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"Johannes Agricola in Meditation" presents the doctrine of predestination as it appears to a devout and poetic soul whose conviction of the truth of such a doctrine has the strength of a divine revelation. Those elected for God's love can do nothing to weaken it, those not elected can do nothing to gain it, but it is not his to reason why; indeed, he could not praise a god whose ways he could understand or for whose love he had to bargain.

PICTOR IGNOTUS

FLORENCE, 15-

I could have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar Stayed me--ah, thought which saddens while it soothes! --Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night with all my gift Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan 10 The license and the limit, space and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; 20 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved-- 0 human faces, hath it spilt, my cup? What did ye give me that I have not saved? Nor will I say I have not dreamed Of going--I, in each new picture--forth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly-satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 30 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!-- Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend-- The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear! 40 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites! This world seemed not the world it was before: Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped . . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of--"This I love, or this I hate, This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series. Virgin, Babe and Saint, 60 With the same cold calm beautiful regard-- At least no merchant traffics in my heart; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart; Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures! surely, gently die! O youth, men praise so--holds their praise its worth? 70 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?

NOTES

"Pictor Ignotus" is a reverie characteristic of a monastic painter of the Renaissance who recognizes, in the genius of a youth whose pictures are praised, a gift akin to his own, but which he has never so exercised, spite of the joy such free human expression and recognition of his power would have given him, because he could not bear to submit his art to worldly contact. So he has chosen to sink his name in unknown service to the Church, and to devote his fancy to pure and beautiful but cold and monotonous repetitions of sacred themes. His gentle regret that his own pictures will moulder unvisited is half wonderment that the youth can endure the sullying of his work by secular fame.

FRA LIPPO LIPPI

>>Eik? minulle hiiskuta sanaakaan! Minulta salataan kaikki. Minut syrj?ytet??n!>> toisti taas senaattori.

>>Niin, min? olen salannut sen sinulta, Thomas, sill? tunsin, ett? minun t?ytyi t?ytt?? kuolevan tahto... ja tiesin sinun tahtovan est?? minua siit?!>>

>>Niin. Kautta taivaan! Sen olisin tehnyt!>>

>>Eik? sinulla olisi ollut oikeutta siihen, sill? kolme muuta lasta ovat minun puolellani.>>

>>Luulisipa minun mielipiteeni vastaavan kahden naisen ja yhden narrin ajatusta...>>

>>Sin? puhut yht? rakkaudettomasti sisaristasi kuin puhut minulle!>>

>>Klara oli hurskas, mutta tiet?m?t?n nainen, ?iti! Ja Tony on lapsi -- joka ei muuten t?h?n asti ole tiennyt mit??n, muuten h?n olisi l?rp?tellyt siit? etuk?teen, eik? niin? Ja ent? Christian?... Tiburtius on tietysti hankkinut h?nen suostumuksensa... Kuka olisi voinut ajatella h?nest? sellaista?!... Etk? sin? viel?k??n tied?, viel?k??n ?ly?, mik? h?n on, tuo ovela pappi? H?n on lurjus! Perinn?n tavoittelija...!>>

>>V?vyt ovat aina lurjuksia>>, sanoi rouva Permaneder kolkolla ??nell?.

>>Perinn?ntavoittelija! Mit? h?n tekee? Matkustaa Hampuriin, istuutuu Christianin vuoteen ??reen ja taivuttaa h?net puolelleen. 'Kyll?', sanoo Christian. 'Kyll? minun puolestani, Tiburtius. Mutta voitteko k?sitt?? mink?lainen vaiva minulla on vasemmassa kyljess?ni?... ?h! Tyhmyys ja kehnous ovat liittyneet minua vastaan --!>> Senaattori, joka seisoi ep?toivoisena nojaten uunin rautaristikkoon, painoi molemmat nyrkkiin puristetut k?det otsaansa vasten.

Tuo j?rkkynyt mielentila ei vastannut olosuhteita! Eiv?t nuo 127 000 markkaa olleet saaneet h?nt? t?llaiseen tilaan, jollaisena kukaan ei viel? ollut n?hnyt h?nt?! Se johtui siit?, ett? t?m? viimeinen isku muodosti uuden renkaan viimeaikaisten tappioiden ja n?yryytysten ketjussa, joita h?n oli saanut kokea kauppa- ja yleisiss? asioissa, ja ?rsytti h?nen aristanutta mielt??n yh? enemm?n... Ei mik??n sujunut en??! Ei mik??n k?ynyt en?? h?nen tahtonsa mukaan! Oltiinko siis niin pitk?ll?, ett? h?net >>syrj?ytettiin>> h?nen isiens? talossa t?rkeimmist? asioista p??tett?ess?...? Muuan Riiasta oleva pappi oli siis salaa pett?nyt h?net?... H?n olisi voinut sen ehk?ist?, mutta h?nen neuvoaan ei oltu ollenkaan kysytty. Tapaukset olivat sujuneet ilman h?nt?! Mutta h?nest? tuntui silt? kuin ei se t?h?n asti olisi ollut mahdollista, ettei sit? t?h?n asti olisi uskallettu tehd?! T?m? j?rkytti uudelleen h?nen uskoaan onneen, voimaan, tulevaisuuteen... Ja h?n paljasti nyt ?itins? ja sisarensa edess? oman sis?isen heikkoutensa ja ep?toivonsa.

Rouva Permaneder nousi syleilem??n h?nt?.

>>Tom>>, sanoi h?n, >>tyynny toki! Tule toki j?rkiisi. Oliko se niin pahasti tehty? Sin?h?n tulet sairaaksi! Ehkei Tiburtius el? niin kauan... ja h?nen kuoltuaan lankeaa perint? takaisin meille! Ja voihan p??t?ksen muuttaakin, jos sin? tahdot! Eik? voikin, ?iti?>>

Konsulitar vastasi vain nyyhkytt?en.

>>Ei... ei voi!>> sanoi senaattori kohoten suoraksi ja tehden k?dell??n torjuvan liikkeen. >>Mik? on tehty, se on tehty. Vai luuletteko te minun rupeavan juoksemaan oikeudessa ja k?r?j?im??n ?iti?ni vastaan sek? muuttamaan perheenkeskisen h?pe?n julkiseksi? K?yk??n miten k?y...>> lopetti h?n puheensa ja l?hti veltosti lasiovea kohti, jossa h?n viel? kerran seisahtui.

>>Mutta ?lk?? luulko, ett? meid?n asiamme ovat kovinkaan loistavat>>, sanoi h?n hiljaa. >>Tony on menett?nyt 80.000 markkaa... Christian on h?vitt?miens? 50.000 markan lis?ksi saanut jo 30.000 perinn?st??n... joka summa on nouseva siksi ett? h?n on ihan ilman tointa ja tulee tarvitsemaan hoitoa ?ynhausenissa... Nyt on viel? Klaran my?t?j?issumma i?ksi mennytt? ja sit?paitsi koko h?nen perint?osuutensa joutuva suvun k?ytett?vist? ep?m??r?isiksi ajoiksi... Ja liikeasiat ovat k?yneet huonosti, toivottoman huonosti siit? hetkest? alkaen, jolloin min? panin yli satatuhatta talooni... Voi hyv?t ihmiset, ei ole hyv? sen perheen laita, jossa riidell??n, kuten me olemme tehneet. Uskokaa minua -- uskokaa mit? min? nyt sanon: Jos is? olisi elossa, jos h?n olisi n?hnyt t?m?n, olisi h?n ristinyt k?tens? ja rukoillut meid?n kaikkien puolesta.>>

KAHDEKSAS LUKU.

Sota ja sotahuutoja, majoitusta ja hy?rin??! Preussil?isi? upseereja kulkee senaattori Buddenbrookin loistokerroksen parkettilattioilla, suutelee talonrouvan k?tt? ja k?y klubissa Christianin kanssa, joka on palannut ?ynhausenista, -- samalla kuin Mengstrassen varrella mamsseli Severin, konsulinnan uusi neitsyt, raahaa palvelustytt?jen kanssa aluspatjoja >>porttaaliin>>, vanhaan puutan't I take breath and try to add life's flash, And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? Or say there's beauty with no soul at all-- If you get simple beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents: That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed, Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 220 "Rub all out! "Well, well, there's my life, in short, And so the thing has gone on ever since. I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: You should not take a fellow eight years old And make him swear to never kiss the girls. I'm my own master, paint now as I please-- Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front-- Those great rings serve more purposes than just To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! 230 And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, The heads shake still--"It's art's decline, my son! You're not of the true painters, great and old; Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them--sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints-- A laugh, a cry, the business of the world-- <> And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 250 The world and life's too big to pass for a dream, And I do these wild things in sheer despite, And play the fooleries you catch me at, In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, Although the miller does not preach to him The only good of grass is to make chaff. What would men have? Do they like grass or no-- May they or may n't they? all I want's the thing Settled forever one way. As it is, 260 You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: You don't like what you only like too much, You do like what, if given you at your word, You find abundantly detestable. For me, I think I speak as I was taught; I always see the garden and God there A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned, The value and significance of flesh, I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards,

You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 270 But see, now--why, I see as certainly As that the morning-star's about to shine, What will hap some day. We've a youngster here Comes to our convent, studies what I do, Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: His name is Guidi--he'll not mind the monks-- They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk-- He picks my practice up--he'll paint apace, I hope so--though I never live so long, I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! 280 You speak no Latin more than I, belike; However, you're my man, you've seen the world --The beauty and the wonder and the power, The shapes of things, their colors, lights and shades, Changes, surprises,--and God made it all! --For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, The mountain round it and the sky above, Much more the figures of man, woman, child, These are the frame to? What's it all about? 290 To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon, Wondered at? oh, this last of course!--you say. But why not do as well as say--paint these Just as they are, careless what comes of it? God's works--paint any one, and count it crime To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works Are here already; nature is complete: Suppose you reproduce her There's no advantage! you must beat her, then." For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love 300 First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, painted--better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, And trust me but you should, though! How much more, If I drew higher things with the same truth! That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 310 Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh, It makes me mad to see what men shall do And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink. "Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain It does not say to folk--remember matins, Or, mind you fast next Friday! "Why, for this What need of art at all? A skull and bones, 320 Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. I painted a Saint Laurence six months since At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: " How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns-- "Already not one phiz of your three slaves Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, The pious people have so eased their own 330 With coming to say prayers there in a rage: We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. Expect another job this time next year, For pity and religion grow i' the crowd-- Your painting serves its purpose! Hang the fools!

--That is--you'll not mistake an idle word Spoke in a huff by a poor monk. God wot, Tasting the air this spicy night which turns The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! 340 It's natural a poor monk out of bounds Should have his apt word to excuse himself: And hearken how I plot to make amends. I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece . . . There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint God in the midst. Madonna and her babe, Ringed by a bowery flowery angel-brood, Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 350 As puff on puff of grated orris-root When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. And then i' the front, of course a saint or two-- Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white The convent's friends and gives them a long day, And Job, I must have him there past mistake, The man of Uz . Well, all these Secured at their devotion, up shall come 360 Out of a corner when you least expect, As one by a dark stair into a great light, Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!-- Mazed, motionless and moonstruck--I'm the man! Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear? I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake, My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, I, in this presence, this pure company! Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 370 Forward, puts out a soft palm--"Not so fast!" --Addresses the celestial presence, "nay-- He made you and devised you, after all, Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw-- His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? We come to brother Lippo for all that, " So, all smile-- I shuffle sideways with my blushing face Under the cover of a hundred wings Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay 380 And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off To some safe bench behind, not letting go The palm of her, the little lily thing That spoke the good word for me in the nick, Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. And so all's saved for me, and for the church A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! 390 The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. Zooks!

NOTES

"Fra Lippo Lippi" is a dramatic monologue which incidentally conveys the whole story of the occurrence the poem starts from--the seizure of Fra Lippo by the City Guards, past midnight, in an equivocal neighborhood--and the lively talk that arose thereupon, outlines the character and past life of the Florentine artist-monk and the subordinate personalities of the group of officers; and makes all this contribute towards the presentation of Fra Lippo as a type of the more realistic and secular artist of the Renaissance who valued flesh, and protested against the ascetic spirit which strove to isolate the soul.

"Flower of the pine! Call me not ever happy heart again, But call me heavy heart, 0 comrades mine."

"Flower of the broom! Unwed thy mother keeps thee not to lose That flower from the window of the room."

ANDREA DEL SARTO

But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him--but to-morrow. Love! 10 I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual, and it seems As if--forgive now--should you let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, Both of one mind, as married people use, Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! 20 Your soft hand is a woman of itself, And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so-- My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! --How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet-- My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, 30 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less. You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, There's what we painters call our harmony! A common grayness silvers everything-- All in a twilight, you and I alike --You, at the point of your first pride in me --but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 40 There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape-- As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 50 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! This chamber for example--turn your head-- All that's behind us! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door --It is the thing. Love! so such things should be-- Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say. I can do with my pencil what I know, 60 What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep-- Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, And just as much they used to say in France. At any rate 'tis easy, all of it! No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives, --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, 70 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive--you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat-- Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says, --so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 80 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word-- Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself, 90 Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Sightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray Placid, and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art--for it gives way; 110 That arm is wrongly put--and there again-- A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right--that, a child may understand. Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch-- Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you! Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-- 120 More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare-- Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "God and the glory! never care for gain. The present by the future, what is that? Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! 130 Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power-- And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'T is safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! 150 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look-- One finger in his beard or twisted curl Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 160 Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts-- And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward! A good time, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless . . . but I know-- 'T is done and past; 't was right, my instinct said, Too live the life grew, golden and not gray, And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 170 How could it end in any other way? You called me, and I came home to your heart. The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! "Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman's is the better when you pray, But still the other's Virgin was his wife--" Men will excuse me, I am glad to judge 180 Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think. For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael's . . . I have known it all these years . . . "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, 190 Who, were he set to plan and execute As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!" To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong. I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here--quick, thus the line should go! Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out! Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 200 If really there was such a chance, so lost-- Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased. Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! This hour has been an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 Come from the window, love--come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? he waits outside? 220 Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The gray remainder of the evening out, Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly How I could paint, were I but back in France, One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face, 230 Not yours this time! I want you at my side To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo-- Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, 240 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis!--it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want. 250 Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have labored somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-- 260 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me To cover--the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So--still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia--as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

NOTES

"Andrea del Sarto." This monologue reveals, beside the personalities of both Andrea and Lucretia and the main incidents of their lives, the relations existing between Andrea's character, his choice of a wife, and the peculiar quality of his art; the whole serving, also, to illustrate the picture on which the poem is based. The gray tone that silvers the picture pervades the poem with an air of helpless, resigned melancholy, and sets forth the fatal quality of facile craftsmanship joined with a flaccid spirit. --Mr. John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's cousin, asked Browning to get him a copy of the picture of Andrea and his wife in the Pitti Palace. Browning, being unable to find one, wrote this poem describing it, instead. Andrea , because his father was a tailor, was called del Sarto, also, il pittore senza errori, "the faultless painter."

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15-

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews--sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well-- She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with. God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk; And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 --Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! . . . Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah God, of , Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 50 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-- 'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then! 'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve. My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 70 One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? --That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line-- Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: 90 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, --Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! 100 Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, 110 To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone-- Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through-- And no more lapis to delight the world! Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs 120 --Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers-- Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

NOTES

"The Bishop orders his Tomb" This half-delirious pleading of the dying prelate for a tomb which shall gratify his luxurious artistic tastes and personal rivalries, presents dramatically not merely the special scene of the worldly old bishop's petulant struggle against his failing power, and his collapse, finally, beneath the will of his so-called nephews, it also illustrates a characteristic gross form of the Renaissance spirit encumbered with Pagan survivals, fleshly appetites, and selfish monopolizings which hampered its development.-- "It is nearly all that I said of the Central Renaissance--its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin--in thirty pages of the 'Stones of Venice,' put into as many lines, Browning's being also the antecedent work" . The Church of St.Praxed is notable for the beauty of its stone-work and mosaics, one of its chapels being so extraordinarily rich that it was called , or the Garden of Paradise; and so, although the bishop and his tomb there are imaginary, it supplies an appropriate setting for the poetic scene.

Thyrsus: the ivy-coiled staffer spear stuck in a pine-cone, symbol of Bacchic orgy. These, with the other Pagan tokens and pictures, mingle oddly but significantly with the references to the Saviour, Saint Praxed, and Moses. See also line 92, where Saint Praxed is confused with the Saviour, in the mind of the dying priest. Saint Praxed, the virgin daughter of a Roman Senator and friend of Saint Paul, in whose honor the Bishop's Church is named, is again brought forward in lines 73-75 in a queer capacity which pointedly illustrates the speaker and his time.

BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith! We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. It's different, preaching in basilicas, And doing duty in some masterpiece Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart! I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere; It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh? These hot long ceremonies of our church 10 Cost us a little--oh, they pay the price, You take me--amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. No deprecation--nay, I beg you, sir! Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know, I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out, We'd see truth dawn together?--truth that peeps Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time: 20 Truth's break of day! You do despise me then. And if I say, "despise me"--never fear! 1 know you do not in a certain sense-- Not in my arm-chair, for example: here, I well imagine you respect my place Quite to its value--very much indeed: --Are up to the protesting eyes of you In pride at being seated here for once-- You'll turn it to such capital account! 30 When somebody, through years and years to come, Hints of the bishop--names me--that's enough: "Blougram? I knew him"-- "Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day, All alone, we two; he's a clever man: And after dinner--why, the wine you know-- Oh, there was wine, and good!--what with the wine . . . 'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk! He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen Something of mine he relished, some review: 40 He's quite above their humbug in his heart, Half-said as much, indeed--the thing's his trade. I warrant, Blougram 's sceptical at times: How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!" , my dear sir, as we say at Rome, Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take; You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths: The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.

So, drawing comfortable breath again, You weigh and find, whatever more or less I boast of my ideal realized 80 Is nothing in the balance when opposed To your ideal, your grand simple life, Of which you will not realize one jot. I am much, you are nothing; you would be all, I would be merely much: you beat me there.

No, friend, you do not beat me: hearken why! The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, Is--not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be--but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair 90 Up to our means: a very different thing! No abstract intellectual plan of life Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, May lead within a world which Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise. Embellish Rome, idealize away, Make paradise of London if you can, You're welcome, nay, you're wise.

A simile! We mortals cross the ocean of this world 100 Each in his average cabin of a life; The best's not big, the worst yields elbow-room. Now for our six months' voyage--how prepare? You come on shipboard with a landsman's list Of things he calls convenient: so they are! An India screen is pretty furniture, A piano-forte is a fine resource, All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf, The new edition fifty volumes long; And little Greek books, with the funny type 110 They get up well at Leipsic, fill the next: Go on! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes! And Parma's pride, the Jerome, let us add! 'T were pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glow Hang full in face of one where'er one roams, Since he more than the others brings with him Italy's self--the marvellous Modenese!-- Yet was not on your list before, perhaps. --Alas, friend, here's the agent . . . is 't the name? The captain, or whoever's master here-- 120 You see him screw his face up; what's his cry Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!" If you won't understand what six feet mean, Compute and purchase stores accordingly-- And if, in pique because he overhauls Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board Bare--why, you cut a figure at the first While sympathetic landsmen see you off; Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, You peep up from your utterly naked boards 130 Into some snug and well-appointed berth, Like mine for instance And mortified you mutter "Well and good; He sits enjoying his sea-furniture; 'Tis stout and proper, and there's store of it; Though I've the better notion, all agree, Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances-- I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!" 140 And meantime you bring nothing: never mind-- You've proved your artist-nature: what you don't You might bring, so despise me, as I say.

Now come, let's backward to the starting-place. See my way: we're two college friends, suppose. Prepare together for our voyage, then; Each note and check the other in his work-- Here's mine, a bishop's outfit; criticise! What's wrong? why won't you be a bishop too?

Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't, 150 In any revelation called divine. No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains But say so, like the honest man you are? First, therefore, overhaul theology! Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think, Must find believing every whit as hard: And if I do not frankly say as much, The ugly consequence is clear enough. 160

Now wait, my friend: well, I do not believe-- If you'll accept no faith that is not fixed, Absolute and exclusive, as you say. You're wrong--I mean to prove it in due time. Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall, So give up hope accordingly to solve-- . Our dogmas then With both of us, though in unlike degree, Missing full credence--overboard with them! 170 I mean to meet you on your own premise: Good, there go mine in company with yours!

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