The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 64

Test. Pseud._, etc., I. 1133; _Dante, Purgat._ x.x.xii. 35.)

But why does Polo bring this _Arbre Sec_ into connection with the Sun Tree of the Alexandrian Legend? I cannot answer this to my own entire satisfaction, but I can show that such a connection had been imagined in his time.

Paulin Paris, in a notice of MS. No. 6985. (_Fonds Ancien_) of the National Library, containing a version of the _Chansons de Geste d'Alixandre_, based upon the work of L. Le Court and Alex. de Bernay, but with additions of later date, notices amongst these latter the visit of Alexander to the Valley Perilous, where he sees a variety of wonders, among others the _Arbre des Pucelles_. Another tree at a great distance from the last is called the ARBRE SEC, and reveals to Alexander the secret of the fate which attends him in Babylon. (_Les MSS. Francais de la Bibl.

du Roi_, III. 105.)[4] Again the English version of _King Alisaundre_, published in Weber's Collection, shows clearly enough that in _its_ French original the term _Arbre Sec_ was applied to the Oracular Trees, though the word has been miswritten, and misunderstood by Weber. The King, as in the Greek and French pa.s.sages already quoted, meeting two old churls, asks if they know of any marvel in those parts:--

"'Ye, par ma fay,' quoth heo, 'A great merveille we wol telle the; That is hennes in even way The mountas of ten daies journey, Thou shalt find trowes[5] two: Seyntes and holy they buth bo; Higher than in othir countray all.

ARBESET men heom callith.'

'Sire Kyng,' quod on, 'by myn eyghe Either Trough is an hundrod feet hygh, They stondith up into the skye; That on to the _Sonne_, sikirlye; That othir, we tellith the nowe, Is sakret in the _Mone_ vertue.'"

(_Weber_, I. 277.)

Weber's glossary gives "_Arbeset_ = Strawberry Tree, _arbous, arbousier, arbutus_"; but that is nonsense.

Further, in the French Prose Romance of Alexander, which is contained in the fine volume in the British Museum known as the Shrewsbury Book (Reg.

XV. e. 6), though we do not find the Arbre Sec so named, we find it described and pictorially represented. The Romance (fol. xiiii. v.) describes Alexander and his chief companions as ascending a certain mountain by 2500 steps which were attached to a golden chain. At the top they find the golden Temple of the Sun and an old man asleep within.

It goes on:--

"Quant le viellart les vit si leur demanda s'ils vouloient veoir les Arbres sacrez de la Lune et du Soleil que nous annuncent les choses qui sont a avenir. Quant Alexandre ouy ce si fut rempli de mult grant ioye. Si lui respondirent, 'Ouye sur, nous les voulons veoir.' Et cil lui dist, 'Se tu es nez de prince malle et de femelle il te convient entrer en celui lieu.' Et Alexandre lui respondi, 'Nous somes nez de compagne malle et de femelle.' Dont se leve le viellart du lit ou il gesoit, et leur dist, 'Hostez vos vestemens et vos chauces.' Et Tholomeus et Antigonus et Perdiacas le suivrent. Lors comencerent a aler parmy la forest qui estoit enclose en merveilleux labour. Illec trouverent les arbres semblables a loriers et oliviers. Et estoient de cent pies de haults, et decouroit d'eulz incens ypobaume[6] a grant quant.i.te. Apres entrerent plus avant en la forest, et trouverent _une arbre durement hault qui n'avoit ne fueille ne fruit_. Si seoit sur cet arbre une grant oysel qui avoit en son chief une creste qui estoit semblable au paon, et les plumes du col resplendissants come fin or. Et avoit la couleur de rose. Dont lui dist le viellart, 'Cet oysel dont vous vous merveillez est appeles Fenis, lequel n'a nul pareil en tout le monde.' Dont pa.s.serent outre, et allerent aux Arbres du Soleil et de la Lune. Et quant ils y furent venus, si leur dist le viellart, 'Regardez en haut, et pensez en votre coeur ce que vous vouldrez demander, et ne le dites de la bouche.' Alisandre luy demanda en quel language donnent les Arbres response aux gens. Et il lui respondit, 'L'Arbre du Soleil commence a parler Indien.' Dont baisa Alexandre les arbres, et comenca en son ceur a penser s'il conquesteroit tout le monde et retourneroit en Macedonie atout son ost. Dont lui respondit l'Arbre du Soleil, 'Alexandre tu seras Roy de tout le monde, mais Macedonie tu ne verras jamais,'" etc.

The appearance of the Arbre Sec in Maps of the 15th century, such as those of Andrea Bianco (1436) and Fra Mauro (1459), may be ascribed to the influence of Polo's own work; but a more genuine evidence of the prevalence of the legend is found in the celebrated Hereford Map constructed in the 13th century by Richard de Haldingham. This, in the vicinity of India and the Terrestrial Paradise, exhibits a Tree with the rubric "_Albor Balsami est Arbor Sicca_."

The legends of the Dry Tree were probably spun out of the words of the Vulgate in Ezekiel xvii. 24: "_Humiliavi lignum sublime et exaltavi lignum humile; et siccavi lignum viride_ et frondescere feci lignum aridum."

Whether the _Rue de l'Arbre Sec_ in Paris derives its name from the legend I know not. [The name of the street is taken from an old sign-board; some say it is derived from the gibbet placed in the vicinity, but this is more than doubtful.--H. C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Commentles arbres du soleil et De la lune prophe tiserent la mort alixandre.]

The actual tree to which Polo refers in the text was probably one of those so frequent in Persia, to which age, position, or accident has attached a character of sanct.i.ty, and which are styled _Dirakht-i-Fazl_, Trees of Excellence or Grace, and often receive t.i.tles appropriate to Holy Persons.

Vows are made before them, and pieces torn from the clothes of the votaries are hung upon the branches or nailed to the trunks. To a tree of such a character, imposing in decay, Lucan compares Pompey:

"Stat magni nominis umbra.

Qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro, _Exuvias veteres populi sacrataque gestans Dona duc.u.m_ * * * * *

--Quamvis primo nutet casura sub Euro, Tot circ.u.m silvae firmo se robore tollant, Sola tamen colitur."

(_Pharsalia_, I. 135.)

The Tree of Mamre was evidently precisely one of this cla.s.s; and those who have crossed the Suez Desert before railway days will remember such a _Dirakht-i-Fazl_, an aged mimosa, a veritable _Arbre Seul_ (could we accept that reading), that stood just half-way across the Desert, streaming with the _exuviae veteres_ of Mecca Pilgrims. The majority of such holy trees in Persia appear to be Plane-trees. Admiration for the beauty of this tree seems to have occasionally risen into superst.i.tious veneration from a very old date. Herodotus relates that the Carians, after their defeat by the Persians on the Marsyas, rallied in the sacred grove of Plane-trees at Labranda. And the same historian tells how, some years later, Xerxes on his march to Greece decorated a beautiful Chinar with golden ornaments. Mr. Hamilton, in the same region, came on the remains of a giant of the species, which he thought might possibly be the very same.

Pliny rises to enthusiasm in speaking of some n.o.ble Plane-trees in Lycia and elsewhere. Chardin describes one grand and sacred specimen, called King Hosain's Chinar, and said to be more than 1000 years old, in a suburb of Ispahan, and another hung with amulets, rags, and tapers in a garden at Shiraz.[7] One sacred tree mentioned by the Persian geographer Hamd Allah as distinguishing the grave of a holy man at Bostam in Khorasan (the species is not named, at least by Ouseley, from whom I borrow this) comes into striking relation with the pa.s.sage in our text. The story went that it had been the staff of Mahomed; as such it had been transmitted through many generations, until it was finally deposited in the grave of Abu Abdallah Dasitani, where it struck root and put forth branches. And it is explicitly called _Dirakht-i-Khushk_, i.e. literally L'ARBRE SEC.

This last legend belongs to a large cla.s.s. The staff of Adam, which was created in the twilight of the approaching Sabbath, was bestowed on him in Paradise and handed down successively to Enoch and the line of Patriarchs.

After the death of Joseph it was set in Jethro's garden, and there grew untouched, till Moses came and got his rod from it. In another form of the legend it is Seth who gets a branch of the Tree of Life, and from this Moses afterwards obtains his rod of power. These Rabbinical stories seem in later times to have been developed into the Christian legends of the wood destined to form the Cross, such as they are told in the Golden Legend or by G.o.dfrey of Viterbo, and elaborated in Calderon's _Sibila del Oriente_. Indeed, as a valued friend who has consulted the latter for me suggests, probably all the Arbre Sec Legends of Christendom bore mystic reference to the Cross. In Calderon's play the Holy Rood, seen in vision, is described as a Tree:--

----"cuyas hojas, Secas mustias y marchitas, Desnudo el tronco dejaban Que, entre mil copas floridas De los arboles, el solo Sin pompa y sin bizaria Era cadaver del prado."

There are several Dry-Tree stories among the wonders of Buddhism; one is that of a sacred tree visited by the Chinese pilgrims to India, which had grown from the twig which Sakya, in Hindu fashion, had used as a tooth-brush; and I think there is a like story in our own country of the Glas...o...b..ry Thorn having grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.

["St Francis' Church is a large pile, neere which, yet a little without the Citty, growes a tree which they report in their legend grew from the Saint's Staff, which on going to sleepe he fixed in the ground, and at his waking found it had grown a large tree. They affirm that the wood of its decoction cures sundry diseases." (_Evelyn's Diary_, October, 1644.)--H. C.]

In the usual form of the mediaeval legend, Adam, drawing near his end, sends Seth to the gate of Paradise, to seek the promised Oil of Mercy.

The Angel allows Seth to put his head in at the gate. Doing so (as an old English version gives it)--

--"he saw a fair Well, Of whom all the waters on earth cometh, as the Book us doth tell; Over the Well stood a Tree, with bowes broad and lere Ac it _ne bare leaf ne rind, but as it for-olded were_; A nadder it had beclipt about, all naked withouten skin, That was the Tree and the Nadder that first made Adam do sin!"

The Adder or Serpent is coiled about the denuded stem; the upper branches reach to heaven, and bear at the top a new-born wailing infant, swathed in linen, whilst (here we quote a French version)--

"Les larmes qui de lui issoient Contreval l'Arbre en avaloient; Adonc regarda l'enfant Seth Tout contreval de L'ARBRE SECQ; Les rachines qui le tenoient Jusques en Enfer s'en aloient, Les larmes qui de lui issirent Jusques dedans Enfer cherent."

The Angel gives Seth three kernels from the fruit of the Tree. Seth returns home and finds his father dead. He buries him in _the valley of Hebron_, and places the three grains under his tongue. A triple shoot springs up of Cedar, Cypress, and Pine, symbolising the three Persons of the Trinity. The three eventually unite into one stem, and this tree survives in various forms, and through various adventures in connection with the Scripture History, till it is found at the bottom of the Pool of Bethesda, to which it had imparted healing Virtue, and is taken thence to form the Cross on which Our Lord suffered.

The English version quoted above is from a MS. of the 14th century in the Bodleian, published by Dr. Morris in his collection of _Legends of the Holy Rood_. I have modernised the spelling of the lines quoted, without altering the words. The French citation is from a MS. in the Vienna Library, from which extracts are given by Sign. Adolfo Mussafia in his curious and learned tract (_Sulla Legenda del Legno della Croce_, Vienna, 1870), which gives a full account of the fundamental legend and its numerous variations. The examination of these two works, particularly Sign. Mussafia's, gives an astonishing impression of the copiousness with which such Christian Mythology, as it may fairly be called, was diffused and multiplied. There are in the paper referred to notices of between fifty and sixty different _works_ (not MSS. or _copies_ of works merely) containing this legend in various European languages.

(_Santarem_, III. 380, II. 348; _Ouseley_, I. 359 seqq. and 391; _Herodotus_, VII. 31; _Pliny_, XII. 5; _Chardin_, VII. 410, VIII. 44 and 426; _Fabricius_, _Vet. Test. Pseud._ I. 80 seqq.; _Cathay_, p. 365; _Beal's Fah-Hian_, 72 and 78; _Pelerins Bouddhistes_, II. 292; _Della Valle_, II. 276-277.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chinar, or Oriental Plane]

He who injured the holy tree of Bostam, we are told, perished the same day: a general belief in regard to those _Trees of Grace_, of which we have already seen instances in regard to the sacred trees of Zoroaster and the Oak of Hebron. We find the same belief in Eastern Africa, where certain trees, regarded by the natives with superst.i.tious reverence, which they express by driving in votive nails and suspending rags, are known to the European residents by the vulgar name of _Devil Trees_. Burton relates a case of the verification of the superst.i.tion in the death of an English merchant who had cut down such a tree, and of four members of his household. It is the old story which Ovid tells; and the tree which Erisichthon felled was a _Dirakht-i-Fazl_:

"Vittae mediam, memoresque tabellae Sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentis."

(_Metamorph._ VIII. 744.)

Though the coincidence with our text of Hamd Allah's Dry Tree is very striking, I am not prepared to lay stress on it as an argument for the geographical determination of Marco's _Arbre Sec_. His use of the t.i.tle more than once to characterise the whole frontier of Khorasan can hardly have been a mere whim of his own: and possibly some explanation of that circ.u.mstance will yet be elicited from the Persian historians or geographers of the Mongol era.

Meanwhile it is in the vicinity of Bostam or Damghan that I should incline to place this landmark. If no one _very_ cogent reason points to this, a variety of minor ones do so; such as the direction of the traveller's journey from Kerman through Kuh Banan; the apparent vicinity of a great Ismailite fortress, as will be noticed in the next chapter; the connection twice indicated (see _Prologue_, ch. xviii. note 6, and Bk. IV. ch. v.) of the Arbre Sec with the headquarters of Ghazan Khan in watching the great pa.s.ses, of which the princ.i.p.al ones debouche at Bostam, at which place also buildings erected by Ghazan still exist; and the statement that the decisive battle between Alexander and Darius was placed there by local tradition. For though no such battle took place in that region, we know that Darius was murdered near Hecatompylos. Some place this city west of Bostam, near Damghan; others east of it, about Jah Jerm; Ferrier has strongly argued for the vicinity of Bostam itself. Firdusi indeed places the final battle on the confines of Kerman, and the death of Darius within that province. But this could not have been the tradition Polo met with.

I may add that the temperate climate of Bostam is noticed in words almost identical with Polo's by both Fraser and Ferrier.

The Chinar abounds in Khorasan (as far as any tree can be said to _abound_ in Persia), and even in the Oases of Tun-o-Kain wherever there is water.

Travellers quoted by Ritter notice Chinars of great size and age at Shahrud, near Bostam, at Meyomid, and at Mehr, west of Sabzawar, which last are said to date from the time of Naoshirwan (7th century). There is a town to the N.W. of Meshid called _Chinaran_, "The Planes." P. Della Valle, we may note, calls Tehran "la citta dei platani."

The following note by De Sacy regarding the Chinar has already been quoted by Marsden, and though it may be doubtful whether the term Arbre Sec had any relation to the idea expressed, it seems to me too interesting to be omitted: "Its sterility seems to have become proverbial among certain people of the East. For in a collection of sundry moral sentences pertaining to the Sabaeans or Christians of St. John ... we find the following: 'The vainglorious man is like a showy Plane Tree, rich in boughs but producing nothing, and affording no fruit to its owner.'" The same reproach of sterility is cast at the Plane by Ovid's Walnut:--

"At postquam platanis, _sterilem praebentibus umbram_, Uberior quavis arbore venit honos; Nos quoque fructiferae, si nux modo ponor in illis, Coepimus in patulas luxuriare comas." (_Nux_, 17-20.)

I conclude with another pa.s.sage from Khanikoff, though put forward in special ill.u.s.tration of what I believe to be a mistaken reading (_Arbre Seul_): "Where the Chinar is of spontaneous growth, or occupies the centre of a vast and naked plain, this tree is even in our own day invested with a quite exceptional veneration, and the locality often comes to be called 'The Place of the Solitary Tree.'" (_J. R. G. S._ XXIX. 345; _Ferrier_, 69-76; _Fraser_, 343; _Ritter_, VIII. 332, XI. 512 seqq.; _Della Valle_, I. 703; _De Sacy's Abdallatif_, p. 81; _Khanikoff_, _Not._ p. 38.)

[See in Fr. Zarncke, _Der Priester Johannes_, II., in the chap. _Der Baum des Seth_, pp. 127-128, from MS. (14th century) from Cambridge, this curious pa.s.sage (p. 128): "Tandem rogaverunt eum, ut arborem siccam, de qua multum saepe loqui audierant, liceret videre. Quibus dicebat: 'Non est appellata arbor sicca recto nomine, sed arbor Seth, quoniam Seth, filius Adae, primi patris nostri, eam plantavit.' Et ad arborem Seth fecit eos ducere, prohibens eos, ne arborem transmearent, sed [si?] ad patriam suam redire desiderarent. Et c.u.m appropinqua.s.sent, de pulcritudine arboris mirati sunt; erat enim magnae immensitatis et miri decoris. Omnium enim colorum varietas inerat arbori, condensitas foliorum et fructuum diversorum; diversitas avium omnium, quae sub coelo sunt. Folia vero invicem se repercutientia dulcissimae melodiae modulamine resonabant, et aves amoenos cantus ultra quam credi potest promebant; et odor suavissimus profudit eos, ita quod paradisi amoenitate fuisse. Et c.u.m admirantes tantam pulcritudinem aspicerent, unus sociorum aliquo eorum maior aetate, cogitans [cogitavit?] intra se, quod senior esset et, si inde rediret, cito aliquo casu mori posset. Et c.u.m haec sec.u.m cogita.s.set, coepit arborem transire, et c.u.m transisset, advocans socios, iussit eos post se ad loc.u.m amoenissimum, quem ante se videbat plenum deliciis sibi paratum [paratis?]

festinare. At illi retrogressi sunt ad regem, scilicet presbiterum Iohannem. Quos donis amplis ditavit, et qui c.u.m eo morari voluerunt libenter et honorifice detinuit. Alii vero ad patriam reversi sunt."--In common with Marsden and Yule, I have no doubt that the _Arbre Sec_ is the _Chinar_. Odoric places it at Tabriz and I have given a very lengthy dissertation on the subject in my edition of this traveller (pp. 21-29), to which I must refer the reader, to avoid increasing unnecessarily the size of the present publication.--H. C.]

[1] "Daz dritte Dier was ein Lebarte Vier arin Vederich her havite; Der beceichnote den Criechiskin Alexanderin, Der mit vier Herin vur aftir Landin, Unz her die Werilt einde, Bi guldinin Siulin bikante.

In Indea her die Wusti durchbrach, _Mit zwein Boumin her sich da gesprach_," etc.

[2] It is odd how near the word _Emausae_ comes to the E. African _Mwezi_; and perhaps more odd that "the elders of U-nya-Mwezi ('the Land of the Moon') declare that their patriarchal ancestor became after death the first Tree, and afforded shade to his children and descendants.

According to the Arabs the people still perform pilgrimage to a holy tree, and believe that the penalty of sacrilege in cutting off a twig would be visited by sudden and mysterious death." (_Burton_ in _F. R.

G. S._ XXIX. 167-168.)

[3] "The River _Buemar_, in the furthest forests of India," appears to come up in one of the versions of Alexander's Letter to Aristotle, though I do not find it in Muller's edition. (See Zacher's _Pseudo-Callisthenes_, p. 160.) 'Tis perhaps Ab-i-amu!

[4] It is right to notice that there may be some error in the _reference_ of Paulin Paris; at least I could not trace the _Arbre Sec_ in the MS.

which he cites, nor in the celebrated Bodleian Alexander, which appears to contain the same version of the story. [The fact is that Paulin Paris refers to the _Arbre_, but without the word _sec_, at the top of the first column of fol. 79 _recto_ of the MS. No. _Fr._ 368 (late 6985).--H. C.]