I picked up the Penguin Classics edition of Marco Polo's The Travels, translated by Ronald Latham, because of Uncharted 2, a videogame whose treasure-hunting plot was based in part on Polo's doomed voyage home from China. I had no expectations of becoming a treasure hunter like Nathan Drake, looking for clues to hidden exotics in Polo's published pages. Instead, I was more curious about what Polo claimed to experience and witness. I bought The Journals of Lewis and Clark the same day for the same reason.
My experience of reading of Polo's experience, though, proved frustrating at times. The focus of this frustration was upon Latham. For the most part, he's a more than capable editor and translator. He introduces the text with some broader history as well as an account of the many different copies and translations of Polo's Travels. It is clear of the time and effort expended in the production of this particular translation of the text. However, a handful of footnotes marred, even ruined, certain passages.
It is with apparent bewilderment and fascination that Polo writes of certain animals, minerals and rocks. Latham's translation captures this well, but he lessens the impact with asterisks placed early in paragraphs. Rather than allow the reader to define and discern on their own just what Polo's writing about, Latham is all too eager to explain. In other words, Latham's a spoiler. Instead of being helpful, his footnotes are annoying, if not insulting. The Travels is not so cryptic in presentation and style that it requires such handholding.
Below are the passages from Polo's Travels that Latham asterisked and explained without so much as a "SPOILER ALERT."
"When the stuff found in this vein of which you have heard has been dug out of the mountain and crumbled into bits, the particles cohere and form fibres like wool. Accordingly, when the stuff has been extracted, it is first dried, then pounded in a large copper mortar and then washed. The residue consists of this fibre of which I have spoken and worthless earth, which is separated from it. Then this wool-like fibre is carefully spun and made into cloths. When the cloths are first made, they are far from white. But they are thrown into the fire and left there for a while; and then they turn as white as snow. And whenever one of these cloths is soiled or discoloured, it is thrown into the fire and left there for a while, and it comes out as white as snow" (89-90).
"It is a fact that throughout the province of Cathay there is a sort of black stone, which is dug out of veins in the hillsides and burns like logs. These stones keep a fire going better than wood. I assure you that, if you put them on the fire in the evening and see that they are well alight, they will continue to burn all night, so that you will find them still glowing in the morning" (156).
"In this province live huge snakes and serpents of such size that no one could help being amazed even to hear of them. They are loathsome creatures to behold. Let me tell you just how big they are. You may take it for a fact that there are some of them ten paces in length that are as thick as a stout cask: for their girth runs to about ten palms. These are the biggest. They have two squat legs in front near the head, which have no feet but simply three claws, two small and one bigger, like the claws of a falcon or a lion. They have enormous heads and eyes so bulging that they are bigger than loaves. Their mouth is big enough to swallow a man in one gulp. Their teeth are huge. All in all, the monsters are of such inordinate bulk and ferocity that there is neither man nor beast but goes in fear of them" (178).
"...they brought back with them the tusks of a wild boar of monstrous size. He had one of them weighed and found that its weight was 14 lb. You may infer for yourselves what must have been the size of the boar that had such tusks as this. Indeed they declare that some of these boars are as big as buffaloes" (300-301).
It's pretty clear what Polo describes, right?