IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
BY JOHN DE' MARIGNOLLI. 263
being as big as a great lamb, or a child of three years old. It has a hard rind like that of our pine-cones, so that you have to cut it open with an axe ; inside it has a pulp of surpassing flavour, with the sweetness of honey and of the best Italian melon ; and this also contains some five hundred chesnuts of like flavour, which are capital eating when roasted.
I do not remember to have seen any other fruit trees, such as pears, apples, or figs, or vines, unless it were some that bore leaves only and no grapes. There is an. 'exception, however, at the fine church of St. Thomas the Apostle, at the place where he was Bishop. They have there a little vinery which I saw, and which supplies a small quantity of wine. It is related that when he first went thither he used to carry about with him a little wine for masses (as I did myself for the space of nearly two years) ; and when that was done he went to Paradise, into which he found his way by the help of Angels, and carried away with him some of the grapes, the stones of which he sowed. From these grew the vines which I saw at that place, and from them he made the wine of which he stood in need. Elsewhere there are vines indeed, but they bear no grapes, as I know by experience. The same is the case with melons and cucumbers, and indeed I saw no eatable potherbs there, unless it be an exception that I saw whole thickets of basil.
These then are the trees in Adam's garden. But of what tree was the fruit that he ate I cannot tell ; yet might I guess it to be of the citron,1 for it is written,
Ipse lignum tune notavit
Dampna ligni ut solveret."
"De cedro." This word is ambiguous, but it is evidently the citron and not cedar, from what follows. The quotation is from the hymn PANGE LINGUA GLORIOSI, which iS sung in the Roman Church at matins on Passion Sunday, thus :
" De parentis protoplasti Fraude fact& condolens, Quando pomi noxialis In necern morsu ruit,
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