DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0091
CH. xxv] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI 59
piercing the bottom of their sockets. When I perceived
this I drew them out, as one draws (a sword) from a
scabbard without any more pain or bleeding; thus they
were got out very easily for me. Nevertheless I accus-
tomed myself also to these other fresh troubles, some-
times I sang, sometimes I prayed; and sometimes I
wrote with that pounded brick above-mentioned; and I
began a poem in praise of the prison, and in it
I related all those chances that had befallen me in it;
which poem I will write down presently in its own place.
The good Castellan sent often secretly to find out what
I was doing; and because on the last day of July I was
rejoicing greatly by myself, recalling the great festival
that they are accustomed to celebrate in Rome on that
first day of August, I was saying to myself: " In all
these past years I have celebrated this pleasant feast
along with the other frailties of the World; this year I
will now celebrate it in company with the Divine Things
of God": and I was saying to myself: "Oh! how much
more joyful am I on this occasion than on those." Those
persons who heard me utter these words, carried them all
back to the Castellan; who in angry wonder said: " Oh
God! He triumphs and lives in so great affliction. Whilst
I in so much comfort am in want, and am dying solely
upon his account! Go quickly, and put him in that more
subterranean cavern, wherein was done to death of hun-
ger the preacher Foianod Perhaps when he sees himself
^ Fra Benedetto Tiezzi da Foiano in Valdichiana; a Dominican
from the Convent of Sta. Maria Novella in Florence. A devoted
follower of Savonarola, he preached against the Medici during
the siege, and therefore, being given up by Malatesta to Pope
Clement VII, he was confined in the Castel Sand Angelo, where
piercing the bottom of their sockets. When I perceived
this I drew them out, as one draws (a sword) from a
scabbard without any more pain or bleeding; thus they
were got out very easily for me. Nevertheless I accus-
tomed myself also to these other fresh troubles, some-
times I sang, sometimes I prayed; and sometimes I
wrote with that pounded brick above-mentioned; and I
began a poem in praise of the prison, and in it
I related all those chances that had befallen me in it;
which poem I will write down presently in its own place.
The good Castellan sent often secretly to find out what
I was doing; and because on the last day of July I was
rejoicing greatly by myself, recalling the great festival
that they are accustomed to celebrate in Rome on that
first day of August, I was saying to myself: " In all
these past years I have celebrated this pleasant feast
along with the other frailties of the World; this year I
will now celebrate it in company with the Divine Things
of God": and I was saying to myself: "Oh! how much
more joyful am I on this occasion than on those." Those
persons who heard me utter these words, carried them all
back to the Castellan; who in angry wonder said: " Oh
God! He triumphs and lives in so great affliction. Whilst
I in so much comfort am in want, and am dying solely
upon his account! Go quickly, and put him in that more
subterranean cavern, wherein was done to death of hun-
ger the preacher Foianod Perhaps when he sees himself
^ Fra Benedetto Tiezzi da Foiano in Valdichiana; a Dominican
from the Convent of Sta. Maria Novella in Florence. A devoted
follower of Savonarola, he preached against the Medici during
the siege, and therefore, being given up by Malatesta to Pope
Clement VII, he was confined in the Castel Sand Angelo, where