The Travels of Marco Polo

Polo says, in the first paragraph, that one of the goals of the journey was for Niccolo and Maffeo, who were brothers, “to try to improve their trading business” (533). The Polos were merchants; this was primarily a business trip. They traveled quite far and for more than four years. They went to well-known cities, such as the famed Constantinople; elsewhere, they encountered little. For example, after they crossed a well-known river, they “came to a desert, the extent of which was seventeen days’ journey, wherein they found neither town, castle, nor any substantial building, but only Tartars with their herds, dwelling in tents on the plain” (549-51). This is the first of many references to the Mongols as Tartars. 

The Polos met an ambassador on his way to visit the Great Khan, leader of the Mongols. The ambassador persuaded the Polos to join him. They agreed, in part because they were “convinced that their attempts to return home would expose them to the gravest risks” (561-62). They had encountered unsafe territory already; they felt that they couldn't return home, though, because they had promised to bring back many riches. Accompanying the ambassador, they reached the seat of the Great Khan; it took them a year. 

Kublai Khan was very curious about the West and plied the Polos for answers about many things: politics, justice, and religion. He turned out to be pleased with their answers:“The result was that the Great Khan, holding them in high esteem, frequently summoned them to talk with him” (575-77). Convinced that they were the men for the job, the Khan assigned them a task: return to the West, meet with the Pope, and secure from him some holy oil and “a hundred men of learning” (579). The Khan then gave them two very important things to carry: a letter to the Pope and a golden tablet bearing the mark of the Khan, which would grant them safe passage and adequate provisions. They were delayed getting home and had to wait to hear back from the Pope. Upon reaching home, Niccolo discovered that his wife had died not long after giving birth to a son. Marco was then 15; his father and uncle had been gone for essentially his entire life.

The election of a new pope dragged on, so the Polos decided to go part of the way back to the East, stopping in Acre. They took Niccolo's son, Marco, with them. While in Acre, they accomplished one of their tasks: “They made a visit to Jerusalem, and there provided themselves with some of the oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulcher” (612). They continued on their way and then got word that a new pope had been chosen and that he had sent two envoys to join the Polo party. (The Great Khan had requested 100 learned men.) At the first sign of trouble, the papal envoys turned back. The Polos, however, “undismayed by perils or difficulties—to which they had long been inured” (630-31) continued on and eventually reached the Khan, who was at his summer capital, which had several names, among them Chandu, Shangtu, and Xanadu.

The Polos went before the Khan and were treated with great respect. This kind of treatment did not waver: “As long as the brothers and Marco remained in the court of the Great Khan they were honored even above his own courtiers” (647-48). The Khan was impressed with Marco, who set about trying to make the Khan even more impressed. Young Marco learned four languages, mastering all in both reading and writing. His reward was to get sent on a Khan-approved mission of state, then on confidential missions, and then on missions of his own choosing. All of this traveling and government work paid dividends. In all, he spent seventeen years in the Khan's employ.

The Polos reaped large rewards from being at the imperial court. Still, they wanted to return home. The Great Khan at first refused but then allowed them to go, as long as they acted as escorts for the traveling party of a princess who was being sent to Persia, to wed a king whose wife had just died. The travelling party also included an escort of three barons. The Khan reluctantly consented to letting the Polos go and gave them golden tablets to get them through. He even granted the power to act as his emissaries to European kings and the Pope. In return, he “exacted from them a promise that when they had stayed some time in Europe and with their own family, they would return to him once more” (695-96).

The voyage home incorporated a large number of men, in addition to the Polos, the three barons, and a few women to accompany the new queen. The fourteen ships that made the journey each had a crew of at least 250. Though he was displeased that they were leaving, the Great Khan nonetheless gave them provisions for two years. They had not yet reached home when they were informed that their royal protection was in jeopardy: “the Great Khan Kublai had departed this life, which put an end to all prospect of their revisiting those regions” (725-26). They made it home as quickly as they could, returning to Venice in 1295, and having been gone for twenty-four years.