mixed language are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse called Macaire (Altfranzosische Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften, von Adolf Mussafia, Wien, 1864), the language of which is not unlike this jargon of Rustician's, e.g.:—
"'Dama,' fait-il, 'molto me poso merviler
De ves enfant quant le fi batecer
De un signo qe le vi sor la spal'a droiturer
Qe non ait nul se no filz d'inperer.'"—(p. 41)
[6] As examples of such Orientalisms: Bonus, "ebony," and calamanz, "pencases," seem to represent the Persian abnús and kalamdàn; the dead are mourned by les mères et les Araines, the Harems; in speaking of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the Arabic Muláhidah, "Heretics," he explains this term as meaning "des Aram" (Harám, "the reprobate"). Speaking of the Viceroys of Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts yearly to the Safators of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an Oriental word. Sir H. Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for dafátir ("registers or public books"), pl. of daftar. This seems probable, and in that case the true reading may have been dafators.
[7] Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces himself thus:—"Je Luces, Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de Salebieres, comme chevaliers amoureus enprens à translater du Latin en François une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache gramment de François, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure à la manière de l'Engleterre que à celle de France, comme cel qui fu en Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je en langue françoise le translaterai." (Hist. Litt. de La France, xv. 494.)
[8] Hist. Litt. de la France, xv. 500.
[9] Ibid. 508.
[10] Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed. 1852.)
[11] Chroniques Etrangères, p. 502.
[12] "Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro." (See Cathay p. 332.)
[13] Page 138.
[14] Hammers Ilchan, II. 148.
[15] After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000 Saracen prisoners to be executed:—
"They wer brought out off the toun,
Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun.
They wer led into the place ful evene:
Ther they herden Aungeles off Hevene:
They sayde: 'SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ! 'Spares hem nought! Behedith these!' Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys, And thankyd God, and the Holy Croys." —Weber, II. 144.
Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently pronounced "Too-eese! Too-eese!"
[16] [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the T'oung Pao, Vol. II., No. 4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville. Also App. L. 13—H. C.]
[17] L'Ystoire de li Normand, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v.
[18] "Porce que lengue Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable à lire et à oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de translater l'ancien estoire des Veneciens de Latin en Franceis." (Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 268.)
[19] "Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, selonc le langage des Francois, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por. ij. raisons: l'une, car nos somes en France; et l'autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune à toutes gens." (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.)
[20] It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano's hasty and abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing of French; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as perlinage (pelerinage), peseries (espiceries), proque (see vol. ii. p. 370), oisi (G.T. p. 208), thochere (toucher), etc. (See Bianconi, 2nd Mem. pp. 30–32.)
[21] Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.
X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK.
[Sidenote: Four Principal Types of Text. First, that of the Geographic, or oldest French.]
55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo's Book we must necessarily go into some irksome detail.
Those Texts that have come down to us may be classified under Four principal Types.
I. The First Type is that of the Geographic Text of which we have already said so much. This is found nowhere complete except in the unique MS. of the Paris Library, to which it is stated to have come from the old Library of the French Kings at Blois. But the Italian Crusca, and the old Latin version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the Geographic Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though both are considerably abridged. It is also demonstrable that neither of these copies has been translated from the other, for each has passages which the other omits, but that both have been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the other as a translation, from an intermediate Italian copy.[1] A special difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into three Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division. I shall show in a tabular form the filiation of the texts which these facts seem to demonstrate (see Appendix G).
There are other Italian MSS. of this type, some of which show signs of having been derived independently from the French;[2] but I have not been able to examine any of them with the care needful to make specific deductions regarding them.
[Sidenote: Second; the remodelled French Text, followed by Pauthier.]
56. II. The next Type is that of the French MSS. on which M. Pauthier's Text is based, and for which he claims the highest authority, as having had the mature revision and sanction of the Traveller. There are, as far as I know, five MSS. which may be classed together under this type, three in the Great Paris Library, one at Bern, and one in the Bodleian.
The high claims made by Pauthier on behalf of this class of MSS. (on the first three of which his Text is formed) rest mainly upon the kind of certificate which two of them bear regarding the presentation of a copy by Marco Polo to Thibault de Cepoy, which we have already quoted (supra p. 69). This certificate is held by Pauthier to imply that the original of the copies which bear it, and of those having a general correspondence with them, had the special seal of Marco's revision and approval. To some considerable extent their character is corroborative of such a claim, but they are far from having the perfection which Pauthier attributes to them, and which leads him into many paradoxes.
It is not possible to interpret rigidly the bearing of this so-called certificate, as if no copies had previously been taken of any form of the Book; nor can we allow it to impugn the authenticity of the Geographic Text, which demonstratively represents an older original, and has been (as we have seen) the parent of all other versions, including some very old ones, Italian and Latin, which certainly
