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.
Let Mr. de Khanikoff consider what course he would adopt if he were
about to publish Marco Polo in Russian.
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