27. This little poem was scribbled by an Irish scribe in the margin of a copy of Priscian in the monastery of St Gall, in Switzerland, the same from which Charlemagne's highly imaginative biographer came. The original will be found in Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palæohibernicus (1903) II, p. 290. It has often been translated and I quote the translation by Kuno Meyer, Ancient Irish Poetry (2nd ed., 1913), p. 99. The quotation from the Triads of Ireland at the head of this chapter is taken from Kuno Meyer also, ibid. pp. 102-3.
CHAPTER III
MARCO POLO
A. Raw Material
1. The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, trans. and ed. with notes by Sir Henry Yule (3rd edit., revised by Henri Cordier, 2 vols., Hakluyt Soc., 1903). See also H. Cordier, Ser Marco Polo: Notes and Addenda (1920). The best edition of the original French text is Le Livre de Marco Polo, ed. G. Pauthier (Paris, 1865), The most convenient and cheap edition of the book for English readers is a reprint of Marsden's translation (of the Latin text) and notes (first published, 1818), with an introduction by John Masefield, The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian (Everyman's Library, 1908; reprinted, 1911); but some of the notes (identifying places, etc.) are now out of date, and the great edition by Yule and Cordier should be consulted where exact and detailed information is required. It is a mine of information, geographical and historical, about the East. I quote from the Everyman Edition as Marco Polo, op. cit., and from the Yule edition as Yule, op. cit.
2. La Cronique des Veneciens de Maistre Martin da Canal. In Archivo Storico Italiano, 1st ser., vol. VIII (Florence, 1845). Written in French and accompanied by a translation into modern Italian. One of the most charming of medieval chronicles.
B. Modern Works
1. For medieval Venice see--
F.C. Hodgson: The Early History of Venice from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople (1901); and Venice in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, A Sketch of Venetian History, 1204-1400 (1910).