It was time for the lover of open spaces, sunlight, and intrigue to move on.
NEXT TO THE fur-trapping wastes, Marco located an even grimmer region, the Valley of Darkness, so called because of the dense mists obscuring the area, which he occasionally calls “the land of shadows.” Although he seems to be describing an allegorical domain, he believed he was depicting an actual place just beyond the Mongol sphere of influence—far indeed from the centers of power to which he has become accustomed during the previous two decades. Men here, he relates, “live like animals.”
Despite the inhospitable climate, a handful of Mongols ventured into the area, taking unusual precautions to guard their safety. They “come in on mares that have foals, and they leave the foals outside, and have them watched by keepers whom they set at the entry of that region, because the mares when they have made their journey go back to their children and by the perception and scent of the foals know the way better than the men know.” The only reason Marco finds for risking travel to the area is, inevitably, the prospect of trade in sable, ermine, “and many other dear skins.”
Surprisingly, Marco has kind words for the inhabitants of the land of shadows. “These people are handsome, very large, and well made in all their parts,” he notes with relief, “but they are very pale, and have no color, and this happens because of the want of sunlight.”
Marco had endured his share of frigid Mongolian weather, but he describes the Russian winters as more brutal than anything he had experienced—“the greatest cold that is in the world, so that with great difficulty one escapes it”—and he evokes the sting of the cold so vividly that it seems as if he had suffered it himself. “If it were not for the many stoves that are there,” he advises, “the people could not escape from perishing by the too great cold. But there are very frequent stoves, which the noble and powerful piously cause to be built just as hospitals are built with us. And to these stoves all the people can always run when there is need. For cold so intense prevails at times that while men go through the land toward home or from one place to another for their business, when they go from one stove they are almost frozen before they reach another, though the stoves are so frequent that one is separated from another by sixty paces.”
Seeing no reason to doubt this arrangement, Marco reports: “It very often happens that if a man who is not well-clothed, or cannot travel so fast because he is old, or is of weaker constitution and nature than others, or because his house is too far off, falls to the ground frozen by the too great cold before from one stove he can reach another, and would die there. But others passing by take him immediately and lead him to a stove and strip him, and when he is being warmed there his nature is restored, and he comes back to life.”
Marco is on surer ground when he describes the peculiar stoves, which resembled saunas. He speaks of “thick beams placed in a square one above the other,” and says, “they are so closed up together that nothing could be seen between one and another, and between the joints they are very well caulked with lime and other things so that wind nor rain can come in anywhere. Above at the roof they have a window by which the smoke goes out when fire is lighted in them to warm them. Logs are kept there in abundance, of which the people put many on the fire and make a great pile, and while the logs burn and give out smoke, the upper window is opened and the smoke goes out of it.” These contraptions were so numerous throughout Russia that “every noble or rich man” talked of having one.
MARCO’S LOCAL sources—traders and merchants who had actually ventured into this curious land—confirmed that the Russians were inordinately fond of their liquor. They told how nobles and “magnates,” men and women, as well as “husbands, wives, and children,” gathered in companies as large as fifty solely to drink a “perfect wine, which is called cerbesia,” flavored with honey. “There are men who might be called innkeepers,” Marco goes on, “who keep this cerbesia for sale. These companies go to these taverns and continue the whole day in drinking. They call that drinking straviza. In the evening, the innkeepers make reckoning of the cerbesia they have consumed, and each pays the share belonging to himself and wife and children, if they are there.”
Special times were reserved for women only to drink their fill of cerbesia, with customs unique to their sex. “When the ladies stay all day,” Marco reports, “they do not leave them because they wish to pass water, but their maids bring great sponges and put them under them so stealthily that the other people do not notice. For one seems to be talking with the mistress and another puts the sponge under, and so the mistress passes water in the sponge as she sits, and afterward the maid takes away the sponge quite full, and so they pass water whenever they wish to do so.”
Marco’s final vision of the Russian people, based on an anecdote he had heard, is comic and grotesque. He begins: “While a man was leaving the drinking with his wife to go home in the evening, his wife set herself down to pass water, the hair of her thigh being frozen by the exceeding cold was caught up with the grass, so that the woman being unable to move herself for pain cried out.”
Marco concludes his tale with a bawdy turn: “And then her husband, who was very drunk, being sorry for his wife, stooped down there and began to blow, wishing to melt that ice with warm breath. And while he blew, the moisture of the breath was frozen and so the hairs of the beard were caught together with the hair of the woman’s thigh. Therefore in the same way he could not move because of the exceeding pain; and there he was bending down like this.” At this point, Marco, if he was telling the tale in company, may have demonstrated just what he meant for the amusement of his audience.
“Thus, if they wished to leave that spot, it was necessary for some[one] to come by who should break up that ice.” Given enough drunken laughter, it is possible that no one would have been able to hear Marco utter the last words of his crude joke.
MARCO CONVEYS the impression that he could go on forever with his histories, tales, miracles, myths, jokes, and unique experiences. “Now you have heard all the facts that were possible to tell of Tartars and Saracens and of their life and customs,” he advises, “and of as many other countries in the world as was possible to search and know”—with one significant exception.
By way of an encore, Marco wished to narrate a journey by water; he had been landlocked for too many years, and he craved a fresh wind and a billowing sail. “We have said or spoken nothing of the Greater Sea nor of the provinces that are around it, though we have well explored it all.” He briefly flirted with the temptation to embark on the sequel, but he ultimately rejected the idea, since, he explains, “it seems to me to be wearisome to speak that which may be unnecessary and useless, since they are so many who explore it and sail it every day. As is well known, such as are Venetians and Genoese and Pisans and many other people who make that journey so often that everyone knows what is there.” In fact, not everyone in the last decade of the thirteenth century, when most people never wandered more than a few miles from their place of birth, knew what was there, but perhaps those whom Marco knew and respected did.
“Therefore, I am silent and say nothing to you of that.” Another time, perhaps.
In the end, Marco acknowledges there was little he could have done to alter the trajectory of his life. “I believe our return was the pleasure of God,” he concludes, “that the things that are in the world might be known. For, according as we have told at the beginning of the book,…there was never any man, neither Christian nor Saracen nor Tartar nor pagan, who has ever explored as much of the world as did Master Marco, the son of Master Niccolò Polo, noble and great citizen of Venice.”
The result was an epic that overflows its limits, one that is inexhaustible and self-replenishing. In it, Marco traveled through time as well as space. Along the remote westernmost stretches of the Silk Road in the Pamir highlands, he visited a more primitive world, and encountered people and societies unchanged since prehistoric times. In China, he moved forward hundreds of years into a technol
ogical and cultural utopia. Yet his vision of the future, as embodied in the highly civilized city of Quinsai, was troubled by new manifestations of ancient struggles. Undone by their success in commerce, and subverted by superstition and sensuality, the Chinese of Quinsai, as depicted by Marco, were not masters of their national destiny; they were vulnerable to aggressive warriors like the Mongols, preferring to deter threats at home, such as fire, to those coming from afar, such as warriors on horseback, bent on conquest. In China, Marco saw the future, but it was hardly less chaotic than the present.
Sealed off from one another by brigands, warring kingdoms, and the rise of Islam until the coming of the Pax Mongolica, East and West had their Silk Road for conveying goods—as well as religious figures—back and forth. Perhaps the most influential aspect of that Sericulture Superhighway was not silk itself, or any other tangible item, but intelligence about distant places whose nature was seriously misunderstood, or whose existence had been unknown. Marco visited many of those places; he considered himself a trader in fabrics, gems, and spices. But ultimately he traded in knowledge of the world and its people, thereby anticipating the Renaissance, and beyond. Through his account, he led both East and West into the future.
It was not a peaceful prospect, as experienced and presented by Marco. It was as pagan as it was pious, but it was recognizably human; it was a world in which people reached across geographic, religious, and political boundaries to connect. Unlike the isolation imposed by the harsh conditions of the Middle Ages, Marco’s vision of the future required constant travel, endless trading, and ceaseless communication in many languages. It was a world in which Christians traded with Muslims, with “idolaters,” with anyone who grasped the rudiments of trade—and in which an entire regime, such as the Yüan dynasty, incorporated individuals from an astonishing variety of cultures, all in the service of an ideal. It was blended and heterodox, ultimately unified not by a government, or a system of belief, but by a force Marco believed to be even more universal, and thus more powerful: the impulse to trade.
WHEN THE POLO COMPANY reached Trebizond, a compact and corrupt little kingdom in the Byzantine Empire located on the Black Sea, disaster struck—though not in the form of a storm, or disease, or even violence. Rather, the Polos became victims of thievery, despite all their precautions and connections. In Trebizond, they finally exceeded the limits of the paiza’s influence. The local government confiscated four thousand hyperpyra (a widely circulated gold Byzantine coin) from the company. While it is difficult to affix a modern value to the hyperpyra, that amount could have purchased a thousand pounds of silk. In other words, they were robbed of a significant part of the fortune they had risked their lives to acquire during their decades abroad.
Marco omitted the painful and embarrassing Trebizond episode from his account. No mention of it would be made until years later, in his uncle Maffeo’s will, which addressed the sensitive subject of family debts. In omitting it, Marco avoided reopening old wounds. Equally important, the setback did not square with the successful image of the enterprising Polo company that he wished to project throughout his Travels.
Instead of dwelling on the loss, Marco lists the stops along the way to suggest their brisk progress home: “From Trebizond they came away to Constantinople, and from Constantinople they came away to Negrepont, and from Negrepont with many riches and a great company, thanking God who had delivered them from so great labors and infinite perils, they went into a ship and came safe at last to Venice; and this was in the year 1295 from the Incarnation of the Lord Christ.”
AFTER TWENTY-FOUR years of adventures, narrow escapes, trading in exotic lands, and high-level diplomatic missions, the Polo company’s expedition through Asia, India, and Africa had come to an end. The Polos had changed beyond recognition during their years abroad. In their dress and manner they resembled Mongols, and they had almost forgotten their native tongue.
In the late thirteenth century, Venetians wore plain garb. Women dressed in long, flowing skirts cinched at the waist with a broad embroidered belt, and they covered their heads with hoods or veils for the sake of modesty. Beige and heather fabrics predominated, occasionally enlivened with an orange or reddish hue. Men wore sleeveless tunics, buttoned in front over a long-sleeved, collarless white chemise, and loose-fitting breeches and a soft cap with a narrow brim.
The three Polos, in contrast, wore the Mongol clothing to which they had become accustomed over two decades. Mongol dress, resplendent in scarlet and yellow and sky blue silks, was far more flamboyant than the Venetian fashion. Mongol men and women alike wore the del, or caftan, a long garment like a coat, with a flap in front and full sleeves long enough to be pulled over the hands in cold weather. It was often made of silk. Mongol men and women also wore loose trousers underneath their caftans, and the women had underskirts, too.
As they walked along the canals and piazzas of Venice attired in their brightly colored caftans, the Polos turned heads and excited comment. And if they wore their hair in the Mongol style, they would have been even more conspicuous. Whereas Venetian men concealed their hair under caps, Mongol men had long braided hair looped up behind the ears, and they shaved the tops of their heads, leaving just a forelock.
Marco Polo had learned to overcome being a stranger in the Mongol Empire, only to find that he had become a stranger once more, now that he was home.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Prodigal Son
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
THE THREE POLOS arrived at the Ca’ Polo after their quarter-century absence and rapped on the door, only to be ignored by the stranger who opened it. So ran a popular account published in 1559 by a Venetian official and scholar named Giambattista Ramusio; he compared their plight to that of Odysseus, who returned home to Ithaca disguised as an old man after a lengthy absence and found that no one recognized him. Similarly, the Polos learned to their dismay that relatives had taken up residence in their home in the mistaken belief that Marco and his father and uncle were long dead or had vanished permanently to another land.
To add to the inhabitants’ skepticism, the three strangers claiming to be Polos did not resemble genuine Venetians in the least. “They had an indescribable something of the Tartar in their aspect and in their way of speech, having forgotten most of the Venetian tongue. Those garments of theirs were much the worse for wear, and were made of coarse cloth, and cut after the fashion of the Tartars,” Ramusio reported.
Chief among those who speculated about the new arrivals’ identity was Maffeo Polo, Marco’s half brother. The two had never before met; Marco probably was unaware of Maffeo’s existence until that moment. But Maffeo had heard of Marco; moreover, legal provisions, however skimpy, had been made concerning the eventual return to Venice of his father and uncle. Fifteen years earlier, on August 27, 1280, Marco’s uncle, also named Marco, had drawn up his will, appointing as his trustees his sister-in-law Fiordilige and her husband, Giordano Trevisan, “until my brothers Niccolò and Maffeo should be in Venice. And then they alone are to be my executors.” When he dictated these words, the elder Marco had no way of knowing if they would ever apply, but with the unexpected appearance of Niccolò, Maffeo, and the younger Marco, they suddenly did.
The terms of the will gave the brothers, if not Marco, much-needed legal standing in the Polo family and in the Venetian merchant community.
ANOTHER OFT-REPEATED tale involved the misadventures of Marco’s uncle Maffeo on returning home. Although his wife recognized him, she could not abide the Mongol del that he insisted on wearing. To break her husband of the habit, she took it upon herself to donate his exotic clothing to a passing vagabond. That night, when Maffeo arrived home, he naturally asked what had become of his Mongol outfit; he was particularly concerned because, according to his longstanding custom, he had sewn all of his gems into the lin
ing for safekeeping.
When his wife reluctantly admitted what she had done with his clothes, the story goes that he tore his hair and thumped his chest, as he tried to think of a way to find the anonymous beggar who had come into possession of his fortune. Fortunately, Venice is a small place. The next morning, he went to the Rialto, the center of Venetian commerce, and awaited the appearance of the man in question. It was said that Maffeo carried a spinning wheel without wool, and turned it, as if he were deranged. A crowd gathered around the spectacle, and onlookers shouted questions at him, to which he replied, “He will come, God willing.”
Word spread through Venice about the appearance of the elderly madman Maffeo Polo on the Rialto, generating curiosity. The vagabond who held Maffeo’s fortune failed to appear. The next day, Maffeo repeated his performance, and the day after that. This time, someone did appear—the vagabond, wearing Maffeo’s discarded Mongol attire. On seeing the strange man, Maffeo fell on him, took back the clothing, and felt for the concealed gems. All were there, just as they had been before the beggar came into possession of the discarded garments. Maffeo rescued his fortune and sent the hapless beggar on his way.
RAMUSIO PASSED on another Polo legend. He had learned it, so he said, from the “magnificent Messer Gasparo Malpiero, a very old gentleman, and of singular goodness and integrity, who had his house…exactly at the middle point of the…Corte del Milion”—the location of the Polo ancestral home. “He stated that he had heard it in turn from his own father and grandfather, and from some other old men, his neighbors.”
The old gentleman’s story began with the Polos of Venice evincing skepticism about the identity of their long-absent relatives. Instead of showing pride and relief at their return, they seemed embarrassed. To establish their credibility, Marco and his father and uncle decided to invite all their relatives to a lavish feast. They prepared for the event in “honorable fashion, and with much magnificence in that aforesaid house of theirs.” As the feast began, gondolas jammed the canals; the guests disembarked and awaited the travelers, hoping to receive gifts from afar, or some proof that the three had traveled the length and breadth of the Silk Road, as they claimed. Instead, the guests found themselves attending a most unusual costume party.
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