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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 579 of 655
Words from 302606 to 303105
of 342071
