MARCO POLO'S SILK ROAD - The Art of the Journey - An Italian at the Court of Kublai Khan
is introduced by John Masefield and published by Watkins. It's a beautiful book from it's red silky cover to all of its contemporary photographs that don't just make it beautiful but bring the reader closer to the sights and the cultures that Marco Polo witnessed and experienced hundreds of years ago and shorten that distance. Polo's work is perhaps one of the earliest examples of TRAVEL WRITING that we have.
The purpose of this book was to unconfused the reader by providing a map and mini chapters that move us along the silk road, which was a merchants route, as Marco proceeds to the court of the great KUBLAI KHAN, a grandson of GENGHIS KHAN. Polo left Venice Italy as a young man and over many years encountered vast armies, amazing wealth, and sophisticated cities. Sometimes they did travel for weeks without coming across a settlement but clearly the cultures were greatly developed. In particular he told of the unusual (by European standards) practices that various ethnic people had regarding sexuality and women: one group considered a woman unavailable for marriage until she had slept with at least 20 strangers who gifted her but once married she was expected to remain chaste. The Khans didn't just have armies of 20,000 but 500 wives or concubines.
Just one little excerpt from page 134 Chapter 13 THE FASHION OF THE GREAT KHAN'S TABLE at his HIGH FEASTS
"And when the Great Khan sits at table on any great court occasion, it is in this fashion. His table is elevated a good deal above the others, and he sits at the north end of the hall, looking toward the south, with his chief wife beside him on the left. On his right sit his sons and his nephews, and other kinsmen of the blood imperial, but lower, so that their heads are on a level with the emperor's feet. And then the other barons sit at other tables lower still,. So also with the women; for all the wives of the lord's sons, and of his nephews and other kinsmen, sit at the lower table to his right; and below them again the ladies of the other barons and knights, each in the place assigned by the lord's orders. The tables are so disposed that the emperor can see the whole of them from end to end, many as they are....Outside the hall will be found more than 40,000 people; for there is a great concourse of folk bringing present to the lord, or come from foreign countries with curiosities."
