The Night thou seest here, posed gracefully In act of slumber, was by an Angel wrought Out of this stone; sleeping, with life she’s fraught:  Wake her, incredulous wight; she’ll speak to thee.

Michelangelo would have none of these academical conceits and compliments.  He replied in four verses, which show well enough what thoughts were in his brain when he composed the nightmare-burdened, heavy-sleeping women: 

Dear is my sleep, but more to be mere stone, So long as ruin and dishonour reign:  To hear naught, to feel naught, is my great gain; Then wake me not; speak in an undertone.

CHAPTER XI

I

After the death of Clement VII., Michelangelo never returned to reside for any length of time at Florence.  The rest of his life was spent in Rome, and he fell almost immediately under the kind but somewhat arbitrary patronage of Alessandro Farnese, who succeeded to the Papal chair in October 1534, with the title of Paul III.

One of the last acts of Clement’s life had been to superintend the second contract with the heirs of Julius, by which Michelangelo undertook to finish the tomb upon a reduced scale within the space of three years.  He was allowed to come to Rome and work there during four months annually.  Paul, however, asserted his authority by upsetting these arrangements and virtually cancelling the contract.

“In the meanwhile,” writes Condivi, “Pope Clement died, and Paul III. sent for him, and requested him to enter his service.  Michelangelo saw at once that he would be interrupted in his work upon the Tomb of Julius.  So he told Paul that he was not his own master, being bound to the Duke of Urbino until the monument was finished.  The Pope grew angry, and exclaimed:  ’It is thirty years that I have cherished this desire, and now that I am Pope, may I not indulge it?  Where is the contract?  I mean to tear it up.’  Michelangelo, finding himself reduced to these straits, almost resolved to leave Rome and take refuge in the Genoese, at an abbey held by the Bishop of Aleria, who had been a creature of Julius, and was much attached to him.  He hoped that the neighbourhood of the Carrara quarries, and the facility of transporting marbles by sea, would help him to complete his engagements.  He also thought of settling at Urbino, which he had previously selected as a tranquil retreat, and where he expected to be well received for the sake of Pope Julius.  Some months earlier, he even sent a man of his to buy a house and land there.  Still he dreaded the greatness of the Pontiff, as indeed he had good cause to do; and for this reason he abandoned the idea of quitting Rome, hoping to pacify his Holiness with fair words.