Marco Polo
c. 1298 · Venice · The opening of the book he dictated to a writer imprisoned with him in Genoa
Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses! and People of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you.The Travels of Marco Polo, prologue · in place of the original: the English translation by Henry Yule (1871)
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In the same thread
Walt Whitman
1856 · United States
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
"Song of the Open Road," in Leaves of Grass
Li Bai 李白
759 · Tang China · Turning back after word reached him, on the road to exile, that he had been pardoned
At dawn I leave Baidi among the bright clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling, home in a single day. On both banks the gibbons cry without end, and my light boat has already passed ten thousand folds of hills.
朝辭白帝彩雲間，千里江陵一日還。
兩岸猨聲啼不盡，輕舟已過萬重山。"Leaving Baidi at Dawn," in the Complete Tang Poems
Mori Ogai 森鷗外
1890 · Shimane, Japan · Tokyo · A night in the port of Saigon, on the voyage home from Germany
The coal has already been loaded. Around the table in the second-class saloon all is very still, and the brightness of the electric lamps is wasted. For tonight the card players who gather here every evening are staying at a hotel, and I alone am left on the ship.
石炭をば早や積み果てつ。中等室の卓のほとりはいと靜にて、熾熱燈の光の晴れがましきも徒なり。今宵は夜毎にこゝに集ひ來る骨牌仲間も「ホテル」に宿りて、舟に殘れるは余一人のみなれば。"The Dancing Girl" (Maihime), the opening
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us