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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
VARIOUS TYPES OF THE TEXT
93
tet
portance. None of the MSS. of this class contain more than a
,~ few [t~ew of the historical chapters which we have formed into Book
IV.
The only addition of any magnitude is that chapter which
in our translation forms chapter xxi. of Book II. It will be
seen that it contains no new facts, but is only a tedious recapitu-
lisi of circumstances already stated, though scattered over
e
several.chapters. There are a few minor additions. I have not
h q,
~JI
thought it worth while to collect them systematically here, but
given in a note.* are es p
two or three examples
There are also one or two corrections of erroneous statements
in the G. T. which seem not to be accidental and to indicate
P
some attempt at revision. Thus a notable error in the account of
Aden, which seems to conceive of the Red Sea as a river,
disappears in Pauthier's MSS. A and B.1- And we find in
these MSS. one or two interesting names preserved which are
not found in the older Text.+
But on the other hand this class of MSS. contains many
erroneous readings of names, either adopting the worse of two
forms occurring in the G. T. or originating blunders of its
own.
1
* In the Prologue (vol. i. p. 34) this class of MSS. alone names the King of England.
In the account of the Battle with Nayan (i. p. 337) this class alone speaks of the two-stringed instruments which the Tartars played whilst awaiting the signal for battle. But the circumstance appears elsewhere in the G. T. (p. 250).
In the chapter on Malabar (vol. ii. p. 39o), it is said that the ships which go with cargoes towards Alexandria are not one-tenth of those that go to the further East. This is not in the older French.
In the chapter on Coilun (ii. p. 375), we have a notice of the Columbine ginger so celebrated in the Middle Ages, which is also absent from the older text.
t See vol. ii. p. 439. It is, however, remarkable that a like mistake is made about the Persian Gulf (see i. 63, 64). Perhaps Polo thought in Persian, in which the word darya means either sea or a large river. The same habit and the ambiguity of the Persian sher led him probably to his confusion of lions and tigers (see i. 397).
+ Such are Pasciai-Dir and Ariora Kesciemur (i. p. 98.)
§ Thus the MSS. of this type have elected the erroneous readings Bolgara, Co;atra, Chiato, Cabanant, etc., instead of the correcter Bolgana, Cocacin, Quiacatu, Cobinan, where the G. T. presents both (supra, p. 86). They read Esanar for the correct Etzina ; Chascun for Casvin ; Achalet for Acbalec ; Sardansu for Sindafu , Kayteu, Kayton, Sarcon for Zaiton or Calton ; Soucat for Locac ; Pale' for Ferlec, and so on, the worse instead of the better. They make the lifer Occeane into lifer Occident; the wild asses (asses) of the Kerman Desert into wild geese (oes) ; the escoillez of Bengal (ii. p. 115) into escoliers; the girafes of Africa into girofles, or cloves, etc., etc.
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