The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.

The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.
I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of 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 abnus and kalamdan; the dead
     are mourned by les meres et les Araines, the Harems; in speaking
    of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the
    Arabic Mulahidah, “Heretics,” he explains this term as meaning “des
    Aram” (Haram, “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
    dafatir ("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 a translater du Latin en
    Francois une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache
    gramment de Francois, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure a
    la maniere de l’Engleterre que a celle de France, comme cel qui fu en
    Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je
    en langue francoise 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 Etrangeres, 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.

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The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.