MICHAEL ANGELO.
And what have you to show me?

BENVENUTO.
                    This gold ring,
Made for his Holiness,--my latest work,
And I am proud of it.  A single diamond
Presented by the Emperor to the Pope.
Targhetta of Venice set and tinted it;
I have reset it, and retinted it
Divinely, as you see.  The jewellers
Say I've surpassed Targhetta.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                      Let me see it.
A pretty jewel.

BENVENUTO.
           That is not the expression.
Pretty is not a very pretty word
To be applied to such a precious stone,
Given by an Emperor to a Pope, and set
By Benvenuto!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                 Messer Benvenuto,
I lose all patience with you; for the gifts
That God hath given you are of such a kind,
They should be put to far more noble uses
Than setting diamonds for the Pope of Rome.
You can do greater things.

BENVENUTO.
             The God who made me
Knows why he made me what I am,--a goldsmith,
A mere artificer.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                  Oh no; an artist
Richly endowed by nature, but who wraps
His talent in a napkin, and consumes
His life in vanities.

BENVENUTO.
                    Michael Angelo
May say what Benvenuto would not bear
From any other man.  He speaks the truth.
I know my life is wasted and consumed
In vanities; but I have better hours
And higher aspirations than you think.
Once, when a prisoner at St. Angelo,
Fasting and praying in the midnight darkness,
In a celestial vision I beheld
A crucifix in the sun, of the same substance
As is the sun itself.  And since that hour
There is a splendor round about my head,
That may he seen at sunrise and at sunset
Above my shadow on the grass.  And now
I know that I am in the grace of God,
And none henceforth can harm me.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                      None but one,--
None but yourself, who are your greatest foe.
He that respects himself is safe from others;
He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

BENVENUTO.
I always wear one.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                    O incorrigible!
At least, forget not the celestial vision.
Man must have something higher than himself
To think of.

BENVENUTO.
   That I know full well.  Now listen.
I have been sent for into France, where grow
The Lilies that illumine heaven and earth,
And carry in mine equipage the model
Of a most marvellous golden salt-cellar
For the king's table; and here in my brain
A statue of Mars Armipotent for the fountain
Of Fontainebleau, colossal, wonderful.
I go a goldsmith, to return a sculptor.
And so farewell, great Master.  Think of me
As one who, in the midst of all his follies,
Had also his ambition, and aspired
To better things.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
               Do not forget the vision.

[Sitting down again to the Divina Commedia.

Now in what circle of his poem sacred
Would the great Florentine have placed this man?
Whether in Phlegethon, the river of blood,
Or in the fiery belt of Purgatory,
I know not, but most surely not with those
Who walk in leaden cloaks.  Though he is one
Whose passions, like a potent alkahest,
Dissolve his better nature, he is not
That despicable thing, a hypocrite;
He doth not cloak his vices, nor deny them.
Come back, my thoughts, from him to Paradise.

IV.

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.