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0270 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1
マルコ=ポーロ卿の記録 : vol.1
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / 270 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000269
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128

INTRODUCTION

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ing of the napkin of St. Veronica, which I have quoted at

p. 216 of this volume. But including this, here are at least

seven different themes borrowed from Marco Polo's book, on

which to be sure his poetical contemporary plays the most

extraordinary variations.

[78 bis.—In the third volume of The Complete Works of

Geoffrey Chaucer, Oxford, 1894, the Rev. Walter W. Skeat gives

Chaucer   (pp. 372 segq.) an Account of the Sources of the

and Marco Canterbury Tales. Regarding The Squzeres Tales, he

Polo.   says that one of his sources was the Travels of Marco ;

Mr. Keighley in his Tales and Popular Fictions, published in

1834, at p. 76, distinctly derives Chaucer's Tale from the

travels of Marco Polo. (Skeat, 1. c., p. 463, note.) I cannot quote

all the arguments given by the Rev. W. W. Skeat to support his

theory, pp. 463-477.

Regarding the opinion of Professor Skeat of Chaucer's in-

debtedness to Marco Polo, cf. Marco Polo and the Squire's Tale,

by Professor John Matthews Manly, vol. xi. of the Publications

of the Modern Language Association of A merica, 1896, pp. 349-

362. Mr. Manly says (p. 36o) : " It seems clear, upon reviewing

the whole problem, that if Chaucer used Marco Polo's narrative,

he either carelessly or intentionally confused all the features of

the setting that could possibly be confused, and retained not a

single really characteristic trait of any person, place or event.

It is only by twisting everything that any part of Chaucer's

story can be brought into relation with any part of Polo's. To

do this might be allowable, if any rational explanation could

be given for Chaucer's supposed treatment of his ` author,' or

if there were any scarcity of sources from which Chaucer might

have obtained as much information about Tartary as he seems

really to have possessed ; but such an explanation would be

difficult to devise, and there is no such scarcity. Any one of

half a dozen accessible accounts could be distorted into almost

if not quite as great resemblance to the Squire's Tale as Marco

Polo's can."

Mr. A. W. Pollard, in his edition of The Squire's Tale

(Lond., 1899) writes : " A very able paper, by Prof. J. M. Manly,

demonstrates the needlessness of Prof. Skeat's theory, which

has introduced fresh complications into an already complicated

story. My own belief is that, though we may illustrate the