The Best of the Worlds Classics, Restricted to prose. | Page 4

land of Polayne, and to the land of Pannonia,[6] and so to Silesia.
And the King of Hungary is a great lord and a mighty, and holds great
lordships and much land in his hand. For he holds the kingdom of
Hungary, Sclavonia, and of Comania a great part, and of Bulgaria that
men call the land of Bougiers, and of the realm of Russia a great part,
whereof he has made a duchy, that lasts unto the land of Nyfland,[7]
and marches to Prussia. And men go through the land of this lord,
through a city that is called Cypron,[8] and by the castle of Neasburghe,
and by the evil town, that sit toward the end of Hungary. And there

pass men the river Danube. This river of Danube is a full great river,
and it goeth into Almayne, under the hills of Lombardy, and it receives
into him forty other rivers, and it runs through Hungary and through
Greece and through Thrace, and it enters into the sea, toward the east so
rudely and so sharply, that the water of the sea is fresh and holds its
sweetness twenty mile within the sea.
And after, go men to Belgrade, and enter into the land of Bourgiers;
and there pass men a bridge of stone that is upon the river of Marrok.[9]
And men pass through the land of Pyncemartz and come to Greece to
the city of Nye, and to the city of Fynepape,[10] and after to the city of
Dadrenoble,[11] and after to Constantinople, that was wont to be called
Bezanzon.[12] And there dwells commonly the Emperor of Greece.
And there is the most fair church and the most noble of all the world;
and it is of Saint Sophie. And before that church is the image of
Justinian the emperor, covered with gold, and he sits upon a horse
crowned. And he was wont to hold a round apple of gold in his hand;
but it is fallen out thereof. And men say there, that it is a token that the
emperor has lost a great part of his lands and of his lordships; for he
was wont to be Emperor of Roumania and of Greece, of all Asia the
less, and of the land of Syria, of the land of Judea in the which is
Jerusalem, and of the land of Egypt, of Persia, and of Arabia. But he
has lost all but Greece; and that land he holds all only. And men would
many times put the apple into the image's hand again, but it will not
hold it. This apple betokens the lordship that he had over all the world,
that is round. And the other hand he lifts up against the East, in token to
menace the misdoers. This image stands upon a pillar of marble at
Constantinople.

II
AT THE COURT OF THE GREAT CHAN[13]
The men of Tartary have let make another city that is called Caydon.
And it has twelve gates, and between the two gates there is always a
great mile; so that the two cities, that is to say, the old and the new,

have in circuit more than twenty mile.
In this city is the court of the great Chan in a full great palace and the
most passing fair in all the world, of the which the walls be in circuit
more than two mile. And within the walls it is full of other palaces.
And in the garden of the great palace there is a great hill, upon the
which there is another palace; and it is the most fair and the most rich
that any man may devise. And all about the palace and the hill be many
trees bearing many diverse fruits. And all about the hill be ditches great
and deep, and beside them be great fish ponds on that one part and on
that other. And there is a full fair bridge to pass over the ditches. And
in these vivaries be so many wild geese and ganders and wild ducks
and swans and herons that it is without number. And all about these
ditches and vivaries is the great garden full of wild beasts. So that when
the great Chan will have any disport on that, to take any of the wild
beasts or of the fowls, he will let chase them and take them at the
windows without going out of his chamber.
This palace, where his court is, is both great and passing fair. And
within the palace, in the hall, there be twenty-four pillars of fine gold.
And all the walls be covered within of red skins of beasts that men call
panthers, that be fair beasts and well smelling; so that for the sweet
odor of