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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
88
INTRODUCTION
bride from Cambaluc, is said by the historian Rashiduddin to
have known something of the Frank tongue, probably French.*
Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard
Coeur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher
spheres ! -
Nor was Polo's case an exceptional one even among writers
on the East who were not Frenchmen. Maundevile himself tells
us that he put his book first " out of Latyn into Frensche," and
then out of French into English.} The History of the East
which the Armenian Prince and Monk Hayton dictated to
Nicolas Faulcon at Poictiers in 1307 was taken down in French.
There are many other instances of the employment of French
by foreign, and especially by Italian authors of that age. The
Latin chronicle of the Benedictine Amato of Monte Cassino was
translated into French early in the i3th century by another
monk of the same abbey, at the particular desire of the Count of
Militrée (or Malta), " Pour ce qu'il set lire et entendre fransoize et
s'en delitte." § Martino da Canale, a countryman and contem-
porary of Polo's, during the absence of the latter in the East
wrote a Chronicle of Venice in the same language, as a reason
for which he alleges its general popularity.I1 The like does the
most notable example of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante's master,
who wrote in French his encyclopaedic and once highly popular
work Li Tresor.lf Other examples might be given, but in fact
* Hammer's Ilchan, II. 148.
t After the capture of Acre, Richard executed :—
orders 6o,coo Saracen prisoners to be
"They wer brought out off the toun, Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun. They wer led into the place ful evene :
Ter they herden A una eles of Hevene :
<<
They sayde : ` SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ ! ` Spares hem nought ! Behedith these ! ' Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys, And thankyd God, and the Holy Croys."
—1 eber, I I. 144.
Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently pronounced 7óo-eese ! Too-eese ! "
$ [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club,
and to my own paper in the T'oung Pao, Vol. II., No. 4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville. Also App. L. 13—H. C.]
§ L' Ystoire de li Norz,aazzd, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 18J5, p. v.
II " Force que le;zg zee Frenceise cort parmi le »ronde, et est la plus delitable á lire et à oir que pule autre, me sui je entremis de translater l'ancien estoire des l'eneciens de Latin en Francois." (Archiv. Star. Ital. viii. 268.)
¶ " Et se aucuns dcinandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, seront le lazzg a,; e des Francois, puisque nos sonies Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por. ij. raisons : l'une, car nos sozzzes en France ; et l'autre ponce que la parlezzre est plus delitable et plus commune toutes gens." (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.)
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