Michael Angelo (Longfellow)/Part II/Fra Sebastiano del Piombo

MICHAEL ANGELO; FRA SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO.

MICHAEL ANGELO, not turning round. Who is it?

FRA SEBASTIANO. Wait, for I am out of breath In climbing your steep stairs.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Ah, my Bastiano, If you went up and down as many stairs As I do still, and climbed as many ladders, It would be better for you. Pray sit down. Your idle and luxurious way of living Will one day take your breath away entirely. And you will never find it.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Well, what then? That would be better, in my apprehension, Than falling from a scaffold.

MICHAEL ANGELO. That was nothing It did not kill me; only lamed me slightly; I am quite well again.

FRA SEBASTIANO. But why, dear Master, Why do you live so high up in your house, When you could live below and have a garden, As I do?

MICHAEL ANGELO. From this window I can look On many gardens; o'er the city roofs See the Campagna and the Alban hills; And all are mine.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Can you sit down in them, On summer afternoons, and play the lute Or sing, or sleep the time away?

MICHAEL ANGELO. I never Sleep in the day-time; scarcely sleep at night. I have not time. Did you meet Benvenuto As you came up the stair?

FRA SEBASTIANO. He ran against me On the first landing, going at full speed; Dressed like the Spanish captain in a play, With his long rapier and his short red cloak. Why hurry through the world at such a pace? Life will not be too long.

MICHAEL ANGELO. It is his nature,-- A restless spirit, that consumes itself With useless agitations. He o'erleaps The goal he aims at. Patience is a plant That grows not in all gardens. You are made Of quite another clay.

FRA SEBASTIANO. And thank God for it. And now, being somewhat rested, I will tell you Why I have climbed these formidable stairs. I have a friend, Francesco Berni, here, A very charming poet and companion, Who greatly honors you and all your doings, And you must sup with us.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Not I, indeed. I know too well what artists' suppers are. You must excuse me.

FRA SEBASTIANO. I will not excuse you. You need repose from your incessant work; Some recreation, some bright hours of pleasure.

MICHAEL ANGELO. To me, what you and other men call pleasure Is only pain. Work is my recreation, The play of faculty; a delight like that Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish In darting through the water,--nothing more. I cannot go. The Sibylline leaves of life Grow precious now, when only few remain. I cannot go.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Berni, perhaps, will read A canto of the Orlando Inamorato.

MICHAEL ANGELO. That is another reason for not going. If aught is tedious and intolerable, It is a poet reading his own verses,

FRA SEBASTIANO. Berni thinks somewhat better of your verses Than you of his. He says that you speak things, And other poets words. So, pray you, come.

MICHAEL ANGELO. If it were now the Improvisatore, Luigia Pulci, whom I used to hear With Benvenuto, in the streets of Florence, I might be tempted. I was younger then And singing in the open air was pleasant.

FRA SEBASTIANO. There is a Frenchman here, named Rabelais, Once a Franciscan friar, and now a doctor, And secretary to the embassy: A learned man, who speaks all languages, And wittiest of men; who wrote a book Of the Adventures of Gargantua, So full of strange conceits one roars with laughter At every page; a jovial boon-companion And lover of much wine. He too is coming.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Then you will not want me, who am not witty, And have no sense of mirth, and love not wine. I should be like a dead man at your banquet. Why should I seek this Frenchman, Rabelais? And wherefore go to hear Francesco Berni, When I have Dante Alighieri here. The greatest of all poets?

FRA SEBASTIANO. And the dullest; And only to be read in episodes. His day is past. Petrarca is our poet.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Petrarca is for women and for lovers And for those soft Abati, who delight To wander down long garden walks in summer, Tinkling their little sonnets all day long, As lap dogs do their bells.

FRA SEBASTIANO. I love Petrarca. How sweetly of his absent love he sings When journeying in the forest of Ardennes! "I seem to hear her, hearing the boughs and breezes And leaves and birds lamenting, and the waters Murmuring flee along the verdant herbage."

MICHAEL ANGELO. Enough. It is all seeming, and no being. If you would know how a man speaks in earnest, Read here this passage, where St. Peter thunders In Paradise against degenerate Popes And the corruptions of the church, till all The heaven about him blushes like a sunset. I beg you to take note of what he says About the Papal seals, for that concerns Your office and yourself.

FRA SEBASTIANO, reading. Is this the passage? "Nor I be made the figure of a seal To privileges venal and mendacious, Whereat I often redden and flash with fire!"-- That is not poetry.

MICHAEL ANGELO. What is it, then?

FRA SEBASTIANO. Vituperation; gall that might have spirited From Aretino's pen.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Name not that man! A profligate, whom your Francesco Berni Describes as having one foot in the brothel And the other in the hospital; who lives By flattering or maligning, as best serves His purpose at the time. He writes to me With easy arrogance of my Last Judgment, In such familiar tone that one would say The great event already had occurred, And he was present, and from observation Informed me how the picture should be painted.

FRA SEBASTIANO. What unassuming, unobtrusive men These critics are! Now, to have Aretino Aiming his shafts at you brings back to mind The Gascon archers in the square of Milan, Shooting their arrows at Duke Sforza's statue, By Leonardo, and the foolish rabble Of envious Florentines, that at your David Threw stones at night. But Aretino praised you.

MICHAEL ANGELO. His praises were ironical. He knows How to use words as weapons, and to wound While seeming to defend. But look, Bastiano, See how the setting sun lights up that picture!

FRA SEBASTIANO. My portrait of Vittoria Colonna.

MICHAEL ANGELO. It makes her look as she will look hereafter, When she becomes a saint!

FRA SEBASTIANO. A noble woman!

MICHAEL ANGELO. Ah, these old hands can fashion fairer shapes In marble, and can paint diviner pictures, Since I have known her.

FRA SEBASTIANO. And you like this picture. And yet it is in oil; which you detest.

MICHAEL ANGELO. When that barbarian Jan Van Eyck discovered The use of oil in painting, he degraded His art into a handicraft, and made it Sign-painting, merely, for a country inn Or wayside wine-shop. 'T is an art for women, Or for such leisurely and idle people As you, Fra Bastiano. Nature paints not In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven With sunset; and the lovely forms of clouds And flying vapors.

FRA SEBASTIANO. And how soon they fade! Behold yon line of roofs and belfries painted Upon the golden background of the sky, Like a Byzantine picture, or a portrait Of Cimabue. See how hard the outline, Sharp-cut and clear, not rounded into shadow. Yet that is nature.

MICHAEL ANGELO. She is always right. The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Leonardo thinks The open air too bright. We ought to paint As if the sun were shining through a mist. 'T is easier done in oil than in distemper.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Do not revive again the old dispute; I have an excellent memory for forgetting, But I still feel the hurt. Wounds are not healed By the unbending of the bow that made them.

FRA SEBASTIANO. So say Petrarca and the ancient proverb.

MICHAEL ANGELO. But that is past. Now I am angry with you, Not that you paint in oils, but that grown fat And indolent, you do not paint at all.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Why should I paint? Why should I toil and sweat, Who now am rich enough to live at ease, And take my pleasure?

MICHAEL ANGELO. When Pope Leo died, He who had been so lavish of the wealth His predecessors left him, who received A basket of gold-pieces every morning, Which every night was empty, left behind Hardly enough to pay his funeral.

FRA SEBASTIANO. I care for banquets, not for funerals, As did his Holiness. I have forbidden All tapers at my burial, and procession Of priests and friars and monks; and have provided The cost thereof be given to the poor!

MICHAEL ANGELO. You have done wisely, but of that I speak not. Ghiberti left behind him wealth and children; But who to-day would know that he had lived, If he had never made those gates of bronze In the old Baptistery,--those gates of bronze, Worthy to be the gates of Paradise. His wealth is scattered to the winds; his children Are long since dead; but those celestial gates Survive, and keep his name and memory green.

FRA SEBASTIANO. But why should I fatigue myself? I think That all things it is possible to paint Have been already painted; and if not, Why, there are painters in the world at present Who can accomplish more in two short months Than I could in two years; so it is well That some one is contented to do nothing, And leave the field to others.

MICHAEL ANGELO. O blasphemer! Not without reason do the people call you Sebastian del Piombo, for the lead Of all the Papal bulls is heavy upon you, And wraps you like a shroud.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Misericordia! Sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine, and sharp The words you speak, because the heart within you Is sweet unto the core.

MICHAEL ANGELO. How changed you are From the Sebastiano I once knew, When poor, laborious, emulous to excel, You strove in rivalry with Badassare And Raphael Sanzio.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Raphael is dead; He is but dust and ashes in his grave, While I am living and enjoying life, And so am victor. One live Pope is worth A dozen dead ones.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Raphael is not dead; He doth but sleep; for how can he be dead Who lives immortal in the hearts of men? He only drank the precious wine of youth, The outbreak of the grapes, before the vintage Was trodden to bitterness by the feet of men. The gods have given him sleep. We never were Nor could be foes, although our followers, Who are distorted shadows of ourselves, Have striven to make us so; but each one worked Unconsciously upon the other's thought; Both giving and receiving. He perchance Caught strength from me, and I some greater sweetness And tenderness from his more gentle nature. I have but words of praise and admiration For his great genius; and the world is fairer That he lived in it.

FRA SEBASTIANO. We at least are friends; So come with me.

MICHAEL ANGELO. No, no; I am best pleased When I'm not asked to banquets. I have reached A time of life when daily walks are shortened, And even the houses of our dearest friends, That used to be so near, seem far away.

FRA SEBASTIANO. Then we must sup without you. We shall laugh At those who toil for fame, and make their lives A tedious martyrdom, that they may live A little longer in the mouths of men! And so, good-night.

MICHAEL ANGELO. Good-night, my Fra Bastiano.

[Returning to his work.

How will men speak of me when I am gone, When all this colorless, sad life is ended, And I am dust? They will remember only The wrinkled forehead, the marred countenance, The rudeness of my speech, and my rough manners, And never dream that underneath them all There was a woman's heart of tenderness. They will not know the secret of my life, Locked up in silence, or but vaguely hinted In uncouth rhymes, that may perchance survive Some little space in memories of men! Each one performs his life-work, and then leaves it; Those that come after him will estimate His influence on the age in which he lived.