All these rumours and praises of a work that nobody had as yet seen, and few only knew by name, having reached the ears of the jealous Angelo, he swore by Dante’s “Inferno” to use all the means in his power, fair and foul, to obtain a glimpse of the work in the villa, and to injure it beyond redemption. At that period Raphael was so enamoured of his Fornarina that he spent whole days in her company, and never dreamt of taking up his professional brush, while he hardly ever made his appearance at the villa before noon-time. One morning Michel Angelo rose early, disguised himself as an acqua vitario (spirit-hawker), took a basket filled with biscuits and liqueurs to the villa, where his cry, “Liqueurs, liqueurs!” soon brought down from the ladders within all the masons and labourers who were still employed in the interior of the structure. They opened the front door and invited the seller to bring in his wares. Leaving his basket in their hands, Angelo made his way to the salons, and, passing from room to room, he took a rapid survey of the various paintings, but remained fixed with admiration before the yet unfinished “Galatea.” Observing an empty spot in the centre of the picture, he took up a piece of charcoal, mounted the scaffold, and drew in the vacant space a colossal head of Jupiter. He then left the villa by one of the side doors, forgetting his basket and wares in the fullness of his mischievous joy. At noon Raphael appeared, and no sooner had he caught sight of the magnificent head of Jupiter in the centre of his “Galatea,” than he exclaimed, “Michel Angelo! Michel Angelo!” and left the villa never to re-enter it. The work remained unfinished by him, and the mischievous head is still preserved under a glass, and excites the admiration of artists and connoisseurs.
IPHIS AND ANAXARETE.
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The olive-groves, clothing the dusky hills,
Loomed dimly through the gathering gloom of night,
And the spent waves that broke below the town
Plained moaning in the darkness.
Plained moaning in the darkness. Dank and cold,
The dead pale night lay heavy on the earth,
When through the gusty streets of Salamis,
Thus, long and long ago, a lover cried,—
“Sleepest thou, love?—my love? I call thee mine,
Nor dread the flashing of thy haughty glance
May blast me for the words. I fear no more
Thy scorn; for ’tis the last time I shall plead
For pity to a heart that knows no ruth.
My spirit is bowed low. Accurs’d am I,
Else sure my love had touched thine icy heart.
Perchance the gods, the jealous pitiless gods,
Resent that I should worship at a shrine
Not theirs, and with thy hate have punished me.
Yet have I sought with prayers and offerings
To win their aid!
To win their aid! Oh, why art thou so cold!
True, I am poor and low, and thou art fair
As she who on Mount Ida won the meed
Of beauty from Œnone’s faithless love,
And royal art thou, sprung from Teucer’s line;
But, beautiful and proud as thou may’st be,
Remember that love-guided Dian came
To the lone hill where young Endymion slept.
And I have spent my life in loving thee,
My queen, my love!
My queen, my love! My dreams are all of thee!
I see thee ever as I saw thee first,
Amid the bright procession of our maids,
Bearing the sacrifice to Venus’ shrine.
I see thy little sandalled feet, thy curls
Floating below thy zone, thy gold-hemmed robes
Showing the beauties of the shape they veiled.
Rememberest thou when the red bolt of heaven
