DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0059
cn. xxm] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI 29
perceived another guard, he perchance did not want to
see me. When I reached my strips, having bound them
to the battlement, I let myself go; whereby, whether in
very truth fancying that I was near the ground I had
released my hands to jump, or whether my hands were
really tired out, being unable to resist that strain, I fell,
and in this fall I struck my head ^ and remained uncon-
scious for more than an hour and a half, as far as I could
judge. Then, as day showed signs of breaking, that slight
freshness that comes an hour before sunrise caused me
to revive, but all the same I still remained out of my
senses, for it seemed to me that my head had been cut
offj and I appeared to be in Purgatory. Remaining thus,
little by little, my powers returned to themselves, and I
perceived that I was outside the Castello, and imme-
diately I remembered all that I had done. And because
I felt the shock to my head before I perceived the break-
ing of my leg, putting my hands to my head I took
them away all covered with blood; then having made
a careful examination I knew and judged that I had
received no injury of importance; nevertheless, when I
wished to rise from the ground I found that I had broken
my right leg three fingers distance above the heel. Nor
also did this dismay me: I dragged out my dagger to-
gether with its sheath; for this latter had an end with a
very heavy hard ball upon the extremity of the end,
and this had been the cause of my having broken my
leg; for, by striking the bone with the heavy weight
of that hard ball, since the bone could not give way,
it was the reason why it broke in that place. Where-
* Za w^ar/a; the back part of the head, in which the faculty
of memory is supposed to reside, is populariy thus styled.
perceived another guard, he perchance did not want to
see me. When I reached my strips, having bound them
to the battlement, I let myself go; whereby, whether in
very truth fancying that I was near the ground I had
released my hands to jump, or whether my hands were
really tired out, being unable to resist that strain, I fell,
and in this fall I struck my head ^ and remained uncon-
scious for more than an hour and a half, as far as I could
judge. Then, as day showed signs of breaking, that slight
freshness that comes an hour before sunrise caused me
to revive, but all the same I still remained out of my
senses, for it seemed to me that my head had been cut
offj and I appeared to be in Purgatory. Remaining thus,
little by little, my powers returned to themselves, and I
perceived that I was outside the Castello, and imme-
diately I remembered all that I had done. And because
I felt the shock to my head before I perceived the break-
ing of my leg, putting my hands to my head I took
them away all covered with blood; then having made
a careful examination I knew and judged that I had
received no injury of importance; nevertheless, when I
wished to rise from the ground I found that I had broken
my right leg three fingers distance above the heel. Nor
also did this dismay me: I dragged out my dagger to-
gether with its sheath; for this latter had an end with a
very heavy hard ball upon the extremity of the end,
and this had been the cause of my having broken my
leg; for, by striking the bone with the heavy weight
of that hard ball, since the bone could not give way,
it was the reason why it broke in that place. Where-
* Za w^ar/a; the back part of the head, in which the faculty
of memory is supposed to reside, is populariy thus styled.