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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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MARCO POLO BOOK III.
368
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451
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We know i 0 well that there is a very different aspect of the matter. All extensive intercourse between two races far asunder in habits and ideas, seems to be demoralising in some degrees to both parties, especially to the weaker. But can we say that deterioration has been all on one side ? In these days of lying labels and plastered shirtings does the character of English trade and English goods stand as high in Asia as it did half a century ago ! (Pèl. Boudd. II. 83 ; Jordanus, p. 22 ; Ayeen Alb. III. 8 ; P. Vincenzo, p. 114 ; Pallas, Beytrdge, III. 85 ; Rambles and Recns. IL 143.)
NOTE 2.—The kingdom of Maabar called Soli is CHOLA or SOLAI)ESAM, of which Kanchi (Conjeveram) was the ancient capital.* In the Ceylon Annals the continental invaders are frequently termed So//i. The high terms of praise applied to it as " the best and noblest province of India," seem to point to the well-watered fertility of Tanjore ; but what is said of the pearls would extend the territory included to the shores of the Gulf of Manár.
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* From Sola was formed apparently Sola-mandala or Chola-mandala, which the Portuguese made into Choromandel and the Dutch into Coromandel.
f I may add that possibly the real reading may have been thoiach.
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NOTE 3.—Abraham Roger gives from the Calendar of the Coromandel Brahmans the character, lucky or unlucky, of every hour of every day of the week ; and there is also a chapter on the subject in Sonnerat (I. 304 segq. ). For a happy explanation of the term Clzoiach I am indebted to Dr. Caldwell : " This apparently difficult word
can be identified much more easily than most others. Hindu astrologers teach that there is an unlucky hour every day in the month, i.e. during the period of the moon's abode in every nákshatra, or lunar mansion, throughout the lunation. This inauspicious period is called Tydjya, ' rejected.' Its mean length is one hour and thirty-six minutes, European time. The precise moment when this period commences differs in each nakshatra, or (which comes to the same thing) in every day in the lunar month. It sometimes occurs in the daytime and sometimes at night ;—see Colonel Warren's Kala Sankatila, Madras, 1825, p. 388. The Tamil pronunciation of the word is tiydcham, and when the nominative case-termination of the word is rejected, as all the Tamil case-terminations were by the Mahomedans, who were probably Marco Polo's informants, it becomes tiyczch, to which form of the word Marco's Choiac-/z is as near as could be expected." (MS. Note.) t
The phrases used in the passage from Ramusio to express the time of day are taken from the canonical hours of prayer. The following passage from Robert de Borron's Romance of Merlin illustrates these terms : Gauvain " quand il se levoit le matin, avoit la force al minor chevalier del monde ; et quant vint á heure de prime si li doubloit, et á heure de tierce aussi ; et quant il vint á eure de midi si revenoit à sa première force ou il avoit esté le matin ; et quant vint á eure de nonne et à toutes les seures de la nuit estoit-il toudis en sa première force." (Quoted in introd. to 1llessir Gauvain, etc., edited by C. Hippeau, Paris, 1862, pp. xii.-xiii.) The term Half-
Tierce is frequent in medieval Italian, e.g. in Dante :-
" Lèvati su, disse'l Maestro, in piede :
La via è lunga, e'l camnzino è malvagio
E giá il Sole a mezza terza riede." (Inf. xxxiv.)
Half-prune we have in Chaucer :-
" Say forth thy tale and tary not the time
Lo Depëford, and it is half way prime."
—(Reeve's Prologue.)
Definitions of these terms as given by Sir H. Nicolas and Mr. Thomas Wright (Chron. of Hist. p. 195, and Marco Polo, p. 392) do not agree with those of Italian authorities ; perhaps in the north they were applied with variation. Dante dwells on
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