University of Virginia Library

SCENE—The Study of Michael Angelo at Rome.
Michael Angelo and Pupils.
MICHAEL.
So, 'tis well done, Battista; ably drawn.
Do thus, and thou wilt need no marble fame.

FIRST PUPIL.
Look, Michael!

MICHAEL.
Ah! 'tis bad. These colors sleep
Like death upon thy figures: touch them thus.
This flesh is like a cardinal, red and dull:
Thought should lie pale upon the scholar's cheek;
Thus,—thus. And now, my young friend, Cosimo,
Give me thy sketch; nay do not fear me. So!
Why thou hast overwrought this shape, my child,
Cheating (fie on't!) air-travelling Ganymede
Of his boy-beauty. See, 'tis thus: that eye,
Lash't with dark fringe: touch the lip tenderly;
And hide his forehead all in cloudy gold.
See, let him lie thus; helpless; thus, my child;
And clasp the eagle's talon round his arm.
There, it is done. What think'st thou?

SECOND PUPIL.
Oh! 'tis brave,
'Tis brave. Thy eagle is the king of eagles,
As thou art king of painters.

MICHAEL.
Idle child!

SECOND PUPIL.
Shall I win fame?

MICHAEL.
Fame is a bounteous tree:
Upon its branches hang bubbles and gold.
Which wilt thou have?

SECOND PUPIL.
Both, Michael.

MICHAEL.
Art so greedy?
Thou'lt scarcely prosper. Wilt thou be the dog
Who grasped at flesh and shadow, and lost all?
Bring me that head of Faunus, Giacomo:
That—big as a giant, with the snaky locks,
And the wild eyes, and nostrils stretched and blown.
Ha! this is right.

THIRD PUPIL.
'Tis like a Titan, Michael.
None but thyself can master these great shapes.

MICHAEL.
Ha, ha!—There, give it me, good Giacomo.
Why, how thou fix'st thine eye upon its eye:
Wouldst thou wage battle with it, Giacomo?

THIRD PUPIL.
Shall I not copy it?

MICHAEL.
Surely: but take heed:
Mar not the thought which thou dost gaze upon,
Translating it in blind obedience;
But steal the spirit, as old Prometheus won
From Phœbus' fiery wheels the living light.
It is not dainty shadows, nor harlot hues,
(Though flushed with sunset, like Vecelli's gawds,)
Will make a painter. Take great heed the mind
Live in the eye, and the wild appetite
Breathe through the bosom and the sinewy shape.
Come near me. Mark! do not thou miss that turn.

RAFFAELLE enters.
RAFFAELLE.
Good morrow, Michael. How thrive thy designs
For the Pope's chapel?

A PUPIL.
Buonarotti!

MICHAEL.
Ha!
Who speaks?

RAFFAELLE.
Thy pupil. Come I in good time?

MICHAEL.
Look and decide.

[Shows a Picture.
RAFFAELLE.
'Tis grand and beautiful.

MICHAEL.
This visage came upon me while I slept.

RAFFAELLE.
O the rich sleep! Couldst thou not cozen her
To quit her poppies, and aye toil for thee?

MICHAEL.
Methought I lived three thousand years ago,
Somewhere in Egypt, near a pyramid;
And in my dream I heard black Memnon playing:
He stood twelve cubits high, and, with a voice
Like thunder when it breaks on hollow shores,
Called on the sky, which answered. Then he awoke
His marble music, and with grave sweet sounds
Enchanted from her chamber the coy Dawn.
He sang, too—O such songs! Silence, who lay
Torpid upon those wastes of level sand,
Stirred and grew human: from its shuddering reeds
Stole forth the crocodile, and birds of blood
Hung listening in the rich and burning air.

RAFFAELLE.
Didst dream all this?

MICHAEL.
Ay, Raffaelle; and so gazed
On Theban Memnon, that his image sunk
Fixed in my brain. Lo! this is he thou look'st on.

RAFFAELLE.
Sad watcher of the hours, which slowly creep
Through melancholy nights and desert days!
His look oppresses me.—What's he? ah, ha!
'Tis Faunus, is it not? That wreath of leaves,
The crook, the panther skin, the laughing eyes,
And the round cheek—or Bacchus? Ah, 'tis he.

MICHAEL.
No; 'tis the wood-god Faunus.

RAFFAELLE.
A brave god.
Stay!—let me gaze upon it. Thus—ay thus:
You drove your pencil round, and thus—and thus.
I never stood before a face so fine.

MICHAEL.
'Tis a free sketch; I know it.

RAFFAELLE.
Thou shouldst paint
Gods, my good Michael, and leave earth to me.

MICHAEL.
The children and the women thou wilt have:
What need to ask what thou hast won already.

RAFFAELLE.
Hark! there are footsteps coming.

MICHAEL.
'Tis the Pope.

[Pope Julius II. enters, with Attendants.]
POPE.
We come to visit thee, good Buonarotti.

MICHAEL.
Your holiness is welcome.

POPE.
What hast thou done?

MICHAEL.
Since yesterday?—but little, save design:
This head, and that.

POPE.
This takes my fancy much.

RAFFAELLE.
Your holiness is right.

POPE.
So, who art thou?

MICHAEL.
'Tis Raffaelle Sanzio.

POPE.
Ha! and who is he?

MICHAEL.
A painter, holy father; and a good one.

POPE.
What else?

MICHAEL.
Some drawings, which your holiness
Will prize but little. I've been plotting lately.

POPE.
Thine is a tedious art: is't not so, Michael?

MICHAEL.
'Tis hard to compass.

POPE.
Um!—and slow to live.

MICHAEL.
True;—but it lives for aye.

RAFFAELLE.
Right! like Renown,
Which clothes with sun and life the deeds of men;
Building on earth a world which may outlast
Its strong foundation. Give me Fame, on earth;
And, when I leave sweet earth, a finer sphere,
Where Beauty breathes thro' endless summer morns.
Let me have voices, too, heart-wakening words,
All touched like pictures with the soul of thought:
So will I dream over Elysian flowers,
And listen to music, and quaff nectar-dew,
And lie in the light of love, and paint for ever—

POPE.
Peace! peace! what's this?

MICHAEL.
He hath a liberal fancy.

POPE.
He fills his horn fuller than Fortune's.

MICHAEL.
Now I would rather lie on some vast plain,
And hear the wolves upbraiding the cold moon,
Or on a rock when the blown thunder comes
Booming along the wind. My dreams are nought,
Unless with gentler figures fierce ones mix;
Giants with Angels, Death with Life, Despair
With Joy:—even the Great One comes in terror
To me, apparelled like the fiery storm.

RAFFAELLE.
Thy fancy was begat i' the clouds.

MICHAEL.
My soul
Finds best communion with both ill and good:
Some spirits there are, all earth, which only thrive
In wine or laughter: But my nature seeks
Darkness and Night, Power or the death of Power:
A mountain riven—a palace sacked—a town
Rent by an earthquake (such as once uptore
Catania from its roots, and sent it down
To the centre, split in fragments)—Famine; Plague;
Earth running red with blood, or deluge-drowned:
These are my dreams:—and sometimes, when my brain
Is calm, I lie awake and think of God.

POPE.
Michael!

MICHAEL.
A vision comes which has no shape;
None, though I strain my sight, and strive to draw
Some mighty fashion on the trembling dark,—
'Tis gone:—again I draw, again 'tis flown;
And so I toil in vain.

POPE.
But thou must dream
Again for me, good Michael. We must show
A dream that shall outlast the walls of Rome.

MICHAEL.
I'll do my best; but thought is as a root
That strikes which way it will through the dark brain:
I cannot force't.

RAFFAELLE.
What wilt thou paint—a World?

MICHAEL.
Ay, its Creation.

RAFFAELLE.
Make it fresh and fair:
Breathe all thy soul upon it, until it glow
Like day. Clasp it all round with Paradise,
Color, and light, green bowers—

MICHAEL.
I'll make it bare.
Like man when he comes forth, a naked wretch,
So shall his dwelling be,—the barren soil.

POPE.
This must not be. It is not writ i' The Book.

MICHAEL.
Pardon me: I must chase my own poor thought,
Which way soever it turn.

RAFFAELLE.
Still earth should bloom!

MICHAEL.
It should be like the time. I will not paint
Antediluvian Adam when first he sprang
From dust,—strong, active, like the autumnal stag;
But with limbs dawning into sinewy strength.
Nor will I plant the full-blown intellect
On his bright eye, but therein gently unfold
Young Adoration—

RAFFAELLE.
Right! 'Twill grow and blossom.
Now for thine Eve.

MICHAEL.
Um! Must there be a woman?

RAFFAELLE.
‘Must!’—Thou wouldst paint a barren world indeed.
Thou never lovedst.

MICHAEL.
I have: nay, I love still.

RAFFAELLE.
Whom? what?

MICHAEL.
Mine Art.

RAFFAELLE.
Why, so do I: yet I love women too.
Thy humor feeds one sense and starves the rest.

POPE.
A poor economy. The youth speaks well.

MICHAEL.
Perhaps: yet, the first man was born alone,
Companionless, a prodigy like Light.
Birds and the desert brutes awaited him:
Nought else. A world there was (fair if thou wilt);
Yet Eden grew not before Adam rose.
After his birth, indeed, we may have wrought
That pleasant garden, wherein the Devil stole
And tempted Raffaelle's goddess soon to sin.

RAFFAELLE.
Stop there, stop there! The man—

MICHAEL.
Alas! he fell.
He ate perdition from the woman's hand.
Death for himself—(he was not born to die,
But live the lord of this eternal star)—
Death for himself and race, despair and toil,
Peril, and passion which no joy can quench,
Grief here, and Hell hereafter,—these he earned.
Shall I paint all this truly?

RAFFAELLE.
Why not?—yes.

POPE.
Do as thou wilt. Man's life is full of troubles.

MICHAEL.
It is a pillar writ on every side
With fiery figures. Shall we show them all?

POPE.
No: the first fall; no more.

MICHAEL.
Yes, the fierce moral.
That let me do; for I have sketched already
Dark phantasies, and broke up graves, and blown
(In thought) the heart-piercing trumpet, whose loud cry
Shall blast the dreams of millions.

POPE.
What is this?

RAFFAELLE.
The Judgment?

MICHAEL.
Ay, the Judgment.
Look!—In the middle, near the top, shall stand
Jesus, the Saviour: by his side mild crowds
Of followers, and Apostles hovering near.
Here shall be seen the bless'd, and there the damned;
Sinners, whom diabolic strength shall hurl
Down to perdition. Insolent visages,
Born in the reign of Sin, shall flesh their fangs;
Dwarfs, devils, and hideous things, and brute abortions;
Some who make sick the moon, and some who hide
Their monstrous foreheads in a reptile's mask:
Pale Palsy, and crook'd Spasm, and bloated Plague,
And Fear, made manifest, shall fill the wind
With Hell,—for Hell is horror, linked to pain.

RAFFAELLE.
No more. Thou dost bewitch my flesh to ice.

POPE.
No more, good Buonarotti. Now farewell!

MICHAEL.
Farewell!

RAFFAELLE.
Thy figures haunt me, like Disease.
I must go hear some Roman melody,
Accomplished music, and sweet human words,
And bask beneath the smiles which thou dost scorn.
When I am disenchanted—

MICHAEL.
Come again.

RAFFAELLE.
I will: farewell! Father, thy holy blessing.

POPE.
My blessing on thee, son! Michael, farewell!

[Exeunt.