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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
56
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
e
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" I may observe that I have seen it lately pointed out that Iíbiuga is a Mongol word signifying a barrier; and I see that Timkowski (I. 288) gives the same explanation of Kalgan, the name applied by Mongols and Russians to the gate in the Great Wall, called Chang-kia-Kau by the Chinese, leading to Kiakhta."
The story alluded to by Polo is found in the medieval romances of Alexander, and in the Pseudo-Callisthenes on which they are founded. The hero chases a number of impure cannibal nations within a mountain barrier, and prays that they may be shut up therein. The mountains draw together within a few cubits, and Alexander then builds up the gorge and closes it with gates of brass or iron. There were in all twenty-two nations with their kings, and the names of the nations were Gbth, Magóth, Anugi, Egés, Exenach, etc. Godfrey of Viterbo speaks of them in his rhyming verses :—
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" Finibus Indorum species fuit una virorum ;
Goth erat atque Magoth dictum cognomen eorum
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Narrat Esias, Isidorus et Apocalypses, Tangit et in titulis Magna Sibylla suis.
Patribus ipsorum tumulus fuit venter eorum," etc.
Among the questions that the Jews are said to have put, in order to test Mahommed's prophetic character, was one series : " Who are Gog and Magog ? Where do they dwell ? What sort of rampart did Zu'lkarnain build between them and men ? " And in the Koran we find (ch. xviii. The Cavern) : " They will question thee, O Mahommed, regarding Zu'l1; arnain. Reply : I will tell you his history "—and then follows the story of the erection of the Rampart of Yájúj and Májúj. In ch. xxi. again there is an allusion to their expected issue at the latter day. This last expectation was one of very old date. Thus the Cosmography of Aethicus, a work long believed (though erroneously) to have been abridged by St. Jerome, and therefore to be as old at least as the 4th century, says that the Turks of the race of Gog and Magog, a polluted nation, eating human flesh and feeding on all abominations, never washing, and never using wine, salt, nor wheat, shall come forth in the Day of Antichrist from where they lie shut up behind the Caspian Gates, and make horrid devastation. No wonder that the irruption of the Tartars into Europe, heard of at first with almost as much astonishment as such an event would produce now, was connected with this prophetic legend ! * The Emperor Frederic II., writing to Henry III. of England, says of the Tartars : " 'Tis said they are descended from the Ten Tribes who abandoned the Law of Moses, and worshipped the Golden Calf. They are the people whom Alexander Magnus shut up in the Caspian Mountains."
[See the chapter Gog et Magog dans le roman en alexandrins, in Paul Meyer's Alexandre le Grand dams la Littérature frazzfaise, Paris, i 886, II. pp. 386-389.—H. C.]:
" Gos et Margos i vienent de la tiere des Turs
Et. cccc. ni. hommes amenerent u plus, Il en jurent la mer dont sire est Neptunus Et le porte d'infier que garde Cerberus Que l'orguel d'Alixandre torperont a reils Por Çou les enclot puis es estres desus. Musc' al tans Antecrist n'en istera mais nus."
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According to some chroniclers, the Emperor Heraclius had already let loose the Shut-up Nations to aid him against the Persians, but it brought him no good, for he was beaten in spite of their aid, and died of grief.
* See Letter of Frederic to the Roman Senate, of loth June, 1241, in Brawl/es. Mahommedan writers, contemporary with the Mongol invasions, regarded these as a manifest sign of the approaching end of the world. (See Elliot's Historians, II. p. 265.)
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