Michael Angelo. Генри Уодсуорт Лонгфелло

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       Of my Vespasian. This is the flower-of-love,

       This amaranth, and beneath it the device

       Non moritura. Thus my heart remains

       True to his memory; and the ancient castle,

       Where we have lived together, where he died,

       Is dear to me as Ischia is to you.

      VITTORIA.

       I did not mean to chide you.

      JULIA.

       Let your heart

       Find, if it can, some poor apology

       For one who is too young, and feels too keenly

       The joy of life, to give up all her days

       To sorrow for the dead. While I am true

       To the remembrance of the man I loved

       And mourn for still, I do not make a show

       Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded

       And, like Veronica da Gambara,

       Drape my whole house in mourning, and drive forth

       In coach of sable drawn by sable horses,

       As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day

       Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays.

      VITTORIA.

       Dear Julia! Friendship has its jealousies

       As well as love. Who waits for you at Fondi?

      JULIA.

       A friend of mine and yours; a friend and friar.

       You have at Naples your Fra Bernadino;

       And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano,

       The famous artist, who has come from Rome

       To paint my portrait. That is not a sin.

      VITTORIA.

       Only a vanity.

      JULIA.

       He painted yours.

      VITTORIA.

       Do not call up to me those days departed

       When I was young, and all was bright about me,

       And the vicissitudes of life were things

       But to be read of in old histories,

       Though as pertaining unto me or mine

       Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your dreams,

       And now, grown older, I look back and see

       They were illusions.

      JULIA.

       Yet without illusions

       What would our lives become, what we ourselves?

       Dreams or illusions, call them what you will,

       They lift us from the commonplace of life

       To better things.

      VITTORIA.

       Are there no brighter dreams,

       No higher aspirations, than the wish

       To please and to be pleased?

      JULIA.

       For you there are;

       I am no saint; I feel the world we live in

       Comes before that which is to be here after,

       And must be dealt with first.

      VITTORIA.

       But in what way?

      JULIA.

       Let the soft wind that wafts to us the odor

       Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea

       And the bright sunshine bathing all the world,

       Answer the question.

      VITTORIA.

       And for whom is meant

       This portrait that you speak of?

      JULIA.

       For my friend

       The Cardinal Ippolito.

      VITTORIA.

       For him?

      JULIA

       Yes, for Ippolito the Magnificent.

       'T is always flattering to a woman's pride

       To be admired by one whom all admire.

      VITTORIA.

       Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove

       Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard,

       He is a Cardinal; and his adoration

       Should be elsewhere directed.

      JULIA.

       You forget

       The horror of that night, when Barbarossa,

       The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast

       To seize me for the Sultan Soliman;

       How in the dead of night, when all were sleeping,

       He scaled the castle wall; how I escaped,

       And in my night-dress, mounting a swift steed,

       Fled to the mountains, and took refuge there

       Among the brigands. Then of all my friends

       The Cardinal Ippolito was first

       To come with his retainers to my rescue.

       Could I refuse the only boon he asked

       At such a time, my portrait?

      VITTORIA.

       I have heard

       Strange stories of the splendors of his palace,

       And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince,

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