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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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384
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MARCO POLO Boox II.
diversion and mirth, so that everybody is full of laughter
and enjoyment. And when the performance is over, the
company breaks up and every one goes to his quarters.
NOTE I.—We are to conceive of rows of small tables, at each of which were set probably but two guests. This seems to be the modern Chinese practice, and to go back to some very old accounts of the Tartar nations. Such tables we find in use in the tenth century, at the court of the King of Bolghar (see Prologue, note 2, ch. ii.), and at the Chinese entertainments to Shah Rukh's embassy in the fifteenth century. Megasthenes described the guests at an Indian banquet as having a table set before each individual. (Athenaeus, IV. J9, Yonge's T îansl. )
[Compare Rubruck's account, Rockhill's ed., p. 210 : " The Chan sits in a high place to the north, so that he can be seen by all : . . ." (See also Friar Odoric, Cathay, p. 141.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—This word (G. T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed into an adjective, "vaselle vernicate d'oro," and both Marsden and Pauthier have substantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems to me in contradiction with the text. In Pauthier's text the word is verni<al, pl. vernigaux, which he explains, I know not on what authority, as " coupes sans anses vernies ou laquées d'or." There is, indeed, a Venetian sea-term, Verney', applied to a wooden bowl in which the food of a mess is put, and it seems possible that this word may have been substituted for the unknown Vernique. I suspect the latter was some Oriental term, but I can find nothing nearer than the Persian Barni, Ar. Al-Bczrníya, " vas fictile in quo quid recondunt," whence the Spanish word Albornia, "a great glazed vessel in the shape of a bowl, with handles." So far as regards the form, the change of Barniya into Vernique would be quite analogous to that change of Hundzváníy into Ondanique, which we have already met with. (See Dozy et Engelmann, Glos. des Mots Espagnols, etc., 2nd ed., 1867, p. 73 ; and Boerio, Diz. del. Dial. Venez.)
[ F. Godefroy, Dict. , s. v. Vernigal, writes : " Coupe sans anse, vernie ou laquée d'or," and quotes, besides Marco Polo, the Regle du _Temple, p. 214, éd. Soc. Hist. de France :
" Les verniç arcs et les escuelles."
About vernegal, cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 86, note. Rubruck says (Soc. de Gfog. p. 241) : " Implevimus unum veringal de biscocto et platellum unum de pomis et aliis fructibus." Mr. Rockhill translates veringal by basket.
Dr. Bretschneider (Peking-, 28) mentions " a large jar made of wood and varnished, the inside lined with silver," and he adds in a note " perhaps this statement may serve to explain Marco Polo's verniques or vaselle vernicate d'oro, big enough to hold drink for eight or ten persons."—H. C.]
A few lines above we have " of the capacity of a firkin." The word is bigoncio, which is explained in the Vocab. Univ. Ital. as a kind of tub used in the vintage, and containing 3 mine, each of half a stain. This seems to point to the Tuscan mina, or half stajo, which is = - of a bushel. Hence the bigoncio would = a bushel, or, in old liquid measure, about a firkin.
NOTE 3.--A buffet, with flagons of liquor and goblets, was an essential feature in the public halls or tents of the Mongols and other Asiatic races of kindred manners. The ambassadors of the Emperor Justin relate that in the middle of the pavilion of Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks, there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons and great jars, all of gold ; corresponding to the coupes (or lianas as mantes), the verniques, and the grant peitere and petietes peiteres of Polo's account. Rubruquis describes in Batu Khan's tent a buffet near the entrance, where hu,niz was set forth,
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