The Travels Of Marco Polo By Marco Polo (approx. 1254 – 1324)

The Travels of Marco
Polo
by Marco Polo (approx.

1254 – 1324)
(as told to Rusticiano da
Pisa and edited by Francis R, Gemma; originally titled A DESCRIPTION OF
THE WORLD)
Type of Work:
Autobiographical adventure
Settings
Venice, Italy and overland to Eastern
China (Cathay)
Principal Characters
Marco Polo, a young nobleman, traveling
merchant and adventurer
Niccolo Polo, Marco’s father, also a merchant
Maffeo Polo, Niccolo’s brother and business
partner
Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, descendent
of Ghenghis Khan
Historical Overview
Prologue: (The book contains the story
of Marco Polo’s life and his travels from his home in Venice, Italy across
Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to the court of Khan, located
in the area now known as Beijing, China. Marco was much liked by the Emperor,
who made him his ambassador. The explorer describes his many adventures
during his 26-year absence from home. An introduction outlines the biographical
events (each that he himself personally witnessed or “heard tell by persons
worthy of faith”), and sets us on our way with Marco en route to China.)
Two wealthy Venetian gentleman-merchants,
Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, sailed eastward from Venice about 1254, leaving
Niccolo’s infant son, Marco, in the care of his aunt. The travelers journeyed
as far as the court of the great emperor Kublai Khan, where they became
highly favored. After learning a little about the exotic Catholic religion
of his guests, the Khan dispatched envoys to return with them to Italy
to meet with the Pope. His desire was that the Pope should lend the services
of as many as a hundred scholars to come to his court and prove that the
Law of Christ was “most agreeable.” If they succeeded, he vowed that he
and all his subjects would become Christians.

The Polos sailed into Acre, Italy in April
of 1269, to the news that Pope Clement had died. Then the brothers journeyed
on to Venice to await the anointing of a new pope. But after several years
they tired of waiting and began to make their way again to Kubtai’s court,
this time accompanied by young Marco.

Again in Acre, after some backtracking,
the three finally met up with the newly-named Pope Gregory of Piacenza.

He reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the Khan’s commission, but sent
only two ambassadors to accompany them. However, these priests soon became
discouraged. Unwilling either to endure the privations the journey would
require or to sacrifice their lives in the service of pagans, both eventually
turned back.

Book-by-Book Summary
Book I
contains Marco’s descriptions of his three-and-a-half
year journey to Kublai’s court. It is a fascinating narrative, with vivid
renditions not only of geography, natural phenomena and traveling distances
and conditions, but of histories, food preparation and production, trade,
religious practices, and customs and oral traditions among the many tribes
and civilizations they encountered.

Book II
tells of life in the court of Kublai Khan.

The person of the Khan is admiringly detailed: “He is of a good stature,
neither tall nor short, but of a middle height. He has a becoming amount
of flesh, and is very shapely in all his limbs. His complexion is white
and red, the eyes black and fine, the nose well formed and well set on.”
The Khan’s palaces, his vast court, his government and armies are depicted.

An account is given of a battle led by great Khan himself. The narrative
reports that “when all were in battle array [one could hear] a sound arise
of many instruments of various music, and of the voices of the whole of
the two hosts loudly singing. For this is the custom of the Tartars..

.”
Portrayals of court affairs such as the
marking of the calendar, and the celebration of thousands of festivals
and hunting trips, are eloquently recorded. Record-keeping was very important
to the Chinese. Each household kept near the front door a list of the names
of all the home’s inhabitants, and the keepers of hostelries were required
to record the names of all travelers and the dates of their visits.

Certain chapters relate some of the wondrous
inventions Marco saw while serving the Khan. He writes of such marvels
as paper money, a system of express messengers, fine highway systems (remnants
of which are still in place), and a “black stone” (coal) used for fuel.

For all of these wonders Marco gives full credit to the “Great Khan,” whom
he never tires of praising for his wisdom, power, wealth and skill.

Now fluent in four different languages,
Marco became a valuable ambassador for the Emperor. Book 11 ends with brief
descriptions of his separate missions.

Book III
recounts in great detail the adventurous
travels of the Polos on behalf of the Khan through Japan, Indochina, Southern
India and “The Coast and Islands of the Indian Sea,” including Ethiopia.

The assemblage traveled as far north and west as Ormus (near the Strait
of Hormuz).

After seventeen years at the Khan’s court,
the wealthy Polos, surrounded by envious princes, decided that if they
ever wanted to return to Venice, they could most easily do so under the
protection and safe conduct of their benefactor before he died. They asked
his permission to return home, but were at first refused; the Great Emperor
enjoyed their company. After a time, however, he reluctantly granted them
leave.

Fourteen ships were prepared for the homeward
voyage – during which six hundred crew members were lost in storms. En
route, the news came of Kublai’s death.

Marco writes of exotic regions visited:
Armenia, where Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, and where camel
caravans gathered by fountains of oil to haul off the black liquid as an
amazing source of heat and light; Iraq’s Saba, where the three Magi first
saw the star that led them to Bethlehem; the hot, windy Ormus, filled with
mounds of baked corpses from armies smitten by the foul water and intense
sun; Karazan, with its huge serpents and crocodiles; the city of Mien,
with its two great towers, one of silver, the other of pure gold; the paradisiacal
Chinese city of Kin-sai, with twelve thousand bridges spanning its rivers
and canals, its stonepaved streets, and its hundreds of beautiful carvings;
the mountainous grave of Father Adam located in Ceylon; the magical Lac
province, where people commonly lived to the age of 150.

Marco also describes strange characters
and mystical tribes: a miserly ruler, unwilling to provide for his kingdom’s
protection, who was captured and locked in a tower where, surrounded by
piles of gold, he starved to death; a robber band which had learned the
diabolical art of calling down darkness upon caravans in order to rob them;
nursing fathers; an ancient drug dealer who used his hallucinating followers
as assassins to do his bidding; and various sorcerers and cannibals. The
account includes stories of natives who made their living by selling pickled
monkeys – passed off as pygmies – to naive sailors for souvenirs; men with
tails; and brutal pirates.

On his way home to Venice, Marco also came
across tribes who used gold, silver, pearls, diamonds and rubies as common
barter and adornment, and who wore rich silks and embroidery for work and
play. He saw asbestos, musk-scent and salt all used as money; he became
acquainted with sumptuous spices, sugar, curious drugs, and flavorful incense;
he came across fascinating animals – a raptor with talons large enough
to seize an elephant, hair-covered chickens, and unicorns (actually rhinoceri)
“which have hair like that of water buffalo and feet like those of an elephant
… an ugly beast to behold.”
When his foreign adventures were over and
Marco finally settled again in his homeland, he took up arms in a war against
Genoa, Venice’s competitor in sea-going trade. He was captured, and as
a prisoner of war, soon became an attraction, telling of his marvelous
travels to distant lands. Finally he decided to save himself the trouble
of retelling the same stories over and over, and wrote to his father, requesting
his notes be sent. Using these – along with an exceptional memory and power
of imagination – he dictated four books to a fellow prisoner and professional
storyteller, Rusticiano da Pisa. Following Marco’s release in 1298 and
up to the time of his death 26 years later, these were published as one
volume under the title A Description of the World, which remained almost
the only source of information about the Far East until the late 19th century.

Commentary
… Since … our first Father Adam …

never hath there been Christian, or Pagan, or Tartar, or Indian or any
man of any nation , who in his own person hath had so much knowledge and
experience of the divers parts of the World and its Wonders as hath had
this Messer Marco!
So begins The Travels of Marco Polo. Over
the centuries numerous translations have appeared in many languages. The
book has been popular since its publication and
has served as a guide to various explorers
and adventurers. Christopher Columbus, who wouldn’t be sailing to the New
World until almost two centuries later, was well acquainted with the text.

In Polo’s day, the immensely popular and
highly objective, descriptive tales were regarded as fiction. No one could
accept that such fantastic places and people really existed. We must assume
in reading the book that there are exaggerations, but the editor’s notes
indicate that some of the most fantastic elements are, indeed, based on
fact.

The journal’s literary style, in keeping
with the times, is romanticized. In spite of this, on his deathbed, Marco,
pressed to retract some of his stories, replied: “I have not told the half
of it.” And as travel to the East increased, more and more of Marco’s claims
were verified.

In some of the many renditions of the work,
editors have chosen to omit repetitive information; therefore, each version
varies somewhat in content. The excitement and adventure, however, do not
vary, and the name Marco Polo still conjures up dreams of adventurous Oriental
travel and fabulous discoveries.