An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 41

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 your's 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 potrait 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.

-- 29. My face, my moon:

"Once, like the moon, I made The ever-s.h.i.+fting currents of the blood According to my humor ebb and flow."

--Cleopatra, in Tennyson's 'A Dream of Fair Women'.

"You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea, To make it ebb or flow into my face As your looks change."

--Ford and Decker's 'Witch of Edmonton'.

35. A common grayness: Andrea del Sarto was distinguished for his skill in chiaro-oscuro.

82. low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand: "Andrea del Sarto's was, after all, but the 'low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand', and therefore his perfect art does not touch our hearts like that of Fra Bartolommeo, who occupies about the same position with regard to the great masters of the century as Andrea del Sarto. Fra Bartolommeo spoke from his heart. He was moved by the spirit, so to speak, to express his pure and holy thoughts in beautiful language, and the ideal that presented itself to his mind, and from which he, equally with Raphael, worked, approached almost as closely as Raphael's to that abstract beauty after which they both longed. Andrea del Sarto had no such longing: he was content with the loveliness of earth.

This he could understand and imitate in its fullest perfection, and therefore he troubled himself but little about the 'wondrous paterne' laid up in heaven. Many of his Madonnas have greater beauty, strictly speaking, than those of Bartolommeo, or even of Raphael; but we miss in them that mysterious spiritual loveliness that gives the latter their chief charm."

--Heaton's History of Painting.

93. Morello: the highest of the spurs of the Apennines to the north of Florence.

96. Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?: it's beyond their criticism.

105. The Urbinate: Raphael Santi, born 1483, in Urbino.

Andrea sees in Raphael, whose technique was inferior to his own, his superior, as he reached above and through his art-- for it gives way.

106. George Vasari: see note under St. 9 of 'Old Pictures in Florence'.

120. Nay, Love, you did give all I asked: it must be understood that his wife has replied with pique, to what he said in the two preceding lines.

129. by the future: when placed by, in comparison with, the future.

130. Agnolo: Michael Angelo (more correctly, Agnolo) Buonarotti.

See note under St. 30 of 'Old Pictures in Florence'.

146. For fear of chancing on the Paris lords: by reason of his breaking the faith he had pledged to Francis I. of France, and using for his own purposes, or his wife's, the money with which the king had entrusted him to purchase works of art in Italy.

149-165. That Francis, that first time: he thinks with regret of the king and of his honored and inspiring stay at his court.

161. by those hearts: along with, by the aid of.

173. The triumph was. . .there: i.e., in your heart.

174. ere the triumph: in France.

177. Rafael did this, . . .was his wife: a remark ascribed to some critic.

198. If he spoke the truth: i.e., about himself.

199. What he: do you ask?

202. all I care for. . .is whether you're.

209. Morello's gone: its outlines are lost in the dusk. See v. 93.

218. That gold of his: see note to v. 146.

220. That cousin here again?: one of Lucrezia's gallants is referred to, to pay whose gaming debts, it appears, she has obtained money of her husband. It must be understood that this gallant whistles here. See last verse of the monologue.

263. Leonard: Leonardo da Vinci.

Fra Lippo Lippi.

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!

You need not clap your torches to my face.

Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!

What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?

The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, {10} 'Weke, weke', that's crept to keep him company!

Aha! you know your betters? Then, you'll take Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat, And please to know me likewise. Who am I?

Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend Three streets off--he's a certain. . .how d'ye call?

Master--a. . .Cosimo of the Medici, I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!

Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, How you affected such a gullet's-gripe! {20} But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner, nor discredit you: Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets And count fair prize what comes into their net?

He's Judas to a t.i.ttle, that man is!

Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.

Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbors me (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) {30} And all's come square again. I'd like his face-- His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern,--for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand ("Look you, now", as who should say) And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!

It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!

Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so.

What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, {40} You know them, and they take you? like enough!

I saw the proper twinkle in your eye-- 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.

Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.

Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night-- Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. {50} There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song-- 'Flower o' the broom, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!