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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. | 5 |
| 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. Aye, because | 10 |
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, | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| On the same level with the best, or higher. | |
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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. | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
Two thousand crowns in gold.
URBINO. Two thousand crowns! | |
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MICHAEL ANGELO. Ay, it will make thee rich. Thou shalt not die | |
A beggar in a hospital.
URBINO. Oh, Master! | |
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MICHAEL ANGELO. I cannot have them with me on the journey | |
| That I am undertaking. The last garment | 55 |
| That men will make for me will have no pockets. | |
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URBINO, kissing the hand of MICHAEL ANGELO. My generous master!
MICHAEL ANGELO. Hush!
URBINO. My Providence! | |
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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. | 60 |
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