FRA SEBASTIANO. 
             Can you sit down in them,
On summer afternoons, and play the lute
Or sing, or sleep the time away?

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                               I never
Sleep in the day-time; scarcely sleep at night. 
I have not time.  Did you meet Benvenuto
As you came up the stair?

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
                     He ran against me
On the first landing, going at full speed;
Dressed like the Spanish captain in a play,
With his long rapier and his short red cloak. 
Why hurry through the world at such a pace? 
Life will not be too long.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                      It is his nature,—­
A restless spirit, that consumes itself
With useless agitations.  He o’erleaps
The goal he aims at.  Patience is a plant
That grows not in all gardens.  You are made
Of quite another clay.

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
                   And thank God for it. 
And now, being somewhat rested, I will tell you
Why I have climbed these formidable stairs. 
I have a friend, Francesco Berni, here,
A very charming poet and companion,
Who greatly honors you and all your doings,
And you must sup with us.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                       Not I, indeed. 
I know too well what artists’ suppers are. 
You must excuse me.

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
                 I will not excuse you. 
You need repose from your incessant work;
Some recreation, some bright hours of pleasure.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
To me, what you and other men call pleasure
Is only pain.  Work is my recreation,
The play of faculty; a delight like that
Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish
In darting through the water,—­nothing more. 
I cannot go.  The Sibylline leaves of life
Grow precious now, when only few remain. 
I cannot go.

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
              Berni, perhaps, will read
A canto of the Orlando Inamorato.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
That is another reason for not going. 
If aught is tedious and intolerable,
It is a poet reading his own verses,

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
Berni thinks somewhat better of your verses
Than you of his.  He says that you speak things,
And other poets words.  So, pray you, come.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
If it were now the Improvisatore,
Luigia Pulci, whom I used to hear
With Benvenuto, in the streets of Florence,
I might be tempted.  I was younger then
And singing in the open air was pleasant.

FRA SEBASTIANO. 
There is a Frenchman here, named Rabelais,
Once a Franciscan friar, and now a doctor,
And secretary to the embassy: 
A learned man, who speaks all languages,
And wittiest of men; who wrote a book
Of the Adventures of Gargantua,
So full of strange conceits one roars with laughter
At every page; a jovial boon-companion
And lover of much wine.  He too is coming.