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0105 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 105 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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64. BATU   89

adopts in the text. «Bastra» is also the form which has been accepted in RR, 25, and in B1, 438 (though with some doubt in favour of « Bascra »). But there is no reason to adopt «Bastra» instead of «Bascra» when YULE, RICCI and Ross, and BENEDETTO retain « Nescradin » (q. v.);

in both cases, the apparent -sc- would answer to the same letter   s.   As a matter of fact,
I think we should read « Nesoradin » (confirmed by the Chinese transcriptions) and «Basora ». «Bassora» occurs in LT, and all the forms in mediaeval maps show an a- ( o-) before -ra, so that the form of the name used by Polo must not have ended in -scra or -stra (cf. HALLBERG, 71; according to Y', iv, 309, the form on the Catalan Map is not «Bassara», but « Bassora »). The Portuguese form of the name is «Baçora », and Italians even now use «Bassora ». For various citations of the place and the name, cf. YULE, Hobson-Jobson2, s. v. «Balsora, Bussora»; Fe, 693; DAMES, Barbosa, I, 88. The isolated form «Balsara» in RAMUSIO may not have been derived from a misreading of his mss., as a similar form «Baisera» was used before him by N. Conti and Fra Mauro. RAMUSIO perhaps « edited » the name according to a then current form among Italian travellers and geographers; but I doubt that this «Bassara », «Baisera », «Balsora », is due to a metathesis of Al-Basra, as is supposed by DAMES.

Basra is referred to in 1225 by Chao Ju-kua as qÿq 41h   Pi-ssû-lo (cf. HR, 117, 122, 137-
138); the transcription is more regular than it is in the modern pronunciation.

64. BATU

bacchia TA3 bachim G bachui LT, VA, V bacui F, L

bacuy FA, FB

barchic (?) TA' bath S

bathyn R

batin P, VL

bote VB

Chapter 220

patu F, TA', Z, L

This is a correction. In one passage, the readings of the mss. would seem to point to «Batui» (the «Bacui» of F is a usual clerical error; R's « Bathyn » comes from a *Bathin misread from *Bathui; there is no Z reading here). In the second case, the « Patu » of F and Z is almost certainly altered from *Batu (see «Apusca» for an analogous case, and cf. in F «Jacopit» for «Jacobit» [B, 18, 23]), but no ms. gives this last form. On the anomaly of the double form «Batui» and « *Batu », see «Uiau ». Plan Carpine, whose nomenclature shows Slavonic influences, writes «Bati» (Fry, 39 and passim), which corresponds to Russian «Baty », the Russian y (— Turk. ï) having in the past a certain analogy with u and transcribing it in many cases. Rubrouck has always «Baatu» (Wy, 168, etc.), which shows a pronunciation Bâtu, with long a. Hethum gives «Batho » (var. « Bato », «Baccho », etc.; cf. Hist. des Crois., Arm., ii, 115, 157).

Among Persian writers, the name is always   Batu. The YS writes Yt 415 Pa-tu and ,'
Pa-tu, Batu, sometimes with the addition of ? han, which gives Batu-ban, « Khan Batu » (cf. WANG Hui-tsu2, 41, 9). The name is fairly common, and there are in YS several Pa-tu