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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XXII. THE ARBRE SEC
131
tell where that is ! * A medieval chronicler also tells us that Ogerus the Dane (temp. Caroli Magni) conquered all the parts beyond sea from Hierusalem to the Trees of the Sun. In the old Italian romance also of Guerino detto it Meschino, still a chapbook in S. Italy, the Hero (ch. lxiii. ) visits the Trees of the Sun and Moon. But this is mere imitation of the Alexandrian story, and has nothing of interest. (Maun-
devile, pp. 297-298 ; Fasciculus Temporum in Germ. Script. Pistorii Nidani, II.)
It will be observed that the letter ascribed to Alexander describes the two oracular
trees as resembling two cypress-trees. As such the Trees of the Sun and Moon are represented on several extant ancient medals, e.g. on two struck at Perga in Pamphylia in the time of Aurelian. And Eastern story tells us of two vast cypress-trees, sacred among the Magians, which grew in Khorasan, one at Kashmar near Turshiz, and the other at Farmad near Tuz, and which were said to have risen from shoots that Zoroaster brought from Paradise. The former of these was sacrilegiously cut down by the order of the Khalif Motawakkil, in the 9th century. The trunk was despatched to Baghdad on rollers at a vast expense, whilst the branches alone formed a load for 130o camels. The night that the convoy reached within one stage of the palace, the Khalif was cut in pieces by his own guards. This tree was said to be 145o years old, and to measure 331 cubits in girth. The locality of this " Arbor Sol " we see was in Khorasan, and possibly its fame may have been transferred to a representative of another species. The plane, as well as the cypress, was one of the distinctive trees of the Magian Paradise.
In the Peutingerian Tables we find in the N.E. of Asia the rubric " Hic Alexander Responsum accepit," which looks very like an allusion to the tale of the Oracular Trees. If so, it is remarkable as a suggestion of the antiquity of the Alexandrian Legends, though the rubric may of course be an interpolation. The Trees of the Sun and Moon appear as located in India Ultima to the east of Persia, in a map which is found in MSS. (12th century) of the Floridus of Lambe} tus; and they are indicated more or less precisely in several maps of the succeeding centuries. ( Ouseley's 1 ravels, I. 387 ; Dabistan, I. 307-308 ; Santarem, H. de la Cosmog. II. 189, III. 506-513, etc.) Nothing could show better how this legend had possessed men in the Middle Ages than the fact that Vincent of Beauvais discerns an allusion to these Trees of the Sun and Moon in the blessing of Moses on Joseph (as it runs in the Vulgate), " de ponis fructuum Solis ac Lunae." (Deut. xxxiii. 14.)
Marco has mixt up this legend of the Alexandrian Romance, on the authority, as we shall see reason to believe, of some of the recompilers of that Romance, with a famous subject of Christian Legend in that age, the ARBRE SEC or Dry Tree, one form of which is related by Maundevile and by Johan Schiltberger. " A lytille fro Ebron," says the former, " is the Mount of Mambre, of the whyche the Valeye taketh his name. And there is a Tree of Oke that the Saracens clepen Dirpe, that is of Abraham's Tyme, the which men clepen THE DRYE TREE." [Schiltberger adds that the heathen call it Kurru Thereck, i.e. (Turkish) .úrú Dirakht=Dry Tree.] " And theye seye that it hathe ben there sithe the beginnynge of the World ; and was sumtyme grene and bare Leves, unto the Tyme that Oure Lord dyede on the Cros ; and thanne it dryede ; and so dyden alle the Trees that weren thanne in the World. And summe seyn be hire Prophecyes that a Lord, a Prynce of the West syde of the World, simile wynnen the Lond of Promyssioun, i.e. the Holy Lond, withe Ilelpe of Cristene Men, and he schalle do synge a Masse under that Drye Tree, and than the Tree shall wexen grene and bere both Fruyt and Leves. And thorghe that Myracle manye Sarazines and Jewes schulle ben turned to Cristene Feithe. And, therefore, they dou gret Worschipe thereto, and kepen it fulle besyly. And alle be it so that it be drye, natheless yit he berethe great vertue," etc.
The tradition seems to have altered with circumstances, for a traveller of nearly two centuries later (Friar Anselmo, 1509) describes the oak of Abraham at Hebron
" The River Bue;nar, in the furthest forests of India," appears to come up in one of the versions of Alexander's Letter to Aristotle, though,I do not find it in Mailer's edition. (See Zacher's PseudoCallisthenes, p. 16o.) 'Tis perhaps Ab-i-Amú !
VOL. I. 1 2
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