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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
356
MARCO POLO 1300x II.
invested with both the Mongol symbols of delegated sovereignty, the Golden Lion's Head, and the golden Cat's Head." It would certainly have been more satisfactory to find " Gerfalcon's Head " in lieu of the latter ; but it is probable that the same object is meant. The cut below exhibits the conventional effigy of a gerfalcon as sculptured over one of the gates of Iconium, Polo's Conia. The head might easily pass for a conventional representation of a cat's head, and is indeed strikingly like the grotesque representation that bears that name in medk val architecture. (Erdmann, Numi Asiatici, I. 339 ; lick. I. 37o.)
CHAPTER VIII.
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CONCERNING THE PERSON OF THE GREAT KAAN.
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TH-IE personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of
Lords, whose name is Cublay, is such as I shall now tell
you. He is of a good stature, neither tall nor short, but
of a middle height. He has a becoming amount of
flesh, and is very shapely in all his limbs. His com-
plexion is white and red, the eyes black and fine,' the
nose well formed and well set on. He has four wives,
whom he retains permanently as his legitimate consorts ;
and the eldest of his sons by those four wives ought by
rights to be emperor ; I mean when his father dies.
Those four ladies are called empresses, but each is dis-
tinguished also by her proper name. And each of them
has a special court of her own, very grand and ample ;
no one of them having fewer than 300 fair and charming
damsels. They have also many pages and eunuchs,
and a number of other attendants of both sexes ; so that
each of these ladies has not less than io,000 persons
attached to her court.2
when the Emperor desires the society of one of
these four consorts, he will sometimes send for the lady
to his apartment and sometimes visit her at her own.
He has also a great number of concubines, and I will
tell you how he obtains them.
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