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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
84
INTRODUCTION
also, we may add, sometimes slip in which appear to be
purely Oriental, just as is apt to happen with Anglo-Indians
in these days.* All this is perfectly consistent with the
supposition that we have in this MS. a copy at least of
the original words as written down by Rusticiano a Tuscan,
from the dictation of Marco an Orientalized Venetian, in
French, a language foreign to both.
But the character of the language as French is not its only
peculiarity. There is in the style, apart from grammar or
vocabulary, a rude angularity, a rough dramatism like that
of oral narrative ; there is a want of proportion in the style
of different parts, now over curt, now diffuse and wordy, with
at times even a hammering reiteration ; a constant recurrence of
pet colloquial phrases (in which, however, other literary works
of the age partake) ; a frequent change in the spelling of the
same proper names, even when recurring within a few lines,
as if caught by ear only ; a literal following to and fro of the
hesitations of the narrator ; a more general use of the third
person in speaking of the Traveller, but an occasional lapse
into the first. All these characteristics are strikingly indicative
of the unrevised product of dictation, and many of them would
necessarily disappear either in translation or in a revised copy.
Of changes in representing the same proper name, take as
an example that of the Kaan of Persia whom Polo calls
Quiacatu (Kaikhátú), but also Acatu, Catu, and the like.
As an example of the literal following of dictation take the
following
" Let us leave Rosia, and I will tell you about the Great Sea (the Euxine), and what provinces and nations lie round about it, all in detail ; and we will
begin with Constantinople First, however, I should tell you about a
province, etc. . . . There is nothing- more worth mentioning, so I will speak of other subjects,—but there is one thing more to tell you about Rosia that I had forgotten. . . . Now then let us speak of the Great Sea as I was about to do. To be sure many merchants and others have
P
,
* As examples of such Orientalisms : Bonus, " ebony," and calamauz, " pencases," seem to represent the Persian abzzzís and kalandàlt ; the dead are mourned by les 7/zt.'res et les Araines, the Harems ; in speaking of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called ilfutlzete, i.e. the Arabic luuldIzidalz, " Heretics," he explains this term as meaning " des Arazzi " (Hard», " the reprobate "). Speaking of the Viceroys of Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts yearly to the Safators of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an Oriental word. Sir II. Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for dafdtir (" registers or public books "), pl. of daftar. This seems probable, and in that case the true reading may have been dafatoî s.
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