Was changed by Clement Seventh from a Republic Into a Dukedom, I no longer wish To be a Florentine. That dream is ended. The Grand Duke Cosimo now reigns supreme; All liberty is dead. Ah, woe is me! I hoped to see my country rise to heights Of happiness and freedom yet unreached By other nations, but the climbing wave Pauses, lets go its hold, and slides again Back to the common level, with a hoarse Death-rattle in its throat. I am too old To hope for better days. I will stay here And die in Rome. The very weeds, that grow Among the broken fragments of her ruins, MICHAEL ANGELO. Is Aretino dead? BENVENUTO. He lives in Venice, And not in Florence. MICHAEL ANGELO. 'Tis the same to me. This wretched mountebank, whom flatterers Call the Divine, as if to make the word Unpleasant in the mouths of those who speak it And in the ears of those who hear it, sends me A letter written for the public eye, Is the express great devil, and not you. BENVENUTO. I remember. MICHAEL ANGELO. Well, now he writes to me that, as a Christian, He is ashamed of the unbounded freedom With which I represent it. The boldness of my marvellous work unpunished; And the more marvellous it is, the more 'Tis sure to prove the ruin of my fame! And finally, if in this composition I had pursued the instructions that he gave me Concerning heaven and hell and paradise, He taunts me also with the Mausoleum His tomb while he was living; and he speaks BENVENUTO. Vanity. He is a clever writer, and he likes You would have seen another style of fence. ten. MICHAEL ANGELO. I will not think of it, but let it pass For a rude speech thrown at me in the street, As boys threw stones at Dante. BENVENUTO. And what answer Shall I take back to Grand Duke Cosimo? He does not ask your labor or your service ; Only your presence in the city of Florence, With such advice upon his work in hand As he may ask, and you may choose to give. Many statues Will there be room for in my work. Their station Already is assigned them in my mind. Want of material, want of means, delays MICHAEL ANGELO. Truly, as you say, Sculpture is more than painting. It is greater To raise the dead to life than to create Phantoms that seem to live. The most ma jestic Of the three sister arts is that which builds; The eldest of them all, to whom the others Are but the hand-maids and the servitors, Eccellenza, That is impossible. Do I not see you MICHAEL ANGELO. 'T is an old habit. I must have learned it early from my nurse At Setignano, the stone-mason's wife; With it he sent me something of his making, A Mercury, with long body and short legs, A messenger of the gods could have short legs. URBINO. How Eccellenza laughed! Never! Bitter is servitude at best. Already think So meanly of this Michael Angelo As to imagine he would let thee serve, When he is free from service? Take this purse, Two thousand crowns in gold. URBINO. Two thousand crowns! MICHAEL ANGELO. Ay, it will make thee rich. Thou shalt not die A beggar in a hospital. VII. THE OAKS OF MONTE LUCA. MICHAEL ANGELO, alone in the woods. MICHAEL ANGELO. How still it is among these ancient oaks! pets Of Barbarossa's cavalry, deride Which with my foot I spurn, may be an oak Shall be but dust and mould, and nothing more. Through openings in the trees I see below me The valley of Clitumnus, with its farms Now come to thee for refuge. Here is peace. And here St. Julian's convent, like a nest |