Marco Polo's Book by John Critchley

Author:John Critchley [Critchley, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351919968
Google: 4kErDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T01:29:37+00:00

He may now rely upon his free will to guide him correctly and completely. In paradise he will be his own king and bishop.

The ambivalence of these concepts is also brought out in another passage, not from F but from a Venetian recension, VB. In this context it does not matter that it may not be by Polo.1 Praise of Tatar women is accompanied by a denunciation of those in Europe:

For in my judgement they are those women who most in the world deserve to be commended by all for their very great virtue; and they are all the more worthy of very well-earned praise for virtue and chastity because the men are allowed to be able to take as many wives as they please, to the very great confusion of the Christian women (I mean in these our parts) ... For when one man has only one wife, in which marriages there ought to be a most singular faith and chastity, or else confusion of so great a sacrament of marriage, I am ashamed when I look at the unfaithfulness of the Christian women, and call those happy who being a hundred wives to one husband keep their virtue to their own most worthy praise, to the very great shame of all the other women in the world. The ladies are the most chaste women in the world and are very good and very loyal to their lords, nor would a woman be found false to her husband.2

Yet Tatar women are athletic. Because they ride horses alongside the men the usual tests for virginity cannot be used.3 Khaidu's daughter wrestles with men.4 The activity and independence of the women of the steppes is well-attested in other sources, both European and Asian. Rubruck says Tatar women do not sit side-saddle, Carpini that girls and women ride like men and even use bows and arrows. They are fond of bad (ie. male) language.5 Tatar women also do all the work, not just the household chores but the buying and selling as well.6 They have political power,7 a phenomenon especially remarked upon by Muslim writers.8 The oral traditions of steppe society told of warrior heroines and their Amazon followers.9 Brunetto Latini and Pierre de Beauvais put the Amazons in the Caucasus or thereabouts.10 And, curiously, the 'warrior heroine from the east' was becoming a literary figure in Europe at this

time.1 Chastity and physical activity were attributes of Diana, and as such were opposed to the leisured sensuality of Venus. Hence the cry of the lustful sinners in Dante's purgatory:

... Al bosco

si tene Diana, ed Elice caccione

che de Venere avea sentito il tosco.2

(Helice was a nymph of Diana's who had been Jupiter's lover and had given birth to his son, and because of this was dismissed by her mistress.) But Diana, here 'al bosco', stood also for bestial instinct, Venus for civilization. Diana had a retinue of witches who rode about with her at night.3 Both chastity and activity were double-edged characteristics which

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