the information on Marco Polo is from John Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1999), and from The Travels of Marco Polo, introduction by F. W. Mote (New York: Dell, 1961).
184 At Lille the leper carried: Information on leprosy is from Peter Richards, The Medieval Leper and His Northern Heirs (London: D. S. Brewer, Rowman, and Littlefield, 1977); Saul Nathaniel Brody, The Disease of the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001); Tony Gould, Don’t Fence Me In: Leprosy in Modern Times (London: Bloomsbury, 2005); and from Internet sources.
DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER
The primary translation I used of Cao Xueqin and Gao E’s Dream of the Red Chamber was Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s translation for the Foreign Languages Press (Beijing, 1986), published under the title A Dream of Red Mansions (4 vols.). Other translations referred to are David Hawkes, editor and translator, The Story of the Stone or the Dream of the Red Chamber, vols. 1-3 (New York: Penguin, 1974-15)81), with subsequent vols. 4-5 (1982-15)86) translated and edited by John Minford. Their textual notes also inform Clerval’s and Cao Xueqin’s notes in this text. A valuable source for passages on Red Ink-stone was Shih-ch’ang Wu’s On the Red Chamber Dream (London: Clarendon Press, 15)61). Other works consulted include: “Excerpts from the Red Inkstone Commentary” at www.geocities.com/littlebuddhatw/commentaryenglish.html ; The Dream of the Red Chamber, abstract and translation by Henry Giles, in Chinese Literature (London: Appleton, 15)05)), edited and with footnotes by Richard Hooker, 15)5)6, at www.wsu.edu/∼dee/CHINESEDREAM.HTM ; and David L. Steelman, “Introduction to Editions of the Red Chamber,” The Scholar (June 15)81), at http://etext.virginia.edu/chinese/HLM/hlmitre2.htm.
Information on nineteenth-century China is mostly from Constance Gordon-Cumming’s Wanderings in China (London: Chatto & Windus, 1886). Medical details (adapted by me) on leprosy were taken primarily from R. G. Cochrane’s Practical Textbook of Leprosy (London: Oxford Medical Publications, 15)47). Other leprosy details are from Peter Richards, The Medieval Leper and His Northern Heirs (London: D. S. Brewer, Rowman, and Littlefield, 15)77); Gerald Lee, Leper Hospitals in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Four Court Press, 15)5)6); and Rotha Mary Clay, The Medieval Hospitals in England (London: Methuen, 15)05)). Much of the information on Aosta is derived from S. W. King’s The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps (London: John Murray, 1858).
192 Ever since that strange man, Morrison: Information on Robert Morrison (1782-1834) can be found at www.babelstone.co.uk/Morrison.Biography.html .
192 Lady Su Hui’s Xuan Ji Tu Shi: Information on Lady Su Hui came from www.metmuseum.org ; Poems in Pictures, www.cityu.edu.hk/ccs/Newsletter/newsletter5/Poems.htm ; and David Hinton (conversation).
203 There’s something called the “Mass of Separation”: The text of the Mass of Separation can be found in Peter Richards’s The Medieval Leper and His Northern Heirs.
218 “Confuse the musical scales”: The Zhuangzi quote is from Herbert Giles, Chuang Tsu, 1889, 2nd edition, 1923. Other sources consulted for Zhuangzi elsewhere in this section are: Burton Watson, translator, Basic Writings (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1996) and Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1982).
221 “eyelids pierced and sewn with iron wires”: Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, translated by John Ciardi (New York: Penguin, 1961).
241 the frescoes at Issogne: Reproductions can be found in Sandra Barberi, Il Castello di Issogne in Valle d’Aosta (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & Co., 1999).
251 It’s a simple piece of Attic pottery: This description of lekythoi is indebted to Maia Sian Peck’s “Dining with Death: An Analysis of Attic White-Ground Lekythoi and Athenian Notions of the Afterlife in Classical Greece,” Brown Classical Journal, vol. 19, 2007.
259 your question about the Confucian temples: Information on Chinese architecture, temples, gardens, etc., are from the following sources: Zhu Junzhen, The Art of Chinese Pavilions (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2002); Ronald G. Knapp, The Chinese House (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990); Joseph Cho Wang The Chinese Garden (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998); Young-Tsu Wong, A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Tuan (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2001); Edwin T Morris, The Gardens of China (New York: Scribners, 1983).
287 the Athenians tattooing: Some of the thoughts on skin are informed by Steve Connor in The Book of Skin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2004), including the detail of the Samian prisoners and the manacles being thrown into the water; Nina G. Jablonski, Skin: A Natural History (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2006); Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1964), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1964).
289 Some of the thoughts about blinking are indebted to Samuel