Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 139 (Color Image)

0139	Marco Polo : vol.1

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD, AND EARTHLY PARADISE .42

with them all day playing and singing and causing great enjoyment, and they did

with them as they pleased, so that these youths had all that they [18d] wished, and

never will they go out from thence of their own will. And the Old Man lord, FB

of whom I have told you, holds his court very beautiful and great and lives very nobly,

and makes those simple people of the mountains who are about him believe that TA

it is so as I have said and that he is a great prophet, and so they all truly believe. FB FB

And this Old Man sent of these his youths preaching in many places, by which many people were v

turned to his law. And after four or five days when the Old Man wishes any of them his R FB

assassins to send to any place and to have any man killed, then he has the drink of opium FB LT

given again to as many as pleases him of these youths to make them sleep, and when they are R VA

asleep he has them taken into his palace which was outside the garden. And when these VA

youths are awaked and they find themselves out of their garden in that castle in the FB

palace, they make great marvel at it and are not very glad of it, that they find them- FB TA

selves outside of the Paradise, for from the Paradise from which they came they would

never of their own will be parted. The Old Man makes them come before him, and they FB

go immediately before the Old Man and behave themselves very humbly towards

him and kneel as those who believe that he is a great prophet. The Old Man asks TA

them whence they come, and those say that (by thy goodness) they come from Paradise. VB

And they said indeed. in the presence of all that in truth that is Paradise, as Mahomet FB VB

told our ancestors in their law, recounting to them all the things which they find FB

there, and how they had great desire to return there. And the others who hear this and TA

had not been there and have seen none of it • wondered extremely to hear it and had great FB VB

wish to go to Paradise, and many had a wish to die that they might be able to go VA

there, and much desired that day when they should go there. And the Old Man vs

answered them, Son, this is by the commandment of our prophet Mahomet, that whoever defends

his servant he will grant to him Paradise; • and if thou art obedient to me thou shalt have this R

favour. • Through this means he had so inspirited all his people to die that they might go to VB

Paradise that he whom the Old Man ordered to go to die for his name reckoned himself happy,

with sure hope of deserving to go to Paradise, •so that as many lords or others as were enemies R

of the said Old Man were killed with these followers and assassins, because none feared death

if only he could do the commandment and will of the said Old Man, and they exposed themselves.

like madmen • to every manifest danger, .wishing to die together with the king's enemy and. VB R VB

despising the present life. And for this reason he was feared in all those countries as a tyrant. R

And when the Old Man wishes to have a great lord killed, he makes proof among

[I9a] his assassins of those who were better in this way. He sends several of the young VA VA

men who had been in Paradise no great distance round him through the country and

131

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books