1. There is nothing to link this tale with the preceding one; hence it
begins a new Group. In many MSS. (including E.) it follows the preceding
Epilogue without any break. In other MSS. it follows the Man of Law's Tale;
but that is the wrong place for it. See note to B. 1165; also vol. iii. p.
462.
2. An allusion to Prol. l. 97, unless (which is quite as probable) the
passage in the Prologue was written afterwards.
9. _Sarray_, Sarai. This place has been identified, past all doubt, by
Colonel Yule in his edition of Marco Polo's Travels, vol. i. p. 5, and vol.
ii. p. 424. The modern name is Tzarev, near Sarepta. Sarepta is easily
found on any good map of Russia by following the course of the Volga from
its mouth _upwards_. At first this backward course runs N. W. till we have
crossed the province of Astrakhan, when it makes a sudden bend, at Sarepta
and Tsaritzin. Tsarev is now a place of no importance, but the ancient
Sarai was so well known, that the Caspian Sea was sometimes named from it;
thus it is called 'the sea of Sarain' in Marco Polo, ed. Yule, ii. 424;
'the sea of Sarra' in the Catalan map of 1375; and Mare Seruanicum, or the
Sea of Shirwan, by Vincent of Beauvais. Thynne, in his Animadversions on
Speight's Chaucer, speaks to the same effect, and says of 'Sara' that it is
'a place yet well knowen, and bordering vppon the lake Mare Caspium.' Sarai
was the place where Batu Khan, the grandson of Gengis Khan, held his court.
Batu, with his Mongolian followers known as the _Golden Horde_, had
established an empire in Kaptchak, or Kibzak, now S. E. Russia, about A. D.
1224. The Golden Horde further invaded Russia, and made Alexander Newski
grand-duke of it, A. D. 1252. (See _Golden Horde_ in Haydn's Dictionary of
Dates.)
Chaucer has here confused two accounts. There were two celebrated Khans,
both grandsons of Gengis Khan, who were ruling about the same time. Batu
Khan held his court at Sarai, and ruled over the S. E. of Russia; but the
Great Khan, named Kublai, held his court at Cambaluc, the modern Pekin, in
a still more magnificent manner. And it is easy to see that, although
Chaucer _names_ Sarai, his description really _applies to_ Cambaluc. See
vol. iii. pp. 471-2. [371]
10. _Russye_, Russia; invaded by the Golden Horde, as just explained. The
end of the Tartar influence in Russia was in the year 1481, when
Svenigorod, general of Ivan III., defeated them at the battle of
Bielawisch. In the following year Ivan assumed the title of czar.
12. _Cambinskan_; so in all seven MSS. (Six-text and Harleian), except that
in the Ellesmere MS. it more resembles _Cambyuskan_. Yet Tyrwhitt prints
_Cambuscan_, probably in deference to Milton, who, however, certainly
accents the word wrongly, viz. on the second syllable; Il Penseroso, l.
110. Thynne, in his Animadversions on Speight's Chaucer, speaking of the
year 1240, says--'whiche must be in the tyme of the fyrst Tartariane
emperor called _Caius canne_, beinge, I suppose, he whome Chaucer namethe
_Cambiuscan_, for so ys [it in] the written copies, such affynytye is there
betwene those two names.' Now, although the celebrated Gengis Khan died
probably in 1227, the allusion to the 'fyrst Tartariane emperor' is clear;
so that Thynne makes the forms _Cambius_, _Caius_ (perhaps miswritten for
C[=a]ius, i. e. Ca_m_ius) and _Gengis_ all equivalent. But this is the very
result for which Colonel Yule has found authority, as explained in vol.
iii. p. 471; to which the reader is referred. It is there explained that
Chaucer has again confused two accounts; for, whilst he _names_ Gengis Khan
(the first 'Grand Khan'), his description really _applies_ to Kublai Khan,
his grandson, the celebrated 'Grand Khan' described by Marco Polo.
18. _lay_, religious profession or belief. 'King Darie swor by his _lay_':
King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 1325. From A. F. _lei_, law. See _lei_ in
Stratmann.
20. This line scans ill as it stands in most MSS. Tyrwhitt and Wright
insert _and_, which gives _two_ accented 'ands'--
And pí | tous ánd | just ánd | alwéy | ylíche.