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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
f
f
Geographer, whose works I hold in so much esteem,
the disrespectful definition which the adage quoted
in my former Preface * gives of the vir qui docet quod
non sapit ; but I feel bound to say that on this occasion
M. Vivien de St. Martin has permitted himself to
pronounce on a matter with which he had not made
himself acquainted ; for the perusal of the very first
lines of the Preface (I will say nothing of the Book)
would have shown him that such a notion was utterly
unfounded.
In concluding these " forewords " 1 am probably
taking leave of Marco Polo,- the companion of many
pleasant and some laborious hours, whilst I have been
contemplating with him (" vôlli a levante ") that Orient
in which I also had spent years not a few.
And as the writer lingered over this conclusion, his
thoughts wandered back in reverie to those many
venerable libraries in which he had formerly made search
for mediaval copies of the Traveller's story ; and it
seemed to him as if he sate in a recess of one of these
with a manuscript before him which had never till then
been examined with any care, and which he found with
delight to contain passages that appear in no version of
the Book hitherto known. It was written in clear Gothic
text, and in the Old French tongue of the early 14th
century. Was it possible that he had lighted on the long-.
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8
a
* See page xxix.
t Writing in Italy, perhaps I ought to write, according to too prevalent modern Italian custom, Polo Marco. I have already seen, and in the work of a writer of reputation, the Alexandrian geographer styled Tolomeo Claudio ! and if this preposterous fashion should continue to spread, we shall in time have Tasso Torquato, Jonson Ben, Africa explored by Park Munro, Asia conquered by Lane Tamer, Copperfield David by Dickens Charles, Homer Englished by Pope Alexander, and the Roman history done into French from the original of Live Tite !
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