Introduction

Coleridge, in his vision of this romantic garden, sees himself as eatingdivine food: And close your eyes in holy dread, for he on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise.

In fact, Kublai Khan (more correctly Qubilai-qan) did indeed eat honey and milk, but mostly he ate sheep. His grandfather, Cinggis-qan, had first invaded China in the early thirteenth century. His uncle, Ogodei completed the conquest of the north by crushing Chin ~ in 1234. In 1260 Qubilai himself came to power and in 1266 built a new winter capital at what is now Peiching, alternating between it and his old princely residence, after 1263 his summer capital of Shang-tu J:.~~, Coleridge's Xanadu, on the cool fringes of the steppe. By 1276 Qubilai's Mongols had conquered all China and established the YUan JC Dynasty.