DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0408
342 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. 11
retired. Directly he saw me he said: " Oh! Benvenuto!
What are you doing here? " Displaying those pearls I
said: "My Lord! I am just come to show you a very
beautiful necklace of pearls, a most rare one and truly
worthy of Your Most Illustrious Excellency. And for
eighty pearls I do not believe that there were ever so
many put together that showed off better in a neck-
lace. Therefore purchase them, My Lord! for they are
miraculously (fine)." The Duke immediately said: "I do
not want to buy them, for they are not such pearls, nor of
that excellence of which you say they are; and having
seen them they do not please me." Thereupon I said:
" Pardon me, My Lord! These pearls exceed in infinite
beauty all the pearls that were ever arranged for a neck-
lace." The Duchess had risen up, and was standing be-
hind a door, and she heard all that I was saying: in such
a way that when I had said more than a thousand things
—more than I write down here—the Duke turned to me
with a benign expression, and said to me: "Oh! Ben-
venuto mine! I know that you understand the subject
very well; and if these pearls were possessed of so many
of those rare merits that you attribute to them, there would
not appear to me to be any difficulty about purchasing
them, whether to please the Duchess, or merely in order
to possess them; for I have need of these things, not so
much for the Duchess, as for my other arrangements for
my sons and daughters." And I at these words of his,—
since I had begun to tell lies,—with yet greater boldness
continued to utter them, giving them greater colour of
truth in order that the Duke might believe me, trusting to
the Duchess that at the proper time she would help me.
And although I anticipated for myself more than two
retired. Directly he saw me he said: " Oh! Benvenuto!
What are you doing here? " Displaying those pearls I
said: "My Lord! I am just come to show you a very
beautiful necklace of pearls, a most rare one and truly
worthy of Your Most Illustrious Excellency. And for
eighty pearls I do not believe that there were ever so
many put together that showed off better in a neck-
lace. Therefore purchase them, My Lord! for they are
miraculously (fine)." The Duke immediately said: "I do
not want to buy them, for they are not such pearls, nor of
that excellence of which you say they are; and having
seen them they do not please me." Thereupon I said:
" Pardon me, My Lord! These pearls exceed in infinite
beauty all the pearls that were ever arranged for a neck-
lace." The Duchess had risen up, and was standing be-
hind a door, and she heard all that I was saying: in such
a way that when I had said more than a thousand things
—more than I write down here—the Duke turned to me
with a benign expression, and said to me: "Oh! Ben-
venuto mine! I know that you understand the subject
very well; and if these pearls were possessed of so many
of those rare merits that you attribute to them, there would
not appear to me to be any difficulty about purchasing
them, whether to please the Duchess, or merely in order
to possess them; for I have need of these things, not so
much for the Duchess, as for my other arrangements for
my sons and daughters." And I at these words of his,—
since I had begun to tell lies,—with yet greater boldness
continued to utter them, giving them greater colour of
truth in order that the Duke might believe me, trusting to
the Duchess that at the proper time she would help me.
And although I anticipated for myself more than two