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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
•
SOME ESTIMATE OF POLO AND HIS BOOK rlj
tains, there to await the latter clays ; a legend with which the
disturbed mind of Europe not unnaturally connected that
cataclysm of unheard-of Pagans that seemed about to deluge
Christendom in the first half of the 13th century. In
these stories also the beautiful Roxana, who becomes the
bride of Alexander, is Darius's daughter, bequeathed to his
arms by the dying monarch. Conspicuous among them again
is the Legend of the Oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon,
which with audible voice foretell the place and manner of
Alexander's death. With this Alexandrian legend some of
the later forms of the story had mixed up one of Christian
origin about the Dry Tree, L'Arbre Sec. And they had also
adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the
mode of escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol. ii.
74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of
the nickname Milioni that Polo's popular reputation in his
lifetime was of a questionable kind ; and a contem- Injustice
long done to
porary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on Polo. Sin-
gular modern
his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious instance.
friends to retract his extraordinary stories.* A little later one
who copied the Book "per passare tempo e malinconia " says
frankly that he puts no faith in it.t- Sir Thomas Brown is
content " to carry a wary eye " in reading " Paulus Venetus " ;
but others of our countrymen in the last century express
strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.+
Marden's edition might well have extinguished the last sparks
of scepticism.§ Hammer meant praise in calling Polo " der
Vater orientalischer Hodogetik," in spite of the uncouthness of
* See passage from Jacopo d'Acqui, supra, p. Syr.
t It is the transcriber of one of the Florence MSS. who appends this terminal note, worthy of Mrs. Nickleby :—" Here ends the Book of Messer M. P. of Venice, written with mine own hand by me Amalio Bonaguisi when Podestá of Cierreto Guidi, to get rid of time and ennui. The contents seem to me incredible things, not lies so much as miracles ; and it may be all very true what he says, but I don't believe it ; though to be sure throughout the world very different things are found in different countries. But these things, it has seemed to me in copying, are entertaining enough, but not things to believe or put any faith in ; that at least is my opinion. And I finished copying this at Cierreto aforesaid, 12th November, A.D. 1392."
Vulgar Errors, Bk. I. eh. viii. ; Astley's Voyages, IV. 583.
§ A few years before Marsden's publication, the Historical branch of the R. S. of Science at Göttingen appears to have put forth as the subject of a prize Essay the Geography of the Travels of Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo. (See L. of M. Polo, by Zurla, in Collezione di Vite e Ritratti d'Illustri Italiani. Pad. 1816.)
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