Still it is nothing new or marvellous when so many other things go counter, that this also should be topsy-turvy.

For what your lordship says to me, I could say to yourself: nevertheless, you do this perhaps to try me, or to light a new and stronger flame, if that indeed were possible: but be it as it wills: I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you to my mind.

Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself." This second letter has also been extremely laboured; for we have three other turns given in its drafts to the image of food and memory.

That these two documents were really addressed to Cavalieri, without any thought of Vittoria Colonna, is proved by three letters sent to Michelangelo by the young man in question.

One is dated August 2, 1533, another September 2, and the third bears no date.