I have heard you tell it three times now. I have listened to you telling that hilariously ribald story of the Hindu with his ahemcaught in the holy rock hole. “Messer Marco, I am Luigi Rustichello, late of Pisa, and I have been a captive here since long before you arrived. I remember how diffidently you approached me, and with what reticence you spoke: I cast back in my memory to our first meeting, in the cellars of that Genoa palazzo where we prisoners of war were lodged. Now you say that you wish to write another work, an epic poem this time, again incorporating the adventures of Marco Polo-if I will grant that liberty-but attributing them to an invented protagonist.
The admiration is for its having made me famous, however little I may deserve that fame, and the smile is for its having made me notorious. I can still smile at it and admire it simultaneously. It had been many years since I last looked into our book, but when your letter came I fetched it out once more. ĪH, LUIGI, LUIGI! In the worn and wrinkled fustian of those old pages I hear your very voice again. For herein you will find all the greatest wonders and most marvelous curiosities …. Had related as his true adventures, so hisĬome hither, great princes! Come hither, emperors and kings, dukes and marquises, knights and burgesses! Come hither, you people of all degrees, who wish to see the many faces of mankind and to know the diversities of the whole world! Take up this book and read it, or have it read to you.
0 kommentar(er)
