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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. SONDUR• CONDUR• LOCHAC
HERE HE TELLS OF THE ISLAND OF SONDUR AND OF THOSE OF CONDUR.1 And when one departs from this great island of Java' and he sails between FB midday and the south-west-wind boo miles, then one finds these two FB islands, one large and one smaller, which are called the one Sondur and the other FB Condur,3 which islands are uninhabited, and so let it be passed over about them. And then z FB
from these two islands one sets out because there is nothing which does to mention, and goes FB FB again still sailing about 500 miles by the sirocco, and then one finds a province FB which is on the firm land, which is called Lochac, which is very great and rich. And z FB in that province there is a great king, and the people of it they are idolaters and have z a language for themselves. And they pay tribute to none but to their own king, because z P it is very strong and they are in such a strange and out of the way place that none in P FB FB the world in any way can go upon their land to do than. any harm. For if he could go FB z there in any way whatever the great Kaan would very gladly and very soon put them under FB FB his rule. For he has very often put himself to trouble and all the others with him to know how FB he could overcome them; but he could never do anything. And you may know that in this
province the cultivated brazil' grows in very great quantities, which are like lemons VA and are very good • to eat; • and also much musk and ebony .5 They have gold in very great R VB FB
164.
1 F here repeats the rubric of 163, so that the rubrics of 164 and 165 are given to 165 and 166 and the proper rubric of 166 is omitted. The rubrics are now restored to the right places.
2 Read Ciamba. See PN.
3 V: vna sono chiamata aira laltra sardan aira sono tonda The last four words look like a corruption of sondur 6- lautre condur; but B. has printed aira sono tonda, "Aira is round", as a possible addition to the text.
4 le beçi domesce This troubled the old translators, and their interpretations vary from
"mastick" and "domestic gold" (a substance much to be desired) to "Turks who are domestic" or "tame bears as big as lions which are very good". (B. p.170) If beçi or berçi is rightly translated brazil, even R (where the remark comes twice—verzin and Berci) seems to have been misled to say that the dye-wood is " very good to eat". FA: bresil dont nous vsons
Confusion seems to be carried even further by LA and G (Der mitteldeutsche Marco Polo pp. 53, 54). LA' : ibi nascuntur quedam animalia que domesticantur et sunt similes hominibus (G : und do sint tyr glich menschin, di man ist.) ... nascuntur etiam ibi portulace (G : das krut borgil) tante grossitudinis in stipite, quod in ligni duritiem conversi stipites earum Hunt ex eis pulcerime scutelle utiles ad pulmentunl nlinistrandum (LA 2,3: ad comedendum B. : immiscendum G : do man uz essin mak). Ex his etiam portulacis siccatur (LA 2,3 : secatur) et scinditur ad formam denarii moneta pluribus provinciis usualis. This confusion of the brazil with cowries (porcelaine) may be partly due to the double meaning of porcellana, "purslain" and "cowry". In the former sense it is given as a definition of portulaca by BOERIO, s.v. Portulaca. PF' suggests a further confusion by reading habonde ... en terre porcellane que len despent ... See also PN.
5 muschio et hano
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