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.