IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
I 20•
A STRANGE CUSTOM AND GOLD IN ÇARDANDAN MARCO POLO R R FB and the other men' whom they have bought & also taken in war and conquered from VA other lands, whom they keep for slaves. And these do all their duties which the lords P command with their wives. And in this province the custom is that when the ladies have FA been confined and have given birth to a child, they wash him and wrap him up in VB clothes, and the lord of the lady gets into the bed and keeps the infant that is born VB with him and lies in the bed forty days' without getting up from the bed except for VB important necessary duties. And all the friends and relations come to see him and stay with him and make him great joy and entertainment. And they do this because they say that his wife has borne great fatigue in carrying the infant in her womb VA FB nine months & in giving birth to him, •so the husband must also have his share of suffering; TA and therefore they say that they wish her to rest and do not wish her to bear more LT of it in that term of forty days, except that she is obliged to give suck to the child. And VA his wife, as soon as she has given birth to her child, she gets up from the bed as R soon as she can and does all the duty of the house and waits on her lord, taking him vs z food and drink, the time he is in the bed, as if he himself had borne the child. They eat of R FB all flesh both cooked and raw, as is said above. • And they eat rice cooked with flesh' VA & with milk and with other things according to their usage. They drink [54d] wine z which they make of rice and with admixture of many good spices, which is very good VB R and delicious to drink. Their money is gold which they spend by weight, and cowries are VB also spent therefor their small money. Moreover I tell you for truth that they give R one ounce of gold for five ounces of silver and a saggio of gold for five of silver. And this R happens because they have much gold, but no silver mine nearer than five months of days journeys. And therefore' the merchants come there with much silver and
1 & as autres hommes Read perhaps & les autres hommes (B.) Z: et alii homines Or perhaps translate "and with the other men" TA: chogli ischiavi L: vna cum eorum seruis FB: et leur. esclaues V: et i omeni liqualli i piano non i retien per suo serui ma fano li suo bexogni chon le suo moier
2 Z: circa xx dies uel plures Others, "forty"
3 FB: Ris auec char cuite
4 argentier propes. a v. mois de iornee & por ce FA,FB,TA,V(?),L support this strange reading, but LT: ad quinque giornatas VA: apresso a molte tornade P,Z,VB,R omit the sentence. It seems to be possible that the text has become confused, and that the original ended a sentence with propes., and then said that the merchants came as far as a five months journey to buy this gold. In the text of V (et questo adeuien per the i nonna arzenti et vieno zinque mexi de tornade
i marchadanti vanoli chon molto arzento) arzenti et vieno looks like a corruption of arzentiera
vicina. V would then be an exact version of F, with the important exception that it has nothing in place of & por ce after Zornade.
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