The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

325 "How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns� "Already not one phiz� of your three slaves face Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side,

But it's scratched and prodded to our heart's content,

330 The pious people have so eased their own 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,

8. A scene representing the fiery martyrdom of be painted quickly before the plaster dries. Prato Saint Laurence. is a town near Florence. 9. Painted on a freshly plastered surface. It must

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FRA LIPPO LIPPI / 1279

For pity and religion grow i' the crowd� 335 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,0 knmvs Tasting the air this spicy night which turns The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!

340 Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! 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

345 .. . 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.2 I shall paint God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, Ringed by a bowery flowery angel brood,

350 Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet As puff on puff of grated orris-root3 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,

355 Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white The convent's friends and gives them a long day, And Job,4 I must have him there past mistake, The man of Uz (and Us without the z, Painters who need his patience). Well, all these

360 Secured at their devotion, up shall come 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,0 motionless and moonstruck�I'm the man! confused

365 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?

370 Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 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�

375 His camel-hair5 make up a painting-brush? We come to brother Lippo for all that,

Iste perfecit opus!"6 So, all smile�

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face

1. A convent church in Florence. 2. Sample of my work. The completed painting, which Browning saw in Florence, is Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin (1441). 3. A powder (like talcum) made from sweet- smelling roots of a flower. 4. The prosperous man who endured immense suffering without once questioning God's will (see the book of Job).

5. Cf. Mark 1.6: "And John was clothed with camel's hair." 6. This man made the work! (Latin). In this painting, as later completed, these words appear beside a figure that Browning took to be Lippi's self- portrait.

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128 0 / ROBERT BROWNING

Under the cover of a hundred wings

380 Thrown like a spread of kirtles0 when you're gay skirts And play hot cockles,7 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

385 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!

390 Your hand, sir, and good-by: no lights, no lights! The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. Zooks!

ca. 1853 1855

Andrea del Sarto1

(called "The Faultless Painter")

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 tomorrow, Love! 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,2

Both of one mind, as married people use,� usually are Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up tomorrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. Tomorrow, how you shall be glad for this! Your soft hand is a woman of itself,