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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
41. AVIGI 57
in an early Latin edition and « Anemur » in a Spanish version; cf. KUHN, in Abh. d. Ph.-Ph. Kl. d. k. Bayer. Ak. d. W., xx [1894], 55, 66), or to « Auennie » (KuHN, ibid., 54). « Auennir » is correctly given on the engraving of the German edition of Barlaam's legend, printed c. 1477, and reproduced in Y, II, 327.
The form of the name of the king Abennêr seems to have been adopted by the author of the Greek text under the influence of the name « Abner » of the Bible (II Sam. 3 sq.). The Georgian version gives « Abenes », sometimes « Iabenes » (MARK, in ZVOIRAO, III, 259). The
old Arabic version, in the Bombay edition, writes Jnisr. KUHN (loc. cit. 16) reads
«Janaisar» and moreover suggests a correction to .i .. *Jabanas to fit the Georgian form « Iabenes ». Yet one cannot but be struck by the fact that the Arabic form, as we have it, ends in -r like the Greek form, and that would lend colour to the theory, which PEETERS does not absolutely reject (loc. cit. 308), that both the Georgian text and the Greek version from which the novel was developed have been translated direct from the Arabic. In the present case, none of the readings brings us any nearer the true Indian name of the man whose part king Abennêr plays, and who is the well-known uddhodana, 8âkyamuni's father. I do not find the name of the king in the old Persian version (partly published by OLDENBURG in ZVOIRAO, iv, 229-265). For further research, I only wish to call attention to the fact that Suddhodana's name must have taken in Central-Asiatic languages, under Prakrit influences, a
sonant initial, since we find it transcribed in Chinese as la] ()A Yüeh-t'ou-t'an (*19.t-d'au-
d'ân), *Yudhodan. As we know from alternations like ya,3yu, iaßyu, Jabyu, both the Georgian i- and the Arabic j- are possible at the beginning of a transcription otherwise too corrupt to be corrected for the present.
For the general problem of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, see « Iosafat ».
41. AVIGI auigi L; R
Only in L and R. B, 17, gives « Arigi » as the reading in R; this other reading « Arigi » is also mentioned in B', 451; but I find only « Auigi » in the text and in the Index of all the editions of RAMUSIO; BENEDETTO seems to have taken his arigi not directly from RAMUSIO, but from BALDELLI-BONI, 29, where it is a slip or a misprint.
According to Polo, this is the name of the famous goshawks of Georgia. YULE has surmised that it is derived from Arabic `afsi, « Falco montanus » ( Y, I, 57), and this has passed into RR, 412. But there are hardly any Arabic words in Polo (except for instance «avariun» and « çerme », and these for special reasons), and neither the phonetic nor the semantic correspondence is adequate. I have no satisfactory explanation to offer. In Codex Cumanicus, 129, the name of the goshawk (astor) is gareiyai, in Turkish as well as in Persian, a word well known even now under the forms gar55iyai, etc. The sparrow-hawk is called in Turkish
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