Introduction: Asian trade and heroic narrative from Marco Polo to Milton -- Part 1. The Mongols -- Marco Polo and the marvelous real -- A paradise for killers: Marco Polo and the garden of the assassins -- The squire's tale: romance as mask -- Morgana and Manodante: Boiardo and the aristocratic response to mercantilism -- Part 2. The portuguese -- Huon at the castle of Adamant -- First encounter: the Christian-Hindu confusion when the Portuguese reached India -- Camões and the discovery of India: the negative side -- Surviving enchantment: Vasco da Gama's first voyage in Os lusíadas: the interplay between experience and classical models -- Part 3. The English -- Spenser, Marlowe, and the English search for Asian silk -- The audience of The Faerie Queene -- Waning of a dream: a brief history of Moscovia and Paradise lost -- A wood in the desert -- Appendix 1: The devaluation of the squire and his tale -- Appendix 2: Henry's search for spices -- Appendix 3: Vergil in Camões.
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