IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
~6
J
MARCO POLO PRoL.
~
great personages they were held. The Great Kaali re-
garded them with such trust and affection, that he had
confided to their charge the Queen Cocachin, as well as
the daughter of the King of Manzi,8 to conduct to Argon
the Lord of all the Levant. And those two great ladies
who were thus entrusted to them they watched over and
guarded as if they had been daughters of their own, until
they had transferred them to the hands of their Lord ;
whilst the ladies, young and fair as they were, looked on
each of those three as a father, and obeyed them accord-
ingly. Indeed, both Casan, who is now the reigning
prince, and the Queen Cocachin his wife, have such a
regard for the Envoys that there is nothing they would
not do for them. And when the three Ambassadors took
leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she
wept for sorrow at the parting.
What more shall I say ? Having left Kiacatu they
travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and
thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negro-
pont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in
the year 1295 of Christ's Incarnation.
And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as
you have heard, we shall begin the Book of the Descrip-
tion of the Divers Things that Messer Marco met with
in his Travels.
~
NOTE I.—On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a note will be found further on. (Bk. II. eh. vii.) Plano Carpini says of the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers : " Nuncios, quoscunque et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine morn equos subductitios et expensas" (669).
NOTE 2.—The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in
Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached him. lik
But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England ; all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian Sultan. Such messages came from Ábáka in 1277 ; from Arghtln in 1289 and i291 ; from Gházán in 1302 ; from Oljaitu in I307.
(See lic'musai in 11.kin. de l'Acad. VII.) (10
`gym
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.