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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXII.
TAIE ARBRE SEC 12 9
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t~ i
Chinar is meant. The appellations given to it vary in the different texts. In the G. T. it is styled in this passage, " The Arbre Seule which the Christians call the Arbre Sec," whilst in ch. cci. of the same (infra, Bk. IV. ch. v.) it is called " L'Arbre Sol, which in the Book of Alexander is called L'Arbre Seche." Pauthier has here " L'Arbre Solque, que nous appelons L'Arbre Sec," and in the later passage " L'Arbre Seul, que le Livre Alexandre apelle Arbre Sec ; " whilst Ramusio has here " L' Albero del Sole the si chiama per i Cristiani L'Albor Secco," and does not contain the later passage. So also I think all the old Latin and French printed texts, which
are more or less based on Pipino's version, have " The Tree of the Sun, which the Latins call the Dry Tree."
[G. Capus says (A travers le roy. de Tamerlan, p. 296) that he found at Khodjakent, the remains of an enormous plane-tree or Chinar, which measured no less than 48 metres (52 yards) in circumference at the base, and 9 metres diameter inside the rotten trunk ; a dozen tourists from Tashkent one day feasted inside, and were all at ease.—H. C.]
Pauthier, building as usual on the reading of his own text (Solque), endeavours to show that this odd word represents Thoulk, the Arabic name of a tree to which Forskal gave the title of Ficus Vasta, and this Ficus Vasta he will have to be the same as the
Chinar. Ficus Vasta would be a strange name surely to give to a Plane-tree, but Forskal may be acquitted of such an eccentricity. The Tholak (for that seems to be the proper vocalisation) is a; tree of Arabia Felix, very different from the Chinar, for it is the well-known Indian Banyan, or a closely-allied species, as may be seen in Forskal's description. The latter indeed says that the Arab botanists called it Delb, and that (or Dulb) is really a synonym for the Chinar. But De Sacy has already commented upon this supposed application of the name Delb to the Tholak as erroneous. (See Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, pp. cxxiv. and 179 ; Abdallatif, Rel. de l'Egypte, p. 8o; J. R. G. S. VIII. 275 ; Ritter, VI. 662, 679.)
The fact is that the Solque of M. Pauthier's text is a mere copyist's error in the reduplication of the pronoun que. In his chief MS. which he cites as A (No. 10,260
of Bibl. Nationale, now Fr. 563 t) we can even see how this might easily happen, for one line ends with Solque and the next begins with que. The true reading is, I doubt not, that which this MS. points to, and which the G. Text gives us in the second passage quoted above, viz. Arbre SOL, occurring in Ramusio as Albero del SOLE. To make this easier of acceptation I must premise two remarks : first, that Sol is " the Sun " in both Venetian and Provençal ; and, secondly, that in the French of that age the prepositional sign is not necessary to the genitive. Thus, in Pauthier's own text we find in one of the passages quoted above, " Le Livre Alexandre, i.e. Liber Alexandri ; " elsewhere, " Cazan le fils Argon," " as la mère sa femme," " Le corps Mon-
seigneur Saint Thomas si est en ceste Province ; " iii Joinville, " le commandemant 1lfalzommet," " ceux de la Haulequa estoient logiez entour les héberges le soudant, et
establiz pour le cors le soudant garder ; " in Baudouin de Sebourc, "De l'amour
Bauduin esprise et es jlarrzbée."
Moreover it is the TREE OF THE SUN that is prominent in the legendary history
of Alexander, a fact sufficient in itself to rule the reading. A character in an old English play says :-
" Peregrine. Drake was a didapper to Mandevill : Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our Voyagers Went short of Mandevil. But had he reached
To this place—here—yes, here—this wilderness,
And seen the Trees of the Sun and .Moon, that speak
And told King Alexander of his death ;
He then
Had left a passage ope to Traveller=
That now is kept and guarded by Wild Beasts."
(Broonze's Antipodes, in Lamb's Specimens,)
VOL. I.
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