DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0187
CH. iv] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI 149
large mould without first digging out those two heads
of mine, which they dug out and they were very excellent:
and they set them up so that they could be very well
seen. Then beginning to uncover the they had not
got two down, when together with their four
workmen they uttered so loud a cry that I heard it.
Thinking that it was a shout of joy, I set to running,
for I was in my chamber more than five hundred paces
away. When I reached them I found them in that
attitude wherein are represented those who guarded the
Sepulchre of Christ, despairing and terrified. Casting
my eyes over my own two heads, and seeing that they
were all right, I combined my pleasure with regret: and
they excused themselves by saying: " It is our ill luck! "
At which remark I said: "Your luck has been most
excellent, but your small amount of knowledge has been
very bad indeed. If I had seen you put the soul * into
the mould I could have shown you in one single word
that the figure would have come out most excellently,
by which means that thing would have resulted to my
very great credit, and would have been very useful to
you: but (now) owing to my credit I shall be able to
find excuse for myself, whilst you have no escape either
in credit or profit. Another time therefore learn to work,
and do not learn to jeer.'* They besought me however,
saying that I was right, and that I if I did not help them,
by having to defray that great expense and that loss,
' Whether CELLINI intends to make a play upon words here it
is impossible to say; but "<3MW2<3"inthe language of the metal-
founder means " the internal block placed inside a statue or other
work of art before casting, in order to keep the interior more or
less hollow." 6/ Chap. XI, p. 318, n. 3.
large mould without first digging out those two heads
of mine, which they dug out and they were very excellent:
and they set them up so that they could be very well
seen. Then beginning to uncover the they had not
got two down, when together with their four
workmen they uttered so loud a cry that I heard it.
Thinking that it was a shout of joy, I set to running,
for I was in my chamber more than five hundred paces
away. When I reached them I found them in that
attitude wherein are represented those who guarded the
Sepulchre of Christ, despairing and terrified. Casting
my eyes over my own two heads, and seeing that they
were all right, I combined my pleasure with regret: and
they excused themselves by saying: " It is our ill luck! "
At which remark I said: "Your luck has been most
excellent, but your small amount of knowledge has been
very bad indeed. If I had seen you put the soul * into
the mould I could have shown you in one single word
that the figure would have come out most excellently,
by which means that thing would have resulted to my
very great credit, and would have been very useful to
you: but (now) owing to my credit I shall be able to
find excuse for myself, whilst you have no escape either
in credit or profit. Another time therefore learn to work,
and do not learn to jeer.'* They besought me however,
saying that I was right, and that I if I did not help them,
by having to defray that great expense and that loss,
' Whether CELLINI intends to make a play upon words here it
is impossible to say; but "<3MW2<3"inthe language of the metal-
founder means " the internal block placed inside a statue or other
work of art before casting, in order to keep the interior more or
less hollow." 6/ Chap. XI, p. 318, n. 3.