Allow me to
introduce myself. I am Marco Polo, a merchant of some renown from the Republic
of Venice. You may have heard of me, especially if you are acquainted with the
many fine wares that I have brought to market from Constantinople and beyond. I
do a lively business with those eastern lands. My father and my uncle once
established a trading house and lived in that city for some time before
venturing across the Black Sea and to many places far to the east. As you may
know, I accompanied them on a later trip, one that lasted for twenty four
years. That was a grand experience...un epico viaggio...which took me to many
lands and, I can now say, proved to be the lasting achievement of my life.
I was born
a few years after the fifth crusade and raised in Venice, a beautiful city at
the head of the Adriatic Sea. If you have never ventured to Venice I strongly
urge you to go there at once. There is no city quite like it. You will be
amazed and it will dwell in your heart for the rest of your days.
I mentioned
the fifth crusade but there were many different crusades beginning around the
year 1095. These military campaigns, supposedly intended to gain and keep
Christian control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, were exceedingly foolhardy,
expensive, disruptive and, in the end, unsuccessful. I'm happy to say that I
have lived long enough to see this foolishness ended. Many merchants, yes, many
Venetians, grew rich because of the Crusades. Many more people suffered and
died. The only lasting benefit came from the exposure to new ideas and new
products from as far away as Persia and even India. Was that worth 200 years of
religious war? Time will tell but I wonder if the same outcome could have come
through peaceful trade and commerce.
My journey
to Cathay, you might know it as China but we always called it Cathay back then,
and to the imperial court of the Great Kahn brought me into contact with many
new things. Paper was used as currency in the Kahn's lands. Yes...paper instead
of gold. They also make use of a black stone which they bring up from the
depths of the earth and use for heating or cooking. The stone burns just like
wood. They are able to send letters or messages great distances in a single day
by special emissaries who race from horse to horse along the designated route.
I lived and
worked in Cathay for seventeen years and was a friend and advisor to Kublai
Kahn, the great Emperor. Although he was the undisputed ruler, he was as much a
stranger to Beijing as I was. He longed for the open grasslands of his Mongol
homeland as much as I longed for Venice and the Adriatic. On my journey home I
learned with sadness of the Kahn's death when I reached Persia. This was almost
two years after we set sail from the coast of Cathay. I knew then that he never
again gained sight of his homeland and I feared that I, too, would be finally
deprived of my homecoming. But God, and a passport from the Kahn, protected me
on that journey until I was almost home. But, still my homecoming was delayed.
Venice was at war with Genoa and I was captured and imprisoned for two years.
Eventually I returned home to a Venice that I left almost a generation earlier.
People I once knew were dead or gone. There were not many who knew me and still
fewer who believed the story of my travels. Even today there are those who say
I made it all up or that I did not go as far or see as much as I said.
In my last
years I have been content to stay in Venice and let others do the traveling. I
am a successful merchant...you may know me by my wares. I live a comfortable
life. Little by little the travelers come home to say that "Yes, it’s true
- Marco was right all along".
Trick or Treat .
