The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof, Volume 2 (of 2) — Text and Context

The Architecture of the Narrative

The volume's internal divisions are not merely organizational but rhetorical. The 'Argument of the First Part' frames the journey as a response to a 'cause that moued' the friars, implying divine impetus. Yet the narrative that follows is thick with human intrigue: a Portuguese captain general, 'with great choller,' intercepts letters and accuses the Spanish religious of being spies. The editor, Sir George Staunton, reprints this material without annotation, allowing the reader to observe how Mendoza—or his sources—constructed a providential story out of bureaucratic wrangling. The chapter headings, such as 'A Portugall ... doth discouer the euill intent,' function as mini-dramas, guiding interpretation before the reader encounters the evidence.

Diction and the Politics of Translation

Parke's lexical choices carry ideological weight. The Portuguese captain is described as acting with 'great choller'—a term that connotes both anger and humoral imbalance—while the bishop is 'fully perswaded and certified' of the friars' sincerity. The word 'certified' here implies a legal or ecclesiastical guarantee, contrasting with the captain's 'imagined' schemes. The interpreters are swayed by 'desire of gaine,' a phrase that reduces their agency to mercenary motives. Such diction aligns the reader with the Spanish perspective, even as the narrative reports Portuguese counter-claims. The repeated use of 'poore fathers' and 'seruantes of God' reinforces a hagiographic tone, yet the text also records the captain's accusation that they were 'spies, and no friers'—a dissonance that Parke's translation preserves without resolution.

The Role of Letters and Seals

Letters function as both plot devices and symbols of authority. The captain demands letters 'giuen him by the Chino'; the bishop claims to have sent them onward. Later, a Portuguese Christian sends a warning 'by a letter without seale'—the absence of a seal suggesting urgency or clandestinity. This detail, seemingly minor, underscores the importance of documentary authentication in a world where written communication could determine life or death. The text repeatedly foregrounds who holds, reads, or intercepts letters, making the act of writing itself a site of conflict. Mendoza's informants clearly understood that control over information was as crucial as control over territory, and the translation retains this emphasis on epistolary power.

Voice and the Problem of Reliability

The narrative voice shifts between omniscient summary and reported speech, often without clear attribution. When the bishop answers the captain, the text gives his words directly: 'he was fully perswaded and certified that they were true religious men.' But the captain's counter-claims are rendered as indirect discourse—'he knew by very certaine relation that they were spies.' This asymmetry tilts the reader's sympathy, yet the very inclusion of the Portuguese perspective prevents the account from becoming pure propaganda. The chapter ends with a cliffhanger—'as you shall vnderstande in the chapter following'—that mimics oral storytelling. This technique, common in early modern travel writing, invites the reader to judge the evidence while acknowledging the narrator's partiality.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the gaps between what the text claims and what it shows. The excerpts offer no direct Chinese voices; all information passes through Spanish, Portuguese, or indigenous interpreters whose motives are questioned. The editorial framing by Staunton, a nineteenth-century diplomat, adds yet another layer of mediation. Rather than seeking a transparent account of Ming China, consider how Mendoza's compilation reveals the anxieties and ambitions of the Europeans who wrote it—and how Parke's English shapes those revelations for a new audience.

Sitting with those Spanish missionaries, watching their certainties fray against an unfamiliar China, I found myself thinking of Nights: Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties — Text and Context. Different centuries, different cities, yet the same quiet ache—how a traveller’s polished impressions slowly crack, revealing the shifting, half-understood world beneath their feet.