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HomePoems > Kubla Khan > Sources > Samuel Purchas > 2. Ancestral voices                           

 

 

1. Kubla Khan building a house of pleasure

2. Ancestral voices

3. Garden in a valley

4. Damsels in Paradise

5. Hill of Amara

Samuel Purchas

2. Ancestral voices

A few minutes before he fell into dreamlike state, Coleridge read about the Tartars' belief in the survival of the dead. He had just read about a tabernacle to the dead, something like a dome. The ideas and the imagery may be similar, though there seems little direct linguistic borrowing here.

In Kubla Khan, ancestral voices prophesy war. In Purchas, after a story about burying a chief man, we hear of a head priest who always places his house or tent in front of that of the great Khan, and priests who make a great noise during an eclipse, foretelling which days are holy, and which are unlucky.

Purchas describes a culture in which the people do not begin a war without their word. The ideas, then, are similar, though only an occasional word reappears in Coleridge's poem.

Text

When he is dead, if he be a chiefe man, hee is buried in the field where pleaseth him. And hee is buried with his Tent, sitting in the middest thereof, with a Table set before him, and a platter full of meate, and a Cup of Mares-milke. There is also buried with him a Mare and a Colt, a Horse with bridle and saddle: and they eate another Horse…stuffing his hide with straw, setting it aloft on two or foure poles, that hee may have in the other world a Tabernacle and other things fitting for this use. 470

…(later, within less than a page with the text in the dreams)

Their Priests were diviners: they were many, but had one Captaine or chiefe Bishop, who always placed his house or Tent before that of the Great Can, about a stones cast distant….When an Eclipse happens they sound their Organs and Timbrels, and make a great noyse….They foretell holy dayes, and those which are unluckie for enterprises. No warres are begunne or made without their word. 471
__Purchas his Pilgrimage, p. 472

Other sources

William Bartram
William Beckford
F. Bernier
James Bruce
Thomas Burnet
William Collins
Herodotus
Athanasius Kircher
Jerome Lobo
Thomas Maurice
John Milton
Pausanias
Major James Rennell
Seneca
Strabo
Virgil

Mary Wollstonecraft

 

 
Word Line # Line Sources for word
Amid 20 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst  Bernier 1
 Bernier 3
 Bruce 1
 Bruce 2
 Herodotus
 Milton 4
 Purchas 1
 Purchas 2
 Wollstonecraft
Ancestral

30

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

 Purchas 2

Holy

14

A savage place! As holy and enchanted

 Bartram 2
 Bruce 2
 Bruce 9
 Collins
 Purchas 2
 Rennell

 

52

And close your eyes with holy dread,

 Bartram 2
 Bruce 2
 Bruce 9
 Collins
 Purchas 2
 
Rennell

Kubla

29

And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

 Purchas 1

Kubla Khan

1

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

 Purchas 1
 Purchas 2

Man

4

Through caverns measureless to man

 Bruce 9
 Milton 3
 Purchas 2
 Purchas 3
 Purchas 4

 Seneca 2
  27 Then reached the caverns measureless to man  Bruce 9
 Milton 3
 Purchas 2
 Purchas 3
 Purchas 4

 Seneca 2
Mid 23    Bernier 1
 Bernier 3
 Bruce 1
 Bruce 2
 Herodotus
 Milton 4
 Purchas 1
 Purchas 2
 Wollstonecraft
  29   Bernier 1
Bernier 3
Bruce 1
Bruce 2
Herodotus
Milton 4
Purchas 1
Purchas 2
Wollstonecraft
Midway 32 Floated midway on the waves Bernier 1
Bernier 3
Bruce 1
Bruce 2
Herodotus
Milton 4
Purchas 1
Purchas 2
Wollstonecraft
Milk

54

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 Bartram 3
 Purchas 2
 Purchas 4

Tumult

28

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean

 Bartram 8
 Bruce 3
 Purchas 2

 

29

And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

 Bartram 8
 Bruce 3
 Purchas 2

War

30

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

 Bruce 9
 Purchas 2

 

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