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

207. DAVID MELIC

dauid melic Z dauit melie F, FA, FB, L david G
dauid melich R dauit melich VB mandemilich VA
dauid melie TA¹ dauit melie TA³ nandamelich VL
dauid mellic LT dauit mioliorotis V

David melik, « King David », the name of all Georgian kings according to Polo. The French
texts have, in the explanation of the title, the order « David King », which is a word-for-word trans-
lation; Polo used it probably; nevertheless, the Western order is adopted in Z, when it says (oddly
enough) « quod in lingua galica dicitur rex dauid », and RAMUSIO followed the order of Z, saying « che
in lingua nostra si dice Re Dauid ». On melik, see « Melic ». Polo is wrong when he attributes
the name of David to all the kings, though the Georgian kings claimed descent from King David.
Moreover, Polo, on his way to China, may have heard of David V, who died in 1272, and, on his way
back, of David VI, who had ascended the throne in 1292. He may then have jumped to the hasty
conclusion that all Georgian kings were called David (cf. also Y, I, 52-53; I do not believe in YULE's
explanation of Polo's « David melic » by the title « dadian » of the princes of Mingrelia; on « dadian »,
cf. BROSSET, Hist. de la Géorgie, I, 385-386).

Polo says that the ancient kings of Georgia were born with the figure of an eagle on the right
shoulder, and YULE (Y, I, 53), has quoted a passage of the 17th cent. missionary Cristoforo di
CASTELLI according to which the king of Georgia was said to have on his shoulder a small mark of a
cross. CASTELLI adds « Factus est principatus super humerum ejus », and this quotation from the
Bible (Isaiah, ix, 6) may well give the true origin of the tradition. But in BROSSET's monumental
Histoire de la Géorgie (poorly indexed, I admit), I find no allusion to such a popular belief.
Nor have I succeeded in eliciting any further information from those of my colleagues who are
specialists of Georgian history and litterature.


208. DEVISEMENT DOU MONDE

deuisement dou monde Fr diuisiment dou monde Ft cathay, rommans du grant
deuisement du monde FAr liber descriptionis prov. LTr kaan FBr)
deuisement et les diuersitees (instizione del mondo Vr
du monde Or liure du grant kaan de

BENEDETTO, following BALDELLI-BONI's example, adopted for his edition of F the title Il
Milione (with Le Divisament dou Monde as a sub-title prefixed to the text), under the assumption
that the epithet may well have referred to the book before it passed to the man (B, 245-246); but
his later Italian translation is entitled Le Meraviglie del Mondo (or, more fully, Il libro... detto
Milione dove si raccontano Le Meraviglie del Mondo). Perhaps this change was due to
BENEDETTO's growing conviction that Milione or Milio was not a nickname, but Marco's real name,