the Alps,
And Celio Curione, and Manzolli,
The Duke's physician; and a pale young man,
Charles d'Espeville of Geneva, whom the Duchess
Doth much delight to talk with and to read,
For he hath written a book of Institutes
The Duchess greatly praises, though some call it
The Koran of the heretics.

JULIA.
And what poets
Were there to sing you madrigals, and praise
Olympia's eyes and Cherubina's tresses?

VITTORIA.
No; for great Ariosto is no more.
The voice that filled those halls with melody
Has long been hushed in death.

JULIA.
You should have made
A pilgrimage unto the poet's tomb,
And laid a wreath upon it, for the words
He spake of you.

VITTORIA.
And of yourself no less,
And of our master, Michael Angelo.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Of me?

VITTORIA.
Have you forgotten that he calls you
Michael, less man than angel, and divine?
You are ungrateful.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
A mere play on words.
That adjective he wanted for a rhyme,
To match with Gian Bellino and Urbino.

VITTORIA.
Bernardo Tasso is no longer there,
Nor the gay troubadour of Gascony,
Clement Marot, surnamed by flatterers
The Prince of Poets and the Poet of Princes,
Who, being looked upon with much disfavor
By the Duke Ercole, has fled to Venice.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
There let him stay with Pietro Aretino,
The Scourge of Princes, also called Divine.
The title is so common in our mouths,
That even the Pifferari of Abruzzi,
Who play their bag-pipes in the streets of Rome
At the Epiphany, will bear it soon,
And will deserve it better than some poets.

VITTORIA.
What bee hath stung you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
One that makes no honey;
One that comes buzzing in through every window,
And stabs men with his sting. A bitter thought
Passed through my mind, but it is gone again;
I spake too hastily.

JULIA.
I pray you, show me
What you have done.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Not yet; it is not finished.

PART SECOND

I

MONOLOGUE

A room in MICHAEL ANGELO'S house.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Fled to Viterbo, the old Papal city
Where once an Emperor, humbled in his pride,
Held the Pope's stirrup, as his Holiness
Alighted from his mule! A fugitive
From Cardinal Caraffa's hate, who hurls
His thunders at the house of the Colonna,
With endless bitterness!--Among the nuns
In Santa Catarina's convent hidden,
Herself in soul a nun! And now she chides me
For my