[Sidenote:  Hypothesis of the sources of the Ramusian Version.]

63.  Though difficulties will certainly remain,[17] the most probable explanation of the origin of this text seems to me to be some such hypothesis as the following:—­I suppose that Polo in his latter years added with his own hand supplementary notes and reminiscences, marginally or otherwise, to a copy of his book; that these, perhaps in his lifetime, more probably after his death, were digested and translated into Latin;[18] and that Ramusio, or some friend of his, in retranslating and fusing them with Pipino’s version for the Navigationi, made those minor modifications in names and other matters which we have already noticed.  The mere facts of digestion from memoranda and double translation would account for a good deal of unintentional corruption.

That more than one version was employed in the composition of Ramusio’s edition we have curious proof in at least one passage of the latter.  We have pointed out at p. 410 of this volume a curious example of misunderstanding of the old French Text, a passage in which the term Roi des Pelaines, or “King of Furs,” is applied to the Sable, and which in the Crusca has been converted into an imaginary Tartar phrase Leroide pelame, or as Pipino makes it Rondes (another indication that Pipino’s Version and the Crusca passed through a common medium).  But Ramusio exhibits both the true reading and the perversion:  “E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle pelli” (there is the true reading), “E gli animali si chiamano Rondes” (and there the perverted one).

We may further remark that Ramusio’s version betrays indications that one of its bases either was in the Venetian dialect, or had passed through that dialect; for a good many of the names appear in Venetian forms, e.g., substituting the z for the sound of ch, j, or soft g, as in Goza, Zorzania, Zagatay, Gonza (for Giogiu), Quenzanfu, Coiganzu, Tapinzu, Zipangu, Ziamba.

[Sidenote:  Summary in regard to Text of Polo.]

64.  To sum up.  It is, I think, beyond reasonable dispute that we have, in what we call the Geographic Text, as nearly as may be an exact transcript of the Traveller’s words as originally taken down in the prison of Genoa.  We have again in the MSS. of the second type an edition pruned and refined, probably under instructions from Marco Polo, but not with any critical exactness.  And lastly, I believe, that we have, imbedded in the Ramusian edition, the supplementary recollections of the Traveller, noted down at a later period of his life, but perplexed by repeated translation, compilation, and editorial mishandling.

And the most important remaining problem in regard to the text of Polo’s work is the discovery of the supplemental manuscript from which Ramusio derived those passages which are found only in his edition.  It is possible that it may still exist, but no trace of it in anything like completeness has yet been found; though when my task was all but done I discovered a small part of the Ramusian peculiarities in a MS. at Venice.[19]