University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Cardinal Ippolito; Fra Sebastiano; Turkish attendants.
IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastiano, how your portly presence
Contrasts with that of the spare Florentine
Who has just left me!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
As we passed each other,
I saw that he was weeping.

IPPOLITO.
Poor old man!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Who is he?

IPPOLITO.
Jacopo Nardi. A brave soul;
One of the Fuorusciti, and the best
And noblest of them all; but he has made me
Sad with his sadness. As I look on you
My heart grows lighter. I behold a man
Who lives in an ideal world, apart
From all the rude collisions of our life,
In a calm atmosphere.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Your Eminence
Is surely jesting. If you knew the life
Of artists as I know it, you might think
Far otherwise.

IPPOLITO.
But wherefore should I jest?
The world of art is an ideal world,—
The world I love, and that I fain would live in;
So speak to me of artists and of art,
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians
That now illustrate Rome.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Of the musicians,
I know but Goudimel, the brave maestro
And chapel-master of his Holiness,
Who trains the Papal choir.

IPPOLITO.
In church, this morning,
I listened to a mass of Goudimel,
Divinely chanted. In the Incarnatus,
In lieu of Latin words, the tenor sang
With infinite tenderness, in plain Italian,
A Neapolitan love-song.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
You amaze me.
Was it a wanton song?

IPPOLITO.
Not a divine one.
I am not over-scrupulous, as you know,
In word or deed, yet such a song as that,
[Sung by the tenor of the Papal choir,]
And in a Papal mass, seemed out of place;
There 's something wrong in it.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
There 's something wrong
In everything. We cannot make the world
Go right. 'T is not my business to reform
The Papal choir.

IPPOLITO.
Nor mine, thank Heaven!
Then tell me of the artists.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Naming one
I name them all; for there is only one:
His name is Messer Michael Angelo.
All art and artists of the present day
Centre in him.

IPPOLITO.
You count yourself as nothing?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Or less than nothing, since I am at best
Only a portrait-painter; one who draws
With greater or less skill, as best he may,
The features of a face.

IPPOLITO.
And you have had
The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying
Julia Gonzaga! Do you count as nothing
A privilege like that? See there the portrait
Rebuking you with its divine expression.
Are you not penitent? He whose skilful hand
Painted that lovely picture has not right
To vilipend the art of portrait-painting.
But what of Michael Angelo?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
But lately
Strolling together down the crowded Corso,
We stopped, well pleased, to see your Eminence
Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature,
Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover
Of all things beautiful, and especially
When they are Arab horses, much admired,
And could not praise enough.

IPPOLITO,
to an attendant.
Hassan, to-morrow,
When I am gone, but not till I am gone,—
Be careful about that,—take Barbarossa
To Messer Michael Angelo the sculptor,
Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi,
Near to the Capitol; and take besides
Some ten mule-loads of provender, and say
Your master sends them to him as a present.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
A princely gift. Though Michael Angelo
Refuses presents from his Holiness,
Yours he will not refuse.

IPPOLITO.
You think him like
Thymœtes, who received the wooden horse
Into the walls of Troy. That book of Virgil
Have I translated in Italian verse,
And shall, some day, when we have leisure for it,
Be pleased to read you. When I speak of Troy
I am reminded of another town
And of a lovelier Helen, our dear Countess
Julia Gonzaga. [You remember, surely,
The adventure with the corsair Barbarossa,
And all that followed?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
A most strange adventure;
A tale as marvellous and full of wonder
As any in Boccaccio or Sacchetti;
Almost incredible!]

IPPOLITO.
Were I a painter
I should not want a better theme than that:
The lovely lady fleeing through the night
In wild disorder; and the brigands' camp
With the red fire-light on their swarthy faces.
Could you not paint it for me?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
No, not I.
It is not in my line.

IPPOLITO.
Then you shall paint
The portrait of the corsair, when we bring him
A prisoner chained to Naples; for I feel
Something like admiration for a man
Who dared this strange adventure.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
I will do it.
But catch the corsair first.

IPPOLITO.
You may begin
To-morrow with the sword. Hassan, come hither;
Bring me the Turkish scimitar that hangs
Beneath the picture yonder. Now unsheathe it.
'T is a Damascus blade; you see the inscription
In Arabic: La Allah! illa Allah!—
There is no God but God.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
How beautiful
In fashion and in finish! It is perfect.
The Arsenal of Venice cannot boast
A finer sword.

IPPOLITO.
You like it? It is yours.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
You do not mean it.

IPPOLITO.
I am not a Spaniard,
To say that it is yours and not to mean it.
I have at Itri a whole armory
Full of such weapons. When you paint the portrait
Of Barbarossa, it will be of use.
[You have not been rewarded as you should be
For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this bauble
Into the scale, and make the balance equal.]
Till then suspend it in your studio;
You artists like such trifles.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
I will keep it
In memory of the donor. Many thanks.

IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastian, I am growing tired of Rome,
The old dead city, with the old dead people;
Priests everywhere, like shadows on a wall,
And morning, noon, and night the ceaseless sound
Of convent bells. I must be gone from here;
[Though Ovid somewhere says that Rome is worthy
To be the dwelling-place of all the Gods,
I must be gone from here.] To-morrow morning
I start for Itri, and go thence by sea
To join the Emperor, who is making war
Upon the Algerines; perhaps to sink
Some Turkish galleys, and bring back in chains
The famous corsair. Thus would I avenge
The beautiful Gonzaga.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
An achievement
Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando.
Berni and Ariosto both shall add
A canto to their poems, and describe you
As Furioso and Innamorato.
Now I must say good-night.

IPPOLITO.
You must not go;
First you shall sup with me. My seneschal,
Giovan Andrea dal Borgo a San Sepolcro,—
I like to give the whole sonorous name,
It sounds so like a verse of the Æneid,—
Has brought me eels fresh from the Lake of Fondi,
[And Lucrine oysters cradled in their shells;
These, with red Fondi wine, the Cæcuban
That Horace speaks of, under a hundred keys
Kept safe, until the heir of Posthumus
Shall stain the pavement with it, make a feast]
Fit for Lucullus, or Fra Bastian even;
So we will go to supper, and be merry.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Beware! Remember that Bolsena's eels
And Vernage wine once killed a Pope of Rome!

IPPOLITO.
'T was a French Pope; and then so long ago;
Who knows?—perhaps the story is not true.