We cannot make the world Go right.

'T is not my business to reform The Papal choir.
IPPOLITO.
Nor mine, thank Heaven.
Then tell me of the artists.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Naming one I name them all; for there is only one.
His name is Messer Michael Angelo.
All art and artists of the present day Centre in him.
IPPOLITO.
You count yourself as nothing! FRA SEBASTIANO.
Or less than nothing, since I am at best Only a portrait-painter; one who draws With greater or less skill, as best he may, The features of a face.
IPPOLITO.
And you have had The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying Julia Gonzaga! Do you count as nothing A privilege like that?
See there the portrait Rebuking you with its divine expression.
Are you not penitent?
He whose skilful hand Painted that lovely picture has not right To vilipend the art of portrait-painting.
But what of Michael Angelo?
FRA SEBASTIANO.
But lately Strolling together down the crowded Corso, We stopped, well pleased, to see your Eminence Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature, Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover Of all things beautiful, especially When they are Arab horses, much admired, And could not praise enough.
IPPOLITO, to an attendant.
Hassan, to-morrow, When I am gone, but not till I am gone,-- Be careful about that,--take Barbarossa To Messer Michael Angelo, the sculptor, Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi, Near to the Capitol; and take besides Some ten mule-loads of provender, and say Your master sends them to him as a present.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
A princely gift.

Though Michael Angelo Refuses presents from his Holiness, Yours he will not refuse.
IPPOLITO.
You think him like Thymoetes, who received the wooden horse Into the walls of Troy.

That book of Virgil Have I translated in Italian verse, And shall, some day, when we have leisure for it, Be pleased to read you.

When I speak of Troy I am reminded of another town And of a lovelier Helen, our dear Countess Julia Gonzaga.