They Have The Mouth And Nose
Muffled With Fine Napkins Of Silk And Gold, So That No Breath Nor Odour
From Their Persons Should Taint The Dish Or The Goblet Presented To The
Lord.
And when the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instruments,
of which he has vast store of every kind, begin to play.
And when he takes
the cup all the Barons and the rest of the company drop on their knees and
make the deepest obeisance before him, and then the Emperor doth drink.
But each time that he does so the whole ceremony is repeated.[NOTE 5]
I will say nought about the dishes, as you may easily conceive that there
is a great plenty of every possible kind. But you should know that in
every case where a Baron or Knight dines at those tables, their wives also
dine there with the other ladies. And when all have dined and the tables
have been removed, then come in a great number of players and jugglers,
adepts at all sorts of wonderful feats,[NOTE 6] and perform before the
Emperor and the rest of the company, creating great diversion and mirth,
so that everybody is full of laughter and enjoyment. And when the
performance is over, the company breaks up and every one goes to his
quarters.
NOTE 1. - We are to conceive of rows of small tables, at each of which were
set probably but two guests. This seems to be the modern Chinese practice,
and to go back to some very old accounts of the Tartar nations. Such
tables we find in use in the tenth century, at the court of the King of
Bolghar (see Prologue, note 2, ch. ii.), and at the Chinese
entertainments to Shah Rukh's embassy in the fifteenth century.
Megasthenes described the guests at an Indian banquet as having a table
set before each individual. (Athenaeus, IV. 39, Yonge's Transl.)
[Compare Rubruck's account, Rockhill's ed., p. 210: "The Chan sits in a
high place to the north, so that he can be seen by all...." (See also
Friar Odoric, Cathay, p. 141.) - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - This word (G. T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed
into an adjective, "vaselle vernicate d'oro," and both Marsden and
Pauthier have substantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems
to me in contradiction with the text. In Pauthier's text the word is
vernigal, pl. vernigaux, which he explains, I know not on what
authority, as "coupes sans anses vernies ou laquees d'or." There is,
indeed, a Venetian sea-term, Vernegal, applied to a wooden bowl in which
the food of a mess is put, and it seems possible that this word may have
been substituted for the unknown Vernique. I suspect the latter was some
Oriental term, but I can find nothing nearer than the Persian Barni, Ar.
Al-Barniya, "vas fictile in quo quid recondunt," whence the Spanish word
Albornia, "a great glazed vessel in the shape of a bowl, with handles."
So far as regards the form, the change of Barniya into Vernique would
be quite analogous to that change of Hundwaniy into Ondanique, which
we have already met with. (See Dozy et Engelmann, Glos. des Mots
Espagnols, etc., 2nd ed., 1867, p. 73; and Boerio, Diz. del. Dial.
Venez.)
[F. Godefroy, Dict., s.v. Vernigal, writes: "Coupe sans anse, vernie ou
laquee d'or," and quotes, besides Marco Polo, the Regle du Temple,
p. 214, ed. Soc. Hist. de France:
"Les vernigaus et les escuelles."
About vernegal, cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 86, note. Rubruck says
(Soc. de Geog. p. 241): "Implevimus unum veringal de biscocto et
platellum unum de pomis et aliis fructibus." Mr. Rockhill translates
veringal by basket.
Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 28) mentions "a large jar made of wood
and varnished, the inside lined with silver," and he adds in a note
"perhaps this statement may serve to explain Marco Polo's verniques or
vaselle vernicate d'oro, big enough to hold drink for eight or ten
persons." - H. C.]
A few lines above we have "of the capacity of a firkin." The word is
bigoncio, which is explained in the Vocab. Univ. Ital. as a kind of
tub used in the vintage, and containing 3 mine, each of half a stajo.
This seems to point to the Tuscan mina, or half stajo, which is = 1/3
of a bushel. Hence the bigoncio would = a bushel, or, in old liquid
measure, about a firkin.
NOTE 3. - A buffet, with flagons of liquor and goblets, was an essential
feature in the public halls or tents of the Mongols and other Asiatic
races of kindred manners. The ambassadors of the Emperor Justin relate
that in the middle of the pavilion of Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks,
there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons and great jars, all of
gold; corresponding to the coupes (or hanas a mances), the
verniques, and the grant peitere and petietes peiteres of Polo's
account. Rubruquis describes in Batu Khan's tent a buffet near the
entrance, where Kumiz was set forth, with great goblets of gold and
silver, etc., and the like at the tent of the Great Kaan. At a festival at
the court of Oljaitu, we are told, "Before the throne stood golden buffets
... set out with full flagons and goblets." Even in the private huts of
the Mongols there was a buffet of a humbler kind exhibiting a skin of
Kumiz, with other kinds of drink, and cups standing ready; and in a
later age at the banquets of Shah Abbas we find the great buffet in a
slightly different form, and the golden flagon still set to every two
persons, though it no longer contained the liquor, which was handed round.
(Cathay, clxiv., cci.; Rubr. 224, 268, 305; Ilch. II. 183; Della
Valle, I. 654 and 750-751.)
[Referring to the "large and very beautiful piece of workmanship," Mr.
Rockhill, Rubruck, 208-209, writes: "Similar works of art and mechanical
contrivances were often seen in Eastern courts.
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