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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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It
EMPLOYMENT OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
89
such illustration is superfluous when we consider that Rusticiano
himself was a compiler of French Romances.
But why the language of the Book as we see it in the
Geographic Text should be so much more rude, inaccurate, and
Italianized than that of Rusticiano's other writings, is a question
to which I can suggest no reply quite satisfactory to myself. Is
it possible that we have in it a literal representation of Polo's
own language in dictating the story, —a rough draft which it
was intended afterwards to reduce to better form, and which was
so reduced (after a fashion) in French copies of another type,
regarding which we shall have to speak presently ? * And, if this
be the true answer, why should Polo have used a French jargon
in which to tell his story ? Is it possible that his own mother
Venetian, such as he had carried to the East with him and
brought back again, was so little intelligible to Rusticiano that
French of some kind was the handiest medium of communication
between the two ? I have known an Englishman and a
Hollander driven to converse in Malay ; Chinese Christians of
different provinces are said sometimes to take to English as the
readiest means of intercommunication ; and the same is said
even of Irish-speaking Irishmen from remote parts of the
Island.
It is worthy of remark how many notable narratives of the
Middle Ages have been dictated instead of being written by
their authors, and that in cases where it is impossible to ascribe
this to ignorance of writing. The Armenian Hayton, though
evidently a well-read man, possibly could not write in Roman
characters. But Joinville is an illustrious example. And the
narratives of four of the most famous Medieval Travellers t
seem to have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and
committed to paper by other hands. I have elsewhere remarked
this as indicating how little diffused was literary ambition or
vanity ; but it would perhaps be more correct to ascribe it to that
intense dislike which is still seen on the shores of the MVlediter-
* It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano's hasty and abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing of French ; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as perli;zage (pelerinage), peseries (espiceries), proque (see vol. ii. p. 370), nisi (G. T. p. 208), toocher e (toucher), etc. (See Bianconi, 2nd Mem. pp. 30-32.)
t Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.
VOL, I, l
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