant. The forms of the Niuché and Khitán were devised in imitation of Chinese writing, but are supposed to be syllabic. Of the Khitán but one inscription was known, and no key. "The Khitan had two national scripts, the 'small characters' (hsiao tzu) and the 'large characters' (ta tzu)." S. W. Bushell, Insc. in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Cong. des Orientalistes, Paris, 1897.—Die Sprache und Schrift der Juchen von Dr. W. Grube, Leipzig, 1896, from a polyglot MS. dictionary, discovered by Dr. F. Hirth and now kept in the Royal Library, Berlin.—H. Y. and H. C.
Chinghiz and his first successors used the Uíghúr, and sometimes the Chinese character. Of the Uíghúr character we give a specimen in Bk. IV. It is of Syriac origin, undoubtedly introduced into Eastern Turkestan by the early Nestorian missions, probably in the 8th or 9th century. The oldest known example of this character so applied, the Kudatku Bilik, a didactic poem in Uíghúr (a branch of Oriental Turkish), dating from A.D. 1069, was published by Prof. Vámbéry in 1870. A new edition of the Kudatku Bilik was published at St. Petersburg, in 1891, by Dr. W. Radloff. Vámbéry had a pleasing illustration of the origin of the Uíghúr character, when he received a visit at Pesth from certain Nestorians of Urumia on a begging tour. On being shown the original MS. of the Kudatku Bilik, they read the character easily, whilst much to their astonishment they could not understand a word of what was written. This Uíghúr is the basis of the modern Mongol and Manchu characters. (Cf. E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, I. pp. 236, 263.)—H. Y. and H. C.
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the East side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the West side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[At the village of Keuyung Kwan, 40 miles north of Peking, in the sub- prefecture of Ch'ang Ping, in the Chih-li province, the road from Peking to Kalgan runs beyond the pass of Nankau, under an archway, a view of which will be found at the end of this volume, on which were engraved, in 1345, two large inscriptions in six different languages: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongol, Báshpah, Uíghúr, Chinese, and a language unknown till recently. Mr. Wylie's kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie's having since been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable Recueil des Documents de l'Époque Mongole, this latter is, by permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and Mongol inscriptions have been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes; the Tibetan by M. Sylvain Lévi (Jour. Asiat., Sept.-Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373); the Uíghúr, by Prof. W. Radloff (Ibid. Nov.-Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550); the Mongol by Prof. G. Huth. (Ibid. Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by A. Wylie (J. R. A. S. vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be Neuchih, Niuché, Niuchen or Juchen. M. Devéria has shown that the inscription is written in Si Hia, or the language of Tangut, and gave a facsimile of a stone stèle (pei) in this language kept in the great Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together with a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the slab. M. Devéria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of Tangut from the one derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese. (Stèle Si-Hia de Leang-tcheou … J. As., 1898; L'éctriture du royaumes de Si-Hia ou Tangout, par M. Devéria … Ext. des Mém … présentés à l'Ac. des. Ins. et B. Let. 1'ère Sér. XI., 1898.) Dr. S. W. Bushell in two papers (Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Actes du XI. Congrés Orientalistes, Paris, 1897, 2nd. sect., pp. 11, 35, and the Hsi Hsia Dynasty of Tangut, their Money and their peculiar Script, J. China Br. R. A. S., xxx. N.S. No. 2, pp. 142, 160) has also made a special study of the same subject. The Si Hia writing was adopted by Yuan Ho in 1036, on which occasion he changed the title of his reign to Ta Ch'ing, i.e. "Great Good Fortune." Unfortunately, both the late M. Devéria and Dr. S. W. Bushell have deciphered but few of the Si Hia characters.—H. C.]
The orders of the Great Kaan are stated to have been published habitually in six languages, viz., Mongol, Uíghúr, Arabic, Persian, Tangutan (Si-Hia), and Chinese.—H. Y. and H. C.
Gházán Khan of Persia is said to have understood Mongol, Arabic, Persian, something of Kashmiri, of Tibetan, of Chinese, and a little of the Frank tongue (probably French).
The annals of the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols in China, mention the establishment in the 11th moon of the 5th year Yong-lo (1407) of the Sse yi kwan, a linguistic office for diplomatic purposes. The languages to be studied were Niuché, Mongol, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Bokharan (Persian?) Uíghúr, Burmese, and Siamese. To these were added by the Manchu Dynasty two languages called Papeh and Pehyih, both dialects of the S.W. frontier. (See infra, Bk. II. ch. lvi.-lvii., and notes.) Since 1382, however, official interpreters had to translate Mongol texts; they were selected among the Academicians, and their service (which was independent of the Sse yi kwan when this was created) was under the control of the Han-lin-yuen. There may have been similar institutions under the Yuen, but we have no proof of it. At all events, such an office could not then be called Sse yi kwan (Sse yi, Barbarians from four sides); Niuché (Niuchen) was taught in Yong-lo's office, but not Manchu. The Sse yi kwan must not be confounded with the Hui t'ong kwan, the office for the reception of tributary envoys, to which it was annexed in 1748. (Gaubil, p. 148; Gold. Horde, 184; Ilchan. II. 147; Lockhart in J. R. G. S. XXXVI. 152; Koeppen, II. 99; G. Devéria, Hist. du Collége des Interprétes de Peking in Mélanges Charles de Harlez, pp. 94-102; MS. Note of Prof. A. Vissière; The Tangut Script in the Nan-K'ou Pass, by Dr. S. W. Bushell, China Review, xxiv. II. pp. 65-68.)—H. Y. and H. C.
Pauthier supposes Mark's four acquisitions to have been Báshpah-Mongol, Arabic, Uighúr, and Chinese. I entirely reject the Chinese. Sir H. Yule adds: "We shall see no reason to believe that he knew either language or character" [Chinese]. The blunders Polo made in saying that the name of the city, Suju, signifies in our tongue "Earth" and Kinsay "Heaven" show he did not know the Chinese characters, but we read in Bk. II. ch. lxviii.: "And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this Book speaks, did govern this city (Yanju) for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan." It seems to me [H. C.] hardly possible that Marco could have for three years been governor of so important and so Chinese a city as Yangchau, in the heart of the Empire, without acquiring a knowledge of the spoken language.—H. C. The other three languages seem highly probable. The fourth may have been Tibetan. But it is more likely that he counted separately two varieties of the same character (e.g. of the Arabic and Persian) as two "lettres de leur escriptures"—H. Y. and H. C.
NOTE 2.—[Ramusio here adds: "Ad und città, detta Carazan," which, as we shall see, refers to the Yun-nan Province.]—H. C.
NOTE 3.—From the context no doubt Marco's employments were honourable and confidential; but Commissioner would perhaps better express them than Ambassador in the modern sense. The word Ilchi, which was probably in his mind, was applied to a large variety of classes employed on the commissions of Government, as we may see from a passage of Rashiduddin in D'Ohsson, which says that "there were always to be found in every city from one to two hundred Ilchis, who forced the citizens to furnish them with free quarters," etc., III. 404. (See also 485.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XVI. HOW MARK RETURNED FROM THE MISSION WHEREON HE HAD BEEN SENT.
When Mark returned from his ambassage he presented himself before the Emperor, and after making his report of the business with which he was charged, and its successful accomplishment, he went on to give an account in a pleasant and intelligent manner of all the novelties and strange things that he had seen and heard; insomuch that the Emperor and all such as heard his story were surprised, and said: "If this young man live, he will assuredly come to be a person of great worth and ability." And so from that time forward he was always entitled MESSER MARCO POLO, and thus we shall style him henceforth in this Book of ours, as is but right.
Thereafter Messer Marco abode in the Kaan's employment some seventeen years, continually going and coming, hither and thither, on the missions that were entrusted to him by the Lord [and sometimes, with the permission and authority of the Great Kaan, on his own private affairs.] And, as he knew all the sovereign's ways, like a sensible man he always took much pains to gather knowledge of anything that would be likely to interest him, and then on his return to Court he would relate everything in regular order, and thus the Emperor came to hold him in great love and favour. And for this reason also he would employ him the oftener on the most weighty and most distant of his missions. These Messer Marco ever carried out with discretion and success, God be thanked. So the Emperor became ever more partial to him, and treated him with the greater distinction, and kept him so close to his person that some of the Barons waxed very envious thereat. And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had knowledge of, or had actually visited, a greater number of the different countries of the World than any other man; the more that he was always giving his mind to get knowledge, and to spy out and enquire into everything in order to have matter to relate to the Lord.
When Mark returned from his ambassage he presented himself before the Emperor, and after making his report of the business with which he was charged, and its successful accomplishment, he went on to give an account in a pleasant and intelligent manner of all the novelties and strange things that he had seen and heard; insomuch that the Emperor and all such as heard his story were surprised, and said: "If this young man live, he will assuredly come to be a person of great worth and ability." And so from that time forward he was always entitled MESSER MARCO POLO, and thus we shall style him henceforth in this Book of ours, as is but right.
Thereafter Messer Marco abode in the Kaan's employment some seventeen years, continually going and coming, hither and thither, on the missions that were entrusted to him by the Lord [and sometimes, with the permission and authority of the Great Kaan, on his own private affairs.] And, as he knew all the sovereign's ways, like a sensible man he always took much pains to gather knowledge of anything that would be likely to interest him, and then on his return to Court he would relate everything in regular order, and thus the Emperor came to hold him in great love and favour. And for this reason also he would employ him the oftener on the most weighty and most distant of his missions. These Messer Marco ever carried out with discretion and success, God be thanked. So the Emperor became ever more partial to him, and treated him with the greater distinction, and kept him so close to his person that some of the Barons waxed very envious thereat. And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had knowledge of, or had actually visited, a greater number of the different countries of the World than any other man; the more that he was always giving his mind to get knowledge, and to spy out and enquire into everything in order to have matter to relate to the Lord.
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XVII. HOW MESSER NICOLO, MESSER MAFFEO, AND MESSER MARCO, ASKED LEAVE OF THE GREAT KAAN TO GO THEIR WAY.
When the Two Brothers and Mark had abode with the Lord all that time that you have been told [having meanwhile acquired great wealth in jewels and gold], they began among themselves to have thoughts about returning to their own country; and indeed it was time. [For, to say nothing of the length and infinite perils of the way, when they considered the Kaan's great age, they doubted whether, in the event of his death before their departure, they would ever be able to get home.[NOTE 1]] They applied to him several times for leave to go, presenting their request with great respect, but he had such a partiality for them, and liked so much to have them about him, that nothing on earth would persuade him to let them go.
Now it came to pass in those days that the Queen BOLGANA, wife of ARGON, Lord of the Levant, departed this life. And in her Will she had desired that no Lady should take her place, or succeed her as Argon's wife, except one of her own family [which existed in Cathay]. Argon therefore despatched three of his Barons, by name respectively OULATAY, APUSCA, and COJA, as ambassadors to the Great Kaan, attended by a very gallant company, in order to bring back as his bride a lady of the family of Queen Bolgana, his late wife.[NOTE 2]
When these three Barons had reached the Court of the Great Kaan, they delivered their message, explaining wherefore they were come. The Kaan received them with all honour and hospitality, and then sent for a lady whose name was COCACHIN, who was of the family of the deceased Queen Bolgana. She was a maiden of 17, a very beautiful and charming person, and on her arrival at Court she was presented to the three Barons as the Lady chosen in compliance with their demand. They declared that the Lady pleased them well.[NOTE 3]
Meanwhile Messer Marco chanced to return from India, whither he had gone as the Lord's ambassador, and made his report of all the different things that he had seen in his travels, and of the sundry seas over which he had voyaged. And the three Barons, having seen that Messer Nicolo, Messer Maffeo, and Messer Marco were not only Latins, but men of marvellous good sense withal, took thought among themselves to get the three to travel with them, their intention being to return to their country by sea, on account of the great fatigue of that long land journey for a lady. And the ambassadors were the more desirous to have their company, as being aware that those three had great knowledge and experience of the Indian Sea and the countries by which they would have to pass, and especially Messer Marco. So they went to the Great Kaan, and begged as a favour that he would send the three Latins with them, as it was their desire to return home by sea.
The Lord, having that great regard that I have mentioned for those three Latins, was very loath to do so [and his countenance showed great dissatisfaction]. But at last he did give them permission to depart, enjoining them to accompany the three Barons and the Lady.
NOTE 1.—Pegolotti, in his chapters on mercantile ventures to Cathay, refers to the dangers to which foreigners were always liable on the death of the reigning sovereign. (See Cathay, p. 292.)
NOTE 2.—Several ladies of the name of BULUGHAN ("Zibellina") have a place in Mongol-Persian history. The one here indicated, a lady of great beauty and ability, was known as the Great Khátún (or Lady) Bulughan, and was (according to strange Mongol custom) the wife successively of Abáka and of his son ARGHUN, the Argon of the text, Mongol sovereign of Persia. She died on the banks of the Kur in Georgia, 7th April, 1286. She belonged to the Mongol tribe of Bayaut, and was the daughter of Hulákú's Chief Secretary Gúgah. (Ilchan. I. 374 et passim; Erdmann's Temudschin, p. 216.)
The names of the Envoys, ULADAI, APUSHKA, and KOJA, are all names met with in Mongol history. And Rashiduddin speaks of an Apushka of the Mongol Tribe of Urnaut, who on some occasion was sent as Envoy to the Great Kaan from Persia,—possibly the very person. (See Erdmann, 205.)
Of the Lady Cocachin we shall speak below.
NOTE 3.—Ramusio here has the following passage, genuine no doubt: "So everything being ready, with a great escort to do honour to the bride of King Argon, the Ambassadors took leave and set forth. But after travelling eight months by the same way that they had come, they found the roads closed, in consequence of wars lately broken out among certain Tartar Princes; so being unable to proceed, they were compelled to return to the Court of the Great Kaan."
When the Two Brothers and Mark had abode with the Lord all that time that you have been told [having meanwhile acquired great wealth in jewels and gold], they began among themselves to have thoughts about returning to their own country; and indeed it was time. [For, to say nothing of the length and infinite perils of the way, when they considered the Kaan's great age, they doubted whether, in the event of his death before their departure, they would ever be able to get home.[NOTE 1]] They applied to him several times for leave to go, presenting their request with great respect, but he had such a partiality for them, and liked so much to have them about him, that nothing on earth would persuade him to let them go.
Now it came to pass in those days that the Queen BOLGANA, wife of ARGON, Lord of the Levant, departed this life. And in her Will she had desired that no Lady should take her place, or succeed her as Argon's wife, except one of her own family [which existed in Cathay]. Argon therefore despatched three of his Barons, by name respectively OULATAY, APUSCA, and COJA, as ambassadors to the Great Kaan, attended by a very gallant company, in order to bring back as his bride a lady of the family of Queen Bolgana, his late wife.[NOTE 2]
When these three Barons had reached the Court of the Great Kaan, they delivered their message, explaining wherefore they were come. The Kaan received them with all honour and hospitality, and then sent for a lady whose name was COCACHIN, who was of the family of the deceased Queen Bolgana. She was a maiden of 17, a very beautiful and charming person, and on her arrival at Court she was presented to the three Barons as the Lady chosen in compliance with their demand. They declared that the Lady pleased them well.[NOTE 3]
Meanwhile Messer Marco chanced to return from India, whither he had gone as the Lord's ambassador, and made his report of all the different things that he had seen in his travels, and of the sundry seas over which he had voyaged. And the three Barons, having seen that Messer Nicolo, Messer Maffeo, and Messer Marco were not only Latins, but men of marvellous good sense withal, took thought among themselves to get the three to travel with them, their intention being to return to their country by sea, on account of the great fatigue of that long land journey for a lady. And the ambassadors were the more desirous to have their company, as being aware that those three had great knowledge and experience of the Indian Sea and the countries by which they would have to pass, and especially Messer Marco. So they went to the Great Kaan, and begged as a favour that he would send the three Latins with them, as it was their desire to return home by sea.
The Lord, having that great regard that I have mentioned for those three Latins, was very loath to do so [and his countenance showed great dissatisfaction]. But at last he did give them permission to depart, enjoining them to accompany the three Barons and the Lady.
NOTE 1.—Pegolotti, in his chapters on mercantile ventures to Cathay, refers to the dangers to which foreigners were always liable on the death of the reigning sovereign. (See Cathay, p. 292.)
NOTE 2.—Several ladies of the name of BULUGHAN ("Zibellina") have a place in Mongol-Persian history. The one here indicated, a lady of great beauty and ability, was known as the Great Khátún (or Lady) Bulughan, and was (according to strange Mongol custom) the wife successively of Abáka and of his son ARGHUN, the Argon of the text, Mongol sovereign of Persia. She died on the banks of the Kur in Georgia, 7th April, 1286. She belonged to the Mongol tribe of Bayaut, and was the daughter of Hulákú's Chief Secretary Gúgah. (Ilchan. I. 374 et passim; Erdmann's Temudschin, p. 216.)
The names of the Envoys, ULADAI, APUSHKA, and KOJA, are all names met with in Mongol history. And Rashiduddin speaks of an Apushka of the Mongol Tribe of Urnaut, who on some occasion was sent as Envoy to the Great Kaan from Persia,—possibly the very person. (See Erdmann, 205.)
Of the Lady Cocachin we shall speak below.
NOTE 3.—Ramusio here has the following passage, genuine no doubt: "So everything being ready, with a great escort to do honour to the bride of King Argon, the Ambassadors took leave and set forth. But after travelling eight months by the same way that they had come, they found the roads closed, in consequence of wars lately broken out among certain Tartar Princes; so being unable to proceed, they were compelled to return to the Court of the Great Kaan."
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
by admin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:48 pm
CHAPTER XVIII. HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AND MESSER MARCO TOOK LEAVE OF THE GREAT KAAN, AND RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
And when the Prince saw that the Two Brothers and Messer Marco were ready to set forth, he called them all three to his presence, and gave them two golden Tablets of Authority, which should secure them liberty of passage through all his dominions, and by means of which, whithersoever they should go, all necessaries would be provided for them, and for all their company, and whatever they might choose to order.[NOTE 1] He charged them also with messages to the King of France, the King of England,[NOTE 2] the King of Spain, and the other kings of Christendom. He then caused thirteen ships to be equipt, each of which had four masts, and often spread twelve sails.[NOTE 3] And I could easily give you all particulars about these, but as it would be so long an affair I will not enter upon this now, but hereafter, when time and place are suitable. [Among the said ships were at least four or five that carried crews of 250 or 260 men.]
And when the ships had been equipt, the Three Barons and the Lady, and the Two Brothers and Messer Marco, took leave of the Great Kaan, and went on board their ships with a great company of people, and with all necessaries provided for two years by the Emperor. They put forth to sea, and after sailing for some three months they arrived at a certain Island towards the South, which is called JAVA,[NOTE 4] and in which there are many wonderful things which we shall tell you all about by-and-bye. Quitting this Island they continued to navigate the Sea of India for eighteen months more before they arrived whither they were bound, meeting on their way also with many marvels, of which we shall tell hereafter.
And when they got thither they found that Argon was dead, so the Lady was delivered to CASAN, his son.
But I should have told you that it is a fact that, when they embarked, they were in number some 600 persons, without counting the mariners; but nearly all died by the way, so that only eight survived.[NOTE 5]
The sovereignty when they arrived was held by KIACATU, so they commended the Lady to him, and executed all their commission. And when the Two Brothers and Messer Marco had executed their charge in full, and done all that the Great Kaan had enjoined on them in regard to the Lady, they took their leave and set out upon their journey.[NOTE 6] And before their departure, Kiacatu gave them four golden tablets of authority, two of which bore gerfalcons, one bore lions, whilst the fourth was plain, and having on them inscriptions which directed that the three Ambassadors should receive honour and service all through the land as if rendered to the Prince in person, and that horses and all provisions, and everything necessary, should be supplied to them. And so they found in fact; for throughout the country they received ample and excellent supplies of everything needful; and many a time indeed, as I may tell you, they were furnished with 200 horsemen, more or less, to escort them on their way in safety. And this was all the more needful because Kiacatu was not the legitimate Lord, and therefore the people had less scruple to do mischief than if they had had a lawful prince.[NOTE 7]
Another thing too must be mentioned, which does credit to those three Ambassadors, and shows for what great personages they were held. The Great Kaan regarded them with such trust and affection, that he had confided to their charge the Queen Cocachin, as well as the daughter of the King of Manzi,[NOTE 8] to conduct to Argon the Lord of all the Levant. And those two great ladies who were thus entrusted to them they watched over and guarded as if they had been daughters of their own, until they had transferred them to the hands of their Lord; whilst the ladies, young and fair as they were, looked on each of those three as a father, and obeyed them accordingly. Indeed, both Casan, who is now the reigning prince, and the Queen Cocachin his wife, have such a regard for the Envoys that there is nothing they would not do for them. And when the three Ambassadors took leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she wept for sorrow at the parting.
What more shall I say? Having left Kiacatu they travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295 of Christ's Incarnation.
And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as you have heard, we shall begin the Book of the Description of the Divers Things that Messer Marco met with in his Travels.
NOTE 1.—On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a note will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii.) Plano Carpini says of the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine morâ equos subductitios et expensas" (669).
NOTE 2.—The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached him. But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England; all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian Sultan. Such messages came from Ábáka in 1277; from Arghún in 1289 and 1291; from Gházán in 1302; from Oljaitu in 1307. (See Rémusat in Mém. de l'Acad. VII.)
[Illustration: Ancient Chinese War Vessel.]
NOTE 3.—Ramusio has "nine sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jordanus, who saw them in Malabar, says: "With a fair wind they carry ten sails;" Ibn Batuta: "One of these great junks carries from three sails to twelve;" Joseph, the Indian, speaking of those that traded to India in the 15th century: "They were very great, and had sometimes twelve sails, with innumerable rowers." (Lecomte, I. 389; Fr. Jordanus, Hak. Soc., p. 55; Ibn Batuta, IV. 91; Novus Orbis, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels is given at the beginning of Bk. III.
NOTE 4.—I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. "It is quite possible for a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep together to take three months at the present time to accomplish a similar voyage. A Chinese trader, who has come annually to Singapore in junks for many years, tells us that he has had as long a passage as sixty days, although the average is eighteen or twenty days." (Logan in J. Ind. Archip. II. 609.)
NOTE 5.—Ramusio's version here varies widely, and looks more probable: "From the day that they embarked until their arrival there died of mariners and others on board 600 persons; and of the three ambassadors only one survived, whose name was Goza (Coja); but of the ladies and damsels died but one."
It is worth noting that in the case of an embassy sent to Cathay a few years later by Gházán Khan, on the return by this same route to Persia, the chief of the two Persian ambassadors, and the Great Khan's envoy, who was in company, both died by the way. Their voyage, too, seems to have been nearly as long as Polo's; for they were seven years absent from Persia, and of these only four in China. (See Wassáf in Elliot, III. 47.)
NOTE 6.—Ramusio's version states that on learning Arghún's death (which they probably did on landing at Hormuz), they sent word of their arrival to Kiacatu, who directed them to conduct the lady to Casan, who was then in the region of the Arbre Sec (the Province of Khorasan) guarding the frontier passes with 60,000 men, and that they did so, and then turned back to Kiacatu (probably at Tabriz), and stayed at his Court nine months. Even the Geog. Text seems to imply that they had become personally known to Casan, and I have no doubt that Ramusio's statement is an authentic expansion of the original narrative by Marco himself, or on his authority.
Arghún Khan died 10th March, 1291. He was succeeded (23rd July) by his brother Kaikhátú (Quiacatu of Polo), who was put to death 24th March, 1295.
We learn from Hammer's History of the Ilkhans that when Gházán, the son of Arghún (Casan of Polo), who had the government of the Khorasan frontier, was on his return to his post from Tabriz, where his uncle Kaikhatu had refused to see him, "he met at Abher the ambassador whom he had sent to the Great Khan to obtain in marriage a relative of the Great Lady Bulghán. This envoy brought with him the Lady KÚKÁCHIN (our author's Cocachin), with presents from the Emperor, and the marriage was celebrated with due festivity." Abher lies a little west of Kazvín.
Hammer is not, I find, here copying from Wassáf, and I have not been able to procure a thorough search of the work of Rashiduddin, which probably was his authority. As well as the date can be made out from the History of the Ilkhans, Gházán must have met his bride towards the end of 1293, or quite the beginning of 1294. Rashiduddin in another place mentions the fair lady from Cathay; "The ordu (or establishment) of Tukiti Khatun was given to KUKACHI KHATUN, who had been brought from the Kaan's Court, and who was a kinswoman of the late chief Queen Bulghán. Kúkáchi, the wife of the Padshah of Islam, Gházán Khan, died in the month of Shaban, 695," i.e. in June, 1296, so that the poor girl did not long survive her promotion. (See Hammer's Ilch. II. 20, and 8, and I. 273; and Quatremère's Rashiduddin, p. 97.) Kukachin was the name also of the wife of Chingkim, Kublai's favourite son; but she was of the Kungurát tribe. (Deguignes, IV. 179.)
NOTE 7.—Here Ramusio's text says: "During this journey Messers Nicolo, Maffeo, and Marco heard the news that the Great Khan had departed this life; and this caused them to give up all hope of returning to those parts."
NOTE 8.—This Princess of Manzi, or Southern China, is mentioned only in the Geog. Text and in the Crusca, which is based thereon. I find no notice of her among the wives of Gházán or otherwise.
On the fall of the capital of the Sung Dynasty—the Kinsay of Polo—in 1276, the Princesses of that Imperial family were sent to Peking, and were graciously treated by Kublai's favourite Queen, the Lady Jamui. This young lady was, no doubt, one of those captive princesses who had been brought up at the Court of Khánbálik. (See De Mailla, IX. 376, and infra Bk. II. ch. lxv., note 6.)
And when the Prince saw that the Two Brothers and Messer Marco were ready to set forth, he called them all three to his presence, and gave them two golden Tablets of Authority, which should secure them liberty of passage through all his dominions, and by means of which, whithersoever they should go, all necessaries would be provided for them, and for all their company, and whatever they might choose to order.[NOTE 1] He charged them also with messages to the King of France, the King of England,[NOTE 2] the King of Spain, and the other kings of Christendom. He then caused thirteen ships to be equipt, each of which had four masts, and often spread twelve sails.[NOTE 3] And I could easily give you all particulars about these, but as it would be so long an affair I will not enter upon this now, but hereafter, when time and place are suitable. [Among the said ships were at least four or five that carried crews of 250 or 260 men.]
And when the ships had been equipt, the Three Barons and the Lady, and the Two Brothers and Messer Marco, took leave of the Great Kaan, and went on board their ships with a great company of people, and with all necessaries provided for two years by the Emperor. They put forth to sea, and after sailing for some three months they arrived at a certain Island towards the South, which is called JAVA,[NOTE 4] and in which there are many wonderful things which we shall tell you all about by-and-bye. Quitting this Island they continued to navigate the Sea of India for eighteen months more before they arrived whither they were bound, meeting on their way also with many marvels, of which we shall tell hereafter.
And when they got thither they found that Argon was dead, so the Lady was delivered to CASAN, his son.
But I should have told you that it is a fact that, when they embarked, they were in number some 600 persons, without counting the mariners; but nearly all died by the way, so that only eight survived.[NOTE 5]
The sovereignty when they arrived was held by KIACATU, so they commended the Lady to him, and executed all their commission. And when the Two Brothers and Messer Marco had executed their charge in full, and done all that the Great Kaan had enjoined on them in regard to the Lady, they took their leave and set out upon their journey.[NOTE 6] And before their departure, Kiacatu gave them four golden tablets of authority, two of which bore gerfalcons, one bore lions, whilst the fourth was plain, and having on them inscriptions which directed that the three Ambassadors should receive honour and service all through the land as if rendered to the Prince in person, and that horses and all provisions, and everything necessary, should be supplied to them. And so they found in fact; for throughout the country they received ample and excellent supplies of everything needful; and many a time indeed, as I may tell you, they were furnished with 200 horsemen, more or less, to escort them on their way in safety. And this was all the more needful because Kiacatu was not the legitimate Lord, and therefore the people had less scruple to do mischief than if they had had a lawful prince.[NOTE 7]
Another thing too must be mentioned, which does credit to those three Ambassadors, and shows for what great personages they were held. The Great Kaan regarded them with such trust and affection, that he had confided to their charge the Queen Cocachin, as well as the daughter of the King of Manzi,[NOTE 8] to conduct to Argon the Lord of all the Levant. And those two great ladies who were thus entrusted to them they watched over and guarded as if they had been daughters of their own, until they had transferred them to the hands of their Lord; whilst the ladies, young and fair as they were, looked on each of those three as a father, and obeyed them accordingly. Indeed, both Casan, who is now the reigning prince, and the Queen Cocachin his wife, have such a regard for the Envoys that there is nothing they would not do for them. And when the three Ambassadors took leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she wept for sorrow at the parting.
What more shall I say? Having left Kiacatu they travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295 of Christ's Incarnation.
And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as you have heard, we shall begin the Book of the Description of the Divers Things that Messer Marco met with in his Travels.
NOTE 1.—On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a note will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii.) Plano Carpini says of the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine morâ equos subductitios et expensas" (669).
NOTE 2.—The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached him. But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England; all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian Sultan. Such messages came from Ábáka in 1277; from Arghún in 1289 and 1291; from Gházán in 1302; from Oljaitu in 1307. (See Rémusat in Mém. de l'Acad. VII.)
[Illustration: Ancient Chinese War Vessel.]
NOTE 3.—Ramusio has "nine sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jordanus, who saw them in Malabar, says: "With a fair wind they carry ten sails;" Ibn Batuta: "One of these great junks carries from three sails to twelve;" Joseph, the Indian, speaking of those that traded to India in the 15th century: "They were very great, and had sometimes twelve sails, with innumerable rowers." (Lecomte, I. 389; Fr. Jordanus, Hak. Soc., p. 55; Ibn Batuta, IV. 91; Novus Orbis, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels is given at the beginning of Bk. III.
NOTE 4.—I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. "It is quite possible for a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep together to take three months at the present time to accomplish a similar voyage. A Chinese trader, who has come annually to Singapore in junks for many years, tells us that he has had as long a passage as sixty days, although the average is eighteen or twenty days." (Logan in J. Ind. Archip. II. 609.)
NOTE 5.—Ramusio's version here varies widely, and looks more probable: "From the day that they embarked until their arrival there died of mariners and others on board 600 persons; and of the three ambassadors only one survived, whose name was Goza (Coja); but of the ladies and damsels died but one."
It is worth noting that in the case of an embassy sent to Cathay a few years later by Gházán Khan, on the return by this same route to Persia, the chief of the two Persian ambassadors, and the Great Khan's envoy, who was in company, both died by the way. Their voyage, too, seems to have been nearly as long as Polo's; for they were seven years absent from Persia, and of these only four in China. (See Wassáf in Elliot, III. 47.)
NOTE 6.—Ramusio's version states that on learning Arghún's death (which they probably did on landing at Hormuz), they sent word of their arrival to Kiacatu, who directed them to conduct the lady to Casan, who was then in the region of the Arbre Sec (the Province of Khorasan) guarding the frontier passes with 60,000 men, and that they did so, and then turned back to Kiacatu (probably at Tabriz), and stayed at his Court nine months. Even the Geog. Text seems to imply that they had become personally known to Casan, and I have no doubt that Ramusio's statement is an authentic expansion of the original narrative by Marco himself, or on his authority.
Arghún Khan died 10th March, 1291. He was succeeded (23rd July) by his brother Kaikhátú (Quiacatu of Polo), who was put to death 24th March, 1295.
We learn from Hammer's History of the Ilkhans that when Gházán, the son of Arghún (Casan of Polo), who had the government of the Khorasan frontier, was on his return to his post from Tabriz, where his uncle Kaikhatu had refused to see him, "he met at Abher the ambassador whom he had sent to the Great Khan to obtain in marriage a relative of the Great Lady Bulghán. This envoy brought with him the Lady KÚKÁCHIN (our author's Cocachin), with presents from the Emperor, and the marriage was celebrated with due festivity." Abher lies a little west of Kazvín.
Hammer is not, I find, here copying from Wassáf, and I have not been able to procure a thorough search of the work of Rashiduddin, which probably was his authority. As well as the date can be made out from the History of the Ilkhans, Gházán must have met his bride towards the end of 1293, or quite the beginning of 1294. Rashiduddin in another place mentions the fair lady from Cathay; "The ordu (or establishment) of Tukiti Khatun was given to KUKACHI KHATUN, who had been brought from the Kaan's Court, and who was a kinswoman of the late chief Queen Bulghán. Kúkáchi, the wife of the Padshah of Islam, Gházán Khan, died in the month of Shaban, 695," i.e. in June, 1296, so that the poor girl did not long survive her promotion. (See Hammer's Ilch. II. 20, and 8, and I. 273; and Quatremère's Rashiduddin, p. 97.) Kukachin was the name also of the wife of Chingkim, Kublai's favourite son; but she was of the Kungurát tribe. (Deguignes, IV. 179.)
NOTE 7.—Here Ramusio's text says: "During this journey Messers Nicolo, Maffeo, and Marco heard the news that the Great Khan had departed this life; and this caused them to give up all hope of returning to those parts."
NOTE 8.—This Princess of Manzi, or Southern China, is mentioned only in the Geog. Text and in the Crusca, which is based thereon. I find no notice of her among the wives of Gházán or otherwise.
On the fall of the capital of the Sung Dynasty—the Kinsay of Polo—in 1276, the Princesses of that Imperial family were sent to Peking, and were graciously treated by Kublai's favourite Queen, the Lady Jamui. This young lady was, no doubt, one of those captive princesses who had been brought up at the Court of Khánbálik. (See De Mailla, IX. 376, and infra Bk. II. ch. lxv., note 6.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
by admin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:49 pm
BOOK FIRST. ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU.
[Illustration: Aias, the LAIAS of POLO, from an Admiralty Chart]
[Illustration: Position of Diláwar, the supposed Site of POLO'S DILAVAR]
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I. HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA.
There are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less. The Lesser Hermenia is governed by a certain King, who maintains a just rule in his dominions, but is himself subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] The country contains numerous towns and villages,[NOTE 2] and has everything in plenty; moreover, it is a great country for sport in the chase of all manner of beasts and birds. It is, however, by no means a healthy region, but grievously the reverse.[NOTE 3] In days of old the nobles there were valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms; but nowadays they are poor creatures, and good at nought, unless it be at boozing; they are great at that. Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called LAYAS, at which there is a great trade. For you must know that all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, and the other valuable wares that come from the interior, are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack. And whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of the East), merchants or others, they take their way by this city of Layas.[NOTE 4]
Having now told you about the Lesser Hermenia, we shall next tell you about Turcomania.
NOTE 1.—The Petite Hermenie of the Middle Ages was quite distinct from the Armenia Minor of the ancient geographers, which name the latter applied to the western portion of Armenia, west of the Euphrates, and immediately north of Cappadocia.
But when the old Armenian monarchy was broken up (1079-80), Rupen, a kinsman of the Bagratid Kings, with many of his countrymen, took refuge in the Taurus. His first descendants ruled as barons; a title adopted apparently from the Crusaders, but still preserved in Armenia. Leon, the great-great-grandson of Rupen, was consecrated King under the supremacy of the Pope and the Western Empire in 1198. The kingdom was at its zenith under Hetum or Hayton I., husband of Leon's daughter Isabel (1224-1269); he was, however, prudent enough to make an early submission to the Mongols, and remained ever staunch to them, which brought his territory constantly under the flail of Egypt. It included at one time all Cilicia, with many cities of Syria and the ancient Armenia Minor, of Isauria and Cappadocia. The male line of Rupen becoming extinct in 1342, the kingdom passed to John de Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, and in 1375 it was put an end to by the Sultan of Egypt. Leon VI., the ex-king, into whose mouth Froissart puts some extraordinary geography, had a pension of 1000_l._ a year granted him by our Richard II., and died at Paris in 1398.
[Illustration: Coin of King Hetum and his Queen Isabel.]
The chief remaining vestige of this little monarchy is the continued existence of a Catholicos of part of the Armenian Church at Sis, which was the royal residence. Some Armenian communities still remain both in hills and plains; and the former, the more independent and industrious, still speak a corrupt Armenian.
Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanuto, compares the kingdom of the Pope's faithful Armenians to one between the teeth of four fierce beasts, the Lion Tartar, the Panther Soldan, the Turkish Wolf, the Corsair Serpent.
(Dulaurier, in J. As. sér. V. tom. xvii.; St. Martin, Arm.; Mar. San. p. 32; Froissart, Bk. II. ch. xxii. seqq.; Langlois, V. en Cilicie, 1861, p. 19.)
NOTE 2.—"Maintes villes et maint chasteaux" This is a constantly recurring phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing chasteaux (castelli) to be used in the frequent old Italian sense of a walled village or small walled town, or like the Eastern Kala' applied in Khorasan "to everything—town, village, or private residence— surrounded by a wall of earth." (Ferrier, p. 292; see also A. Conolly, I. p. 211.) Martini, in his Atlas Sinensis, uses "Urbes, oppida, castella," to indicate the three classes of Chinese administrative cities.
NOTE 3.—"Enferme durement." So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia as a place of debarkation for a crusade "quia terra est infirma" Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain: "In this region once so fair, now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (Voyage, p. 65.) Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary abundance of turtles.
NOTE 4.—The phrase twice used in this passage for the Interior is Fra terre, an Italianism (Fra terra, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin, "infra terram Orientis"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read as an allusion to the Euphrates, an error based apparently on a marginal gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Géographie. It is true that the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of Euphratesia, or in Arabic Furátiýah, but that was not in question here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, viâ Sivas, Erzingan, and Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase fra terre used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and notes in each case.)
With regard to the phrase spicery here and elsewhere, it should be noted that the Italian spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of spezerie we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.
[Illustration: Aias, the LAIAS of POLO, from an Admiralty Chart]
[Illustration: Position of Diláwar, the supposed Site of POLO'S DILAVAR]
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I. HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA.
There are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less. The Lesser Hermenia is governed by a certain King, who maintains a just rule in his dominions, but is himself subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] The country contains numerous towns and villages,[NOTE 2] and has everything in plenty; moreover, it is a great country for sport in the chase of all manner of beasts and birds. It is, however, by no means a healthy region, but grievously the reverse.[NOTE 3] In days of old the nobles there were valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms; but nowadays they are poor creatures, and good at nought, unless it be at boozing; they are great at that. Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called LAYAS, at which there is a great trade. For you must know that all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, and the other valuable wares that come from the interior, are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack. And whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of the East), merchants or others, they take their way by this city of Layas.[NOTE 4]
Having now told you about the Lesser Hermenia, we shall next tell you about Turcomania.
NOTE 1.—The Petite Hermenie of the Middle Ages was quite distinct from the Armenia Minor of the ancient geographers, which name the latter applied to the western portion of Armenia, west of the Euphrates, and immediately north of Cappadocia.
But when the old Armenian monarchy was broken up (1079-80), Rupen, a kinsman of the Bagratid Kings, with many of his countrymen, took refuge in the Taurus. His first descendants ruled as barons; a title adopted apparently from the Crusaders, but still preserved in Armenia. Leon, the great-great-grandson of Rupen, was consecrated King under the supremacy of the Pope and the Western Empire in 1198. The kingdom was at its zenith under Hetum or Hayton I., husband of Leon's daughter Isabel (1224-1269); he was, however, prudent enough to make an early submission to the Mongols, and remained ever staunch to them, which brought his territory constantly under the flail of Egypt. It included at one time all Cilicia, with many cities of Syria and the ancient Armenia Minor, of Isauria and Cappadocia. The male line of Rupen becoming extinct in 1342, the kingdom passed to John de Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, and in 1375 it was put an end to by the Sultan of Egypt. Leon VI., the ex-king, into whose mouth Froissart puts some extraordinary geography, had a pension of 1000_l._ a year granted him by our Richard II., and died at Paris in 1398.
[Illustration: Coin of King Hetum and his Queen Isabel.]
The chief remaining vestige of this little monarchy is the continued existence of a Catholicos of part of the Armenian Church at Sis, which was the royal residence. Some Armenian communities still remain both in hills and plains; and the former, the more independent and industrious, still speak a corrupt Armenian.
Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanuto, compares the kingdom of the Pope's faithful Armenians to one between the teeth of four fierce beasts, the Lion Tartar, the Panther Soldan, the Turkish Wolf, the Corsair Serpent.
(Dulaurier, in J. As. sér. V. tom. xvii.; St. Martin, Arm.; Mar. San. p. 32; Froissart, Bk. II. ch. xxii. seqq.; Langlois, V. en Cilicie, 1861, p. 19.)
NOTE 2.—"Maintes villes et maint chasteaux" This is a constantly recurring phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing chasteaux (castelli) to be used in the frequent old Italian sense of a walled village or small walled town, or like the Eastern Kala' applied in Khorasan "to everything—town, village, or private residence— surrounded by a wall of earth." (Ferrier, p. 292; see also A. Conolly, I. p. 211.) Martini, in his Atlas Sinensis, uses "Urbes, oppida, castella," to indicate the three classes of Chinese administrative cities.
NOTE 3.—"Enferme durement." So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia as a place of debarkation for a crusade "quia terra est infirma" Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain: "In this region once so fair, now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (Voyage, p. 65.) Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary abundance of turtles.
NOTE 4.—The phrase twice used in this passage for the Interior is Fra terre, an Italianism (Fra terra, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin, "infra terram Orientis"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read as an allusion to the Euphrates, an error based apparently on a marginal gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Géographie. It is true that the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of Euphratesia, or in Arabic Furátiýah, but that was not in question here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, viâ Sivas, Erzingan, and Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase fra terre used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and notes in each case.)
With regard to the phrase spicery here and elsewhere, it should be noted that the Italian spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of spezerie we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.
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