[Sidenote: Eclectic Formation Of The English Text Of This Translation.]

90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding pages that I should not regard as a fair or full representation of Polo's Work, a version on which the Geographic Text did not exercise a material influence.

But to adopt that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and tautologies, as the absolute subject of translation, would have been a mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, to translate from Pauthier's Text. The process of abridgment in this text, however it came about, has been on the whole judiciously executed, getting rid of the intolerable prolixities of manner which belong to many parts of the Original Dictation, but as a general rule preserving the matter. Having translated this, - not always from the Text adopted by Pauthier himself, but with the exercise of my own judgment on the various readings which that Editor lays before us, - I then compared the translation with the Geographic Text, and transferred from the latter not only all items of real substance that had been omitted, but also all expressions of special interest and character, and occasionally a greater fulness of phraseology where condensation in Pauthier's text seemed to have been carried too far. And finally I introduced between brackets everything peculiar to Ramusio's version that seemed to me to have a just claim to be reckoned authentic, and that could be so introduced without harshness or mutilation. Many passages from the same source which were of interest in themselves, but failed to meet one or other of these conditions, have been given in the notes.[1]

[Sidenote: Mode of rendering proper names.]

91. As regards the reading of proper names and foreign words, in which there is so much variation in the different MSS. and editions, I have done my best to select what seemed to be the true reading from the G. T. and Pauthier's three MSS., only in some rare instances transgressing this limit.

Where the MSS. in the repetition of a name afforded a choice of forms, I have selected that which came nearest the real name when known. Thus the G. T. affords Baldasciain, Badascian, Badasciam, Badausiam, Balasian. I adopt BADASCIAN, or in English spelling BADASHAN, because it is closest to the real name Badakhshan. Another place appears as COBINAN, Cabanat, Cobian. I adopt the first because it is the truest expression of the real name Koh-benan. In chapters 23, 24 of Book I., we have in the G. T. Asisim, Asciscin, Asescin, and in Pauthier's MSS. Hasisins, Harsisins, etc. I adopt ASCISCIN, or in English spelling ASHISHIN, for the same reason as before. So with Creman, Crerman, Crermain, QUERMAN, Anglice KERMAN; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more.[2]

In two or three cases I have adopted a reading which I cannot show literatim in any authority, but because such a form appears to be the just resultant from the variety of readings which are presented; as in surveying one takes the mean of a number of observations when no one can claim an absolute preference.

Polo's proper names, even in the French Texts, are in the main formed on an Italian fashion of spelling.[3] I see no object in preserving such spelling in an English book, so after selecting the best reading of the name I express it in English spelling, printing Badashan, Pashai, Kerman, instead of Badascian, Pasciai, Querman, and so on.

And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the true form and force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not justly liable either to those disparaging epithets[4] or to those exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them. Thus, for example, Cocacin, Ghel or Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan, Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol, Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Coloman, Gauenispola, Mutfili, Avarian, Choiach, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant blunderings which the interpretations affixed by some commentators would imply them to be, but are, on the contrary, all but perfectly accurate utterances of the names and words intended.

The -tcheou (of French writers), -choo, -chow, or -chau[5] of English writers, which so frequently forms the terminal part in the names of Chinese cities, is almost invariably rendered by Polo as -giu. This has frequently in the MSS., and constantly in the printed editions, been converted into -gui, and thence into -guy. This is on the whole the most constant canon of Polo's geographical orthography, and holds in Caagiu (Ho-chau), Singiu (Sining-chau), Cui-giu (Kwei-chau), Sin-giu (T'sining-chau), Pi-giu (Pei-chau), Coigangiu (Hwaingan-chau), Si-giu (Si-chau), Ti-giu (Tai-chau), Tin-giu (Tung-chau), Yan-giu (Yang-chau), Sin-giu (Chin-chau), Cai-giu (Kwa-chau), Chinghi-giu (Chang-chau), Su-giu (Su-chau), Vu-giu (Wu-chau), and perhaps a few more. In one or two instances only (as Sinda-ciu, Caiciu) he has -ciu instead of -giu.

The chapter-headings I have generally taken from Pauthier's Text, but they are no essential part of the original work, and they have been slightly modified or enlarged where it seemed desirable.

* * * * *

"Behold! I see the Haven nigh at Hand, To which I meane my wearie Course to bend; Vere the maine Shete, and beare up with the Land, The which afore is fayrly to be kend, And seemeth safe from Storms that may offend. * * * * * There eke my Feeble Barke a while may stay, Till mery Wynd and Weather call her thence away." - THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 1.

[Illustration]

[1] This "eclectic formation of the English text," as I have called it for brevity in the marginal rubric, has been disapproved by Mr. de Khanikoff, a critic worthy of high respect. But I must repeat that the duties of a translator, and of the Editor of an original text, at least where the various recensions bear so peculiar a relation to each other as in this case, are essentially different; and that, on reconsidering the matter after an interval of four or five years, the plan which I have adopted, whatever be the faults of execution, still commends itself to me as the only appropriate one.

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