Bindo Altoviti

BINDO.Good-morning, Messer Michael Angelo!

Good-morning, Messer Bindo Altoviti!

BINDO.What brings you forth so early?

The same reasonThat keeps you standing sentinel at your door,--The air of this delicious summer morning.What news have you from Florence?

BINDO.Nothing new;The same old tale of violence and wrong.Since the disastrous day at Monte Murlo,When in procession, through San Gallo's gate,Bareheaded, clothed in rags, on sorry steeds,Philippo Strozzi and the good ValoriWere led as prisoners down the streets of Florence,Amid the shouts of an ungrateful people,Hope is no more, and liberty no more.Duke Cosimo, the tyrant, reigns supreme.

Florence is dead: her houses are but tombs;Silence and solitude are in her streets.

BINDO.Ah yes; and often I repeat the wordsYou wrote upon your statue of the Night,There in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo:"Grateful to me is sleep; to be of stoneMore grateful, while the wrong and shame endure;To see not, feel not, is a benediction;Therefore awake me not; oh, speak in whispers."

Ah, Messer Bindo, the calamities,The fallen fortunes, and the desolationOf Florence are to me a tragedyDeeper than words, and darker than despair.I, who have worshipped freedom from my cradle,Have loved her with the passion of a lover,And clothed her with all lovely attributesThat the imagination can conceive,Or the heart conjure up, now see her dead,And trodden in the dust beneath the feetOf an adventurer! It is a griefToo great for me to bear in my old age.

BINDO.I say no news from Florence: I am wrong,For Benvenuto writes that he is comingTo be my guest in Rome.

Those are good tidings.He hath been many years away from us.

BINDO.Pray you, come in.

I have not time to stay,And yet I will. I see from here your houseIs filled with works of art. That bust in bronzeIs of yourself. Tell me, who is the masterThat works in such an admirable way,And with such power and feeling?

BINDO.Benvenuto.

Ah? Benvenuto? 'T is a masterpiece!It pleases me as much, and even more,Than the antiques about it; and yet theyAre of the best one sees. But you have placed itBy far too high. The light comes from below,And injures the expression. Were these windowsAbove and not beneath it, then indeedIt would maintain its own among these worksOf the old masters, noble as they are.I will go in and study it more closely.I always prophesied that Benvenuto,With all his follies and fantastic ways,Would show his genius in some work of artThat would amaze the world, and be a challengeUnto all other artists of his time.