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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XLVII. CIIINGHIS KAAN
239
his daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and
said to the Envoys, " What impudence is this, to ask
my daughter to wife ! Wist he not well that he was
my liegeman and serf? Get ye back to him and tell
him that I had liever set my daughter in the fire than
give her in marriage to him, and that he deserves
death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is ! " So he
bade the Envoys begone at once, and never come into
his presence again. The Envoys, on receiving this
reply, departed straightway, and made haste to their
master, and related all that Prester John had ordered
them to say, keeping nothing back.2
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NOTE I.—Temujin was born in the year 1155, according to all the Persian historians, who are probably to be relied on ; the Chinese put the event in I 162. 1187 does not appear to be a date of special importance in his history. His inauguration as sovereign under the name of Chinghiz Kaan was in 1202 according to the Persian authorities, in 1206 according to the Chinese.
In a preceding note (p. 236) we have quoted a passage in which Rubruquis calls Chinghiz " a certain blacksmith." This mistaken notion seems to have originated in the resemblance of his name T enzz Jin to the Turki. Temúrjí, a blacksmith ; but it was common throughout Asia in the Middle Ages, and the story is to be found not only in Rubruquis, but in the books of Hayton, the Armenian prince, and of Ibn Batuta, the Moor. That cranky Orientalist, Dr. Isaac Jacob Schmidt, positively reviles 'William Rubruquis, one of the most truthful and delightful of travellers, and certainly not inferior to his critic in mother-NN it, for adopting this story, and rebukes Timkowski—not for adopting it, but for merely telling us the very interesting fact that the story was still, in 1820, current in Mongolia. (Schmidt's San. Setz. 376, and Timkowski, I. 147.)
NOTE 2.—Several historians, among others Abulfaraj, represent Chinghiz as having married a daughter of Aung Khan ; and this is current among some of the media val European writers, such as Vincent of Beauvais. It is also adopted by Pétis de la Croix in his history of Chinghiz, apparently from a comparatively late Turkish historian ; and both D'Herbelot and St. Martin state the same ; but there seems to be no foundation for it in the best authorities : either Persian or Chinese. (See Abulfaragius, p. 285 ; Speculum Historiale, Bk. XXIX. ch. lxix. ; Hist. of Geng liiti Can, p. 29 ; and Golden Horde, pp. 61-62.) But there is a real story at the basis of Polo's, which seems to be this : About 1202, when Aung Khan and Chinghiz were still acting in professed alliance, a double union was proposed between Aung Khan's daughter Jaur Bigi and Chinghiz's son Juji, and between Chinghiz's daughter Kijin Bigi and Togrul's grandson Kush Buka. From certain circumstances this union fell through, and this was one of the circumstances which opened the breach between the two chiefs. There were, however, several marriages between the families. (Erdmann, 283 ; others are quoted under ch. lix., note 2.)
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