No More Learning

I spake not of its uses, but its beauty.

CAVALIERI.
The sand beneath our feet is saturate
With blood of martyrs; and these rifted stones
Are awful witnesses against a people
Whose pleasure was the pain of dying men.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Tomaso Cavalieri, on my word,
You should have been a preacher, not a painter!
Think you that I approve such cruelties,
Because I marvel at the architects
Who built these walls, and curved these noble arches?
Oh, I am put to shame, when I consider
How mean our work is, when compared with theirs!
Look at these walls about us and above us!
They have been shaken by earthquake; have been made
A fortress, and been battered by long sieges;
The iron clamps, that held the stones together,
Have been wrenched from them; but they stand erect
And firm, as if they had been hewn and hollowed
Out of the solid rock, and were a part
Of the foundations of the world itself.

CAVALIERI.
Your work, I say again, is nobler work,
In so far as its end and aim are nobler;
And this is but a ruin, like the rest.
Its vaulted passages are made the caverns
Of robbers, and are haunted by the ghosts
Of murdered men.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
A thousand wild flowers bloom
From every chink, and the birds build their nests
Among the ruined arches, and suggest
New thoughts of beauty to the architect,
Now let us climb the broken stairs that lead
Into the corridors above, and study
The marvel and the mystery of that art
In which I am a pupil, not a master.
All things must have an end; the world itself
Must have an end, as in a dream I saw it.
There came a great hand out of heaven, and touched
The earth, and stopped it in its course. The seas
Leaped, a vast cataract, into the abyss;
The forests and the fields slid off, and floated
Like wooded islands in the air. The dead
Were hurled forth from their sepulchres; the living
Were mingled with them, and themselves were dead,--
All being dead; and the fair, shining cities
Dropped out like jewels from a broken crown.
Naught but the core of the great globe remained,
A skeleton of stone. And over it
The wrack of matter drifted like a cloud,
And then recoiled upon itself, and fell
Back on the empty world, that with the weight
Reeled, staggered, righted, and then headlong plunged
Into the darkness, as a ship, when struck
By a great sea, throws off the waves at first
On either side, then settles and goes down
Into the dark abyss, with her dead crew.

CAVALIERI.
But the earth does not move.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Who knows? who knowst?
There are great truths that pitch their shining tents
Outside our walls, and though but dimly seen
In the gray dawn, they will be manifest
When the light widens into perfect day.
A certain man, Copernicus by name,
Sometime professor here in Rome, has whispered
It is the earth, and not the sun, that moves.
What I beheld was only in a dream,
Yet dreams sometimes anticipate events,
Being unsubstantial images of things
As yet unseen.


V

MACELLO DE' CORVI

MICHAEL ANGELO, BENVENUTO CELLINI.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
So, Benvenuto, you return once more
To the Eternal City. 'T is the centre
To which all gravitates. One finds no rest
Elsewhere than here. There may be other cities
That please us for a while, but Rome alone
Completely satisfies. It becomes to all
A second native land by predilection,
And not by accident of birth alone.

BENVENUTO.
I am but just arrived, and am now lodging
With Bindo Altoviti. I have been
To kiss the feet of our most Holy Father,
And now am come in haste to kiss the hands
Of my miraculous Master.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
And to find him
Grown very old.

BENVENUTO.
You know that precious stones
Never grow old.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Half sunk beneath the horizon,
And yet not gone. Twelve years are a long while.
Tell me of France.

BENVENUTO.
It were too long a tale
To tell you all. Suffice in brief to say
The King received me well, and loved me well;
Gave me the annual pension that before me
Our Leonardo had, nor more nor less,
And for my residence the Tour de Nesle,
Upon the river-side.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
A princely lodging.

BENVENUTO.
What in return I did now matters not,
For there are other things, of greater moment,
I wish to speak of. First of all, the letter
You wrote me, not long since, about my bust
Of Bindo Altoviti, here in Rome. You said,
"My Benvenuto, I for many years
Have known you as the greatest of all goldsmiths,
And now I know you as no less a sculptor. "
Ah, generous Master! How shall I e'er thank you
For such kind language?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
By believing it.
I saw the bust at Messer Bindo's house,
And thought it worthy of the ancient masters,
And said so. That is all.

BENVENUTO.
It is too much;
And I should stand abashed here in your presence,
Had I done nothing worthier of your praise
Than Bindo's bust.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
What have you done that's better?

BENVENUTO.
When I left Rome for Paris, you remember
I promised you that if I went a goldsmith
I would return a sculptor. I have kept
The promise I then made.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Dear Benvenuto,
I recognized the latent genius in you,
But feared your vices.

BENVENUTO.
I have turned them all
To virtues. My impatient, wayward nature,
That made me quick in quarrel, now has served me
Where meekness could not, and where patience could not,
As you shall hear now. I have cast in bronze
A statue of Perseus, holding thus aloft
In his left hand the head of the Medusa,
And in his right the sword that severed it;
His right foot planted on the lifeless corse;
His face superb and pitiful, with eyes
Down-looking on the victim of his vengeance.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I see it as it should be.

BENVENUTO.
As it will be
When it is placed upon the Ducal Square,
Half-way between your David and the Judith
Of Donatello.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Rival of them both!

BENVENUTO.
But ah, what infinite trouble have I had
With Bandinello, and that stupid beast,
The major-domo of Duke Cosimo,
Francesco Ricci, and their wretched agent
Gorini, who came crawling round about me
Like a black spider, with his whining voice
That sounded like the buzz of a mosquito!
Oh, I have wept in utter desperation,
And wished a thousand times I had not left
My Tour do Nesle, nor e'er returned to Florence,
Or thought of Perseus. What malignant falsehoods
They told the Grand Duke, to impede my work,
And make me desperate!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
The nimble lie
Is like the second-hand upon a clock;
We see it fly; while the hour-hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal.

BENVENUTO.
My obstinacy
Stood me in stead, and helped me to o'ercome
The hindrances that envy and ill-will
Put in my way.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
When anything is done
People see not the patient doing of it,
Nor think how great would be the loss to man
If it had not been done. As in a building
Stone rests on stone, and wanting the foundation
All would be wanting, so in human life
Each action rests on the foregone event,
That made it possible, but is forgotten
And buried in the earth.

BENVENUTO.
Even Bandinello,
Who never yet spake well of anything,
Speaks well of this; and yet he told the Duke
That, though I cast small figures well enough,
I never could cast this.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
But you have done it,
And proved Ser Bandinello a false prophet.
That is the wisest way.

BENVENUTO.
And ah, that casting
What a wild scene it was, as late at night,
A night of wind and rain, we heaped the furnace
With pine of Serristori, till the flames
Caught in the rafters over us, and threatened
To send the burning roof upon our heads;
And from the garden side the wind and rain
Poured in upon us, and half quenched our fires.
I was beside myself with desperation.
A shudder came upon me, then a fever;
I thought that I was dying, and was forced
To leave the work-shop, and to throw myself
Upon my bed, as one who has no hope.
And as I lay there, a deformed old man
Appeared before me, and with dismal voice,
Like one who doth exhort a criminal
Led forth to death, exclaimed, "Poor Benvenuto,
Thy work is spoiled! There is no remedy! "
Then, with a cry so loud it might have reached
The heaven of fire, I bounded to my feet,
And rushed back to my workmen. They all stood
Bewildered and desponding; and I looked
Into the furnace, and beheld the mass
Half molten only, and in my despair
I fed the fire with oak, whose terrible heat
Soon made the sluggish metal shine and sparkle.
Then followed a bright flash, and an explosion,
As if a thunderbolt had fallen among us.
The covering of the furnace had been rent
Asunder, and the bronze was flowing over;
So that I straightway opened all the sluices
To fill the mould. The metal ran like lava,
Sluggish and heavy; and I sent my workmen
To ransack the whole house, and bring together
My pewter plates and pans, two hundred of them,
And cast them one by one into the furnace
To liquefy the mass, and in a moment
The mould was filled! I fell upon my knees
And thanked the Lord; and then we ate and drank
And went to bed, all hearty and contented.
It was two hours before the break of day.
My fever was quite gone.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
A strange adventure,
That could have happened to no man alive
But you, my Benvenuto.

BENVENUTO.
As my workmen said
To major-domo Ricci afterward,
When he inquired of them: "'T was not a man,
But an express great devil. "

MICHAEL ANGELO.
And the statue?

BENVENUTO.
Perfect in every part, save the right foot
Of Perseus, as I had foretold the Duke.
There was just bronze enough to fill the mould;
Not a drop over, not a drop too little.
I looked upon it as a miracle
Wrought by the hand of God.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
And now I see
How you have turned your vices into virtues.

BENVENUTO.
But wherefore do I prate of this? I came
To speak of other things. Duke Cosimo
Through me invites you to return to Florence,
And offers you great honors, even to make you
One of the Forty-Eight, his Senators.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
His Senators! That is enough. Since Florence
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,
Are sweeter to me than the garden flowers
Of other cities; and the desolate ring
Of the Campagna round about her walls
Fairer than all the villas that encircle
The towns of Tuscany.

BENVENUTO.
But your old friends!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
All dead by violence. Baccio Valori
Has been beheaded; Guicciardini poisoned;
Philippo Strozzi strangled in his prison.
Is Florence then a place for honest men
To flourish in? What is there to prevent
My sharing the same fate?

BENVENUTO.
Why this: if all
Your friends are dead, so are your enemies.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Is Aretino dead?

BENVENUTO.
He lives in Venice,
And not in Florence.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
'T is 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,
And with such subtle and infernal malice,
I wonder at his wickedness. 'T is he
Is the express great devil, and not you.
Some years ago he told me how to paint
The scenes of the Last Judgment.

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.

BENVENUTO.
Hypocrite!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
He says I show mankind that I am wanting
In piety and religion, in proportion
As I profess perfection in my art.
Profess perfection? Why, 't is only men
Like Bugiardini who are satisfied
With what they do. I never am content,
But always see the labors of my hand
Fall short of my conception.

BENVENUTO.
I perceive
The malice of this creature. He would taint you
With heresy, and in a time like this!
'T is infamous!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I represent the angels
Without their heavenly glory, and the saints
Without a trace of earthly modesty.

BENVENUTO.
Incredible audacity!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
The heathen
Veiled their Diana with some drapery,
And when they represented Venus naked
They made her by her modest attitude,
Appear half clothed. But I, who am a Christian,
Do so subordinate belief to art
That I have made the very violation
Of modesty in martyrs and in virgins
A spectacle at which all men would gaze
With half-averted eyes even in a brothel.

BENVENUTO.
He is at home there, and he ought to know
What men avert their eyes from in such places;
From the Last Judgment chiefly, I imagine.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
But divine Providence will never leave
The boldness of my marvellous work unpunished;
And the more marvellous it is, the more
'T is 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,
In that same letter, known to all the world,
Nature would not be forced, as she is now,
To feel ashamed that she invested me
With such great talent; that I stand myself
A very idol in the world of art.
He taunts me also with the Mausoleum
Of Julius, still unfinished, for the reason
That men persuaded the inane old man
It was of evil augury to build
His tomb while he was living; and he speaks
Of heaps of gold this Pope bequeathed to me,
And calls it robbery;--that is what he says.
What prompted such a letter?

BENVENUTO.
Vanity.
He is a clever writer, and he likes
To draw his pen, and flourish it in the face
Of every honest man, as swordsmen do
Their rapiers on occasion, but to show
How skilfully they do it. Had you followed
The advice he gave, or even thanked him for it,
You would have seen another style of fence.
'T is but his wounded vanity, and the wish
To see his name in print. So give it not
A moment's thought; it soon will be forgotten.

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.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
You have my answer. Nothing he can offer
Shall tempt me to leave Rome. My work is here,
And only here, the building of St. Peter's.
What other things I hitherto have done
Have fallen from me, are no longer mine;
I have passed on beyond them, and have left them
As milestones on the way.
What lies before me,
That is still mine, and while it is unfinished
No one shall draw me from it, or persuade me,
By promises of ease, or wealth, or honor,
Till I behold the finished dome uprise
Complete, as now I see it in my thought.

BENVENUTO.
And will you paint no more?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
No more.

BENVENUTO.
'T is well.
Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,
That fashions all her works in high relief,
And that is sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth,
Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire;
Men, women, and all animals that breathe
Are statues, and not paintings. Even the plants,
The flowers, the fruits, the grasses, were first sculptured,
And colored later. Painting is a lie,
A shadow merely.

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 majestic
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,
Being but imitation, not creation.
Henceforth I dedicate myself to her.

BENVENUTO.
And no more from the marble hew those forms
That fill us all with wonder?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Many statues
Will there be room for in my work. Their station
Already is assigned them in my mind.
But things move slowly. There are hindrances,
Want of material, want of means, delays
And interruptions, endless interference
Of Cardinal Commissioners, and disputes
And jealousies of artists, that annoy me.
But twill persevere until the work
Is wholly finished, or till I sink down
Surprised by death, that unexpected guest,
Who waits for no man's leisure, but steps in,
Unasked and unannounced, to put a stop
To all our occupations and designs.
And then perhaps I may go back to Florence;
This is my answer to Duke Cosimo.


VI

MICHAEL ANGELO'S STUDIO

MICHAEL ANGELO and URBINO.

MICHAEL ANGELO, pausing in his work.
Urbino, thou and I are both old men.
My strength begins to fail me.

URBINO.
Eccellenza.
That is impossible. Do I not see you
Attack the marble blocks with the same fury
As twenty years ago?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
'T is an old habit.
I must have learned it early from my nurse
At Setignano, the stone-mason's wife;
For the first sounds I heard were of the chisel
chipping away the stone.

URBINO.
At every stroke
You strike fire with your chisel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Ay, because
The marble is too hard.

URBINO.
It is a block
That Topolino sent you from Carrara.
He is a judge of marble.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I remember.
With it he sent me something of his making,--
A Mercury, with long body and short legs,
As if by any possibility
A messenger of the gods could have short legs.
It was no more like Mercury than you are,
But rather like those little plaster figures
That peddlers hawk about the villages
As images of saints. But luckily
For Topolino, there are many people
Who see no difference between what is best
And what is only good, or not even good;
So that poor artists stand in their esteem
On the same level with the best, or higher.

URBINO.
How Eccellenza laughed!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Poor Topolino!
All men are not born artists, nor will labor
E'er make them artists.

URBINO.
No, no more
Than Emperors, or Popes, or Cardinals.
One must be chosen for it. I have been
Your color-grinder six and twenty years,
And am not yet an artist.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Some have eyes
That see not; but in every block of marble
I see a statue,--see it as distinctly
As if it stood before me shaped and perfect
In attitude and action. I have only
To hew away the stone walls that imprison
The lovely apparition, and reveal it
To other eyes as mine already see it.
But I grow old and weak. What wilt thou do
When I am dead, Urbino?

URBINO.
Eccellenza,
I must then serve another master.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Never!
Bitter is servitude at best. Already
So many years hast thou been serving me;
But rather as a friend than as a servant.
We have grown old together. Dost thou 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.

URBINO.
Oh, Master!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I cannot have them with me on the journey
That I am undertaking. The last garment
That men will make for me will have no pockets.

URBINO, kissing the hand of MICHAEL ANGELO.
My generous master!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Hush!

URBINO.
My Providence!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Not a word more. Go now to bed, old man.
Thou hast served Michael Angelo. Remember,
Henceforward thou shalt serve no other master.



VII

THE OAKS OF MONTE LUCA

MICHAEL ANGELO, alone in the woods.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
How still it is among these ancient oaks!
Surges and undulations of the air
Uplift the leafy boughs, and let them fall
With scarce a sound. Such sylvan quietudes
Become old age. These huge centennial oaks,
That may have heard in infancy the trumpets
Of Barbarossa's cavalry, deride
Man's brief existence, that with all his strength
He cannot stretch beyond the hundredth year.
This little acorn, turbaned like the Turk,
Which with my foot I spurn, may be an oak
Hereafter, feeding with its bitter mast
The fierce wild boar, and tossing in its arms
The cradled nests of birds, when all the men
That now inhabit this vast universe,
They and their children, and their children's children,
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
And snow-white oxen grazing in the shade
Of the tall poplars on the river's brink.
O Nature, gentle mother, tender nurse!
I who have never loved thee as I ought,
But wasted all my years immured in cities,
And breathed the stifling atmosphere of streets,
Now come to thee for refuge. Here is peace.
Yonder I see the little hermitages
Dotting the mountain side with points of light,
And here St. Julian's convent, like a nest
Of curlews, clinging to some windy cliff.
Beyond the broad, illimitable plain
Down sinks the sun, red as Apollo's quoit,
That, by the envious Zephyr blown aside,
Struck Hyacinthus dead, and stained the earth
With his young blood, that blossomed into flowers.
And now, instead of these fair deities
Dread demons haunt the earth; hermits inhabit
The leafy homes of sylvan Hamadryads;
And jovial friars, rotund and rubicund,
Replace the old Silenus with his ass.

Here underneath these venerable oaks,
Wrinkled and brown and gnarled like them with age,
A brother of the monastery sits,
Lost in his meditations. What may be
The questions that perplex, the hopes that cheer him?
Good-evening, holy father.

MONK.
God be with you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Pardon a stranger if he interrupt
Your meditations.

MONK.
It was but a dream,--
The old, old dream, that never will come true;
The dream that all my life I have been dreaming,
And yet is still a dream.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
All men have dreams:
I have had mine; but none of them came true;
They were but vanity. Sometimes I think
The happiness of man lies in pursuing,
Not in possessing; for the things possessed
Lose half their value. Tell me of your dream.

MONK.
The yearning of my heart, my sole desire,
That like the sheaf of Joseph stands up right,
While all the others bend and bow to it;
The passion that torments me, and that breathes
New meaning into the dead forms of prayer,
Is that with mortal eyes I may behold
The Eternal City.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Rome?

MONK.
There is but one;
The rest are merely names. I think of it
As the Celestial City, paved with gold,
And sentinelled with angels.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Would it were.
I have just fled from it. It is beleaguered
By Spanish troops, led by the Duke of Alva.

MONK.
But still for me 't is the Celestial City,
And I would see it once before I die.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Each one must bear his cross.

MONK.
Were it a cross
That had been laid upon me, I could bear it,
Or fall with it. It is a crucifix;
I am nailed hand and foot, and I am dying!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
What would you see in Rome?

MONK.
His Holiness.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Him that was once the Cardinal Caraffa?
You would but see a man of fourscore years,
With sunken eyes, burning like carbuncles,
Who sits at table with his friends for hours,
Cursing the Spaniards as a race of Jews
And miscreant Moors. And with what soldiery
Think you he now defends the Eternal City?

MONK.
With legions of bright angels.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
So he calls them;
And yet in fact these bright angelic legions
Are only German Lutherans.

MONK, crossing himself.
Heaven protect us?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
What further would you see?

MONK.
The Cardinals,
Going in their gilt coaches to High Mass.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Men do not go to Paradise in coaches.

MONK.
The catacombs, the convents, and the churches;
The ceremonies of the Holy Week
In all their pomp, or, at the Epiphany,
The Feast of the Santissima Bambino
At Ara Coeli. But I shall not see them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
These pompous ceremonies of the Church
Are but an empty show to him who knows
The actors in them. Stay here in your convent,
For he who goes to Rome may see too much.
What would you further?

MONK.
I would see the painting
of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
The smoke of incense and of altar candles
Has blackened it already.

MONK.
Woe is me!
Then I would hear Allegri's Miserere,
Sung by the Papal choir.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
A dismal dirge!
I am an old, old man, and I have lived
In Rome for thirty years and more, and know
The jarring of the wheels of that great world,
Its jealousies, its discords, and its strife.
Therefore I say to you, remain content
Here in your convent, here among your woods,
Where only there is peace. Go not to Rome.
There was of old a monk of Wittenberg
Who went to Rome; you may have heard of him;
His name was Luther; and you know what followed.

[The convent bell rings.

MONK, rising.
It is the convent bell; it rings for vespers.
Let us go in; we both will pray for peace.



VIII

THE DEAD CHRIST.

MICHAEL ANGELO'S studio. MICHAEL ANGELO, with a light,
working upon the Dead Christ. Midnight.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
O Death, why is it I cannot portray
Thy form and features? Do I stand too near thee?
Or dost thou hold my hand, and draw me back,
As being thy disciple, not thy master?
Let him who knows not what old age is like
Have patience till it comes, and he will know.
I once had skill to fashion Life and Death
And Sleep, which is the counterfeit of Death;
And I remember what Giovanni Strozzi
Wrote underneath my statue of the Night
In San Lorenzo, ah, so long ago!

Grateful to me is sleep! More grateful now
Than it was then; for all my friends are dead;
And she is dead, the noblest of them all.
I saw her face, when the great sculptor Death,
Whom men should call Divine, had at a blow
Stricken her into marble; and I kissed
Her cold white hand. What was it held me back
From kissing her fair forehead, and those lips,
Those dead, dumb lips? Grateful to me is sleep!

Enter GIORGIO VASARI.

GIORGIO.
Good-evening, or good-morning, for I know not
Which of the two it is.

MICHAEL ANGELO.