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it sounds to me as from another world and makes the petty miseries of this seem unto me as naught and less than naught
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it is good o king being put to death by men to look for hope from god to be raised up again by him
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this silence is more terrible to me than any sound than any cry of pain that might escape the lips of one who dies
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wherefore art thou the only living thing among thy brothers dead art thou afraid
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never will i obey the king's commandment but the commandment of the ancient law that was by moses given unto our fathers
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ye both shall perish by torments worse than any that your god here or hereafter hath in store for me
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thy footsteps will not wake them nor thy voice nor wilt thou hear amid thy troubled dreams thy children crying for thee in the night
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none can escape from death say that ye come to die for israel and ye are welcome
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the princes and the elders weep and wail the young men and the maidens are made feeble the beauty of the women hath been changed
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both men and women die old men and young old eleazer died: and mahala with all her seven sons
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to-day he shall be lifted up to-morrow shall not be found because he is returned unto his dust his thought has come to nothing
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there is no peace between us nor can be until this banner floats upon the walls of our jerusalem
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the power of god whose breath shall scatter your white tents abroad as flakes of snow
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your mighty one in heaven will not do battle on the seventh day it is his day of rest
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last night i dreamed a dream and in my vision beheld onias our high-priest of old who holding up his hands prayed for the jews
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its hateful aspect insults us with the bitter memories of other days
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lurking among the ruins of the temple deep in its inner courts we found this man clad as high-priest
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i am thy prisoner judas maccabaeus and it would ill become me to conceal my name or office
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what should prevent me now thou man of sin from hanging at its side the head of one who born a jew hath made himself a greek
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when hast thou at any time to any man or woman or even to any little child shown mercy
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i who made the jews skip like the grasshoppers am made myself to skip among these stones
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my lord i am a messenger from antioch sent here by lysias
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and then emmaus fell and then bethsura ephron and all the towns of galaad and maccabaeus marched to carnion
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(throws up his hands and sinks into the arms of attendants who lay him upon a bank
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thy people whom i judged to be unworthy to be so much as buried shall be equal unto the citizens of antioch
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i will become a jew and will declare through all the world that is inhabited the power of god
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bring here the royal litter we will bear him in to the camp while yet he lives
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the old castle needs not your presence no one waits for you
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yours a child's sorrow smiling through its tears but mine the grief of an impassioned woman who drank her life up in one draught of love
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dreams or illusions call them what you will they lift us from the commonplace of life to better things
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are there no brighter dreams no higher aspirations than the wish to please and to be pleased
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and my cardinal at itri in the courtyard of his palace keeps a tame lion
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and so counterfeits st mark the evangelist
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and there vesuvius with its plume of smoke and the great city stretched upon the shore as in a dream
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michael angelo's studio he is at work on the cartoon of the last judgment
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that is the title they cajole me with to make me do their work and leave my own but having once begun i turn not back
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rise from your graves drowsy and drugged with death as men who suddenly aroused from sleep look round amazed and know not where they are
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so love the greatest emperor of them all writes his in green at first but afterwards in the imperial purple of our blood
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it is kind of you to come to us who linger here like gossips wasting the afternoon in idle talk
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pardon me gentlemen but when i entered i saw but the marchesa
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but that is not what occupies my thoughts at present nor why i sent for you messer michele
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i am doubtful how i shall build how large to make the convent and which way fronting
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i see no bar nor drawback to this building and on our homeward way if it shall please you we may together view the site
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the hours i count not as a sun-dial but am like a clock that tells the time as well by night as day
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the very memory of all honest living is wiped away and even our tuscan tongue corrupted to a lombard dialect
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baccio valori and philippo strozzi once the duke's friends and intimates are with us and cardinals salvati and ridolfi
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we shall soon see then as valori says whether the duke can best spare honest men or honest men the duke
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heaven help us all i will not tarry longer for you have need of rest good-night
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fra bastiano how your portly presence contrasts with that of the spare florentine who has just left me
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sung by the tenor of the papal choir and in a papal mass seemed out of place there's something wrong in it
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't is a damascus blade you see the inscription in arabic: la allah illa allah there is no god but god
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how beautiful in fashion and in finish it is perfect
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i will keep it in memory of the donor many thanks
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berni and ariosto both shall add a canto to their poems and describe you as furioso and innamorato
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beware i remember that bolsena's eels and vernage wine once killed a pope of rome
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't was a french pope and then so long ago who knows perhaps the story is not true
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the night is far advanced i fear to stay too late and weary you with these discussions
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dear countess if loyalty to friendship be a claim upon your confidence then i may claim it
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but the inward life that you know not 't is known but to myself and is to me a mystery and a pain
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yes your meditations are more of this world and its vanities than of the world to come
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yet have i seen you listen enraptured when fra bernardino preached of faith and hope and charity
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for i confess to live among my friends is paradise to me my purgatory is living among people i dislike
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teach me then to harmonize the discord of my life and stop the painful jangle of these wires
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that is a task impossible until you tune your heart-strings to a higher key than earthly melodies
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but lead me privately so that the world hear not my steps i would not give occasion for talk among the people
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do me the kindness then to speak without reserve and with all frankness if you divine the truth will i confess it
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this warrants me in saying you think you can win heaven by compromise and not by verdict
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hark the convent bells are ringing it is midnight i must leave you
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i make you the same answer that was not a pledge of love but of pure gratitude
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come to my arms and to my heart once more my soul goes out to meet you and embrace you for we are of the sisterhood of sorrow
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let me look at you what a joy it is to see your face to hear your voice again
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you shall hear all but first sit down and listen patiently while i confess myself
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not a sin a folly i chid you once at ischia when you told me that brave fra bastian was to paint your portrait
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old as i am i have at last consented to the entreaties and the supplications of michael angelo
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no this is a friend of yours as well as mine the lady julia the duchess of trajetto
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't is long since i have seen your face my lady pardon me if i say that having seen it one never can forget it
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and now i come to add one labor more if you will call that labor which is pleasure and only pleasure
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my dear maestro have you then forgotten the story of sophocles in his old age
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't is an illusion a fabulous story that will lead old men into a thousand follies and conceits
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it was of no great import nothing more nor less than my late visit to ferrara and what i saw there in the ducal palace
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the men that women marry and why they marry them will always be a marvel and a mystery to the world
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and then the duchess how shall i describe her or tell the merits of that happy nature which pleases most when least it thinks of pleasing
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frost kills the flowers that blossom out of season and these precocious intellects portend a life of sorrow or an early death
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and what poets were there to sing you madrigals and praise olympia's eyes and cherubina's tresses
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silence and solitude the soul's best friends are with me here and the tumultuous world makes no more noise than the remotest planet
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how damp and cold it was how my bones ached and my head reeled when i was working there
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there is a charm a certain something in the atmosphere that all men feel and no man can describe
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the figure vanished and there rose a cry out of the darkness long and fierce and loud with imprecations in all languages
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say have you seen our friend fra bastian lately since by a turn of fortune he became friar of the signet
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faith a pretty artist to pass his days in stamping leaden seals on papal bulls
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be at it late and early persevere and work right on through censure and applause or else abandon art
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no man works harder then i do i am not a moment idle
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the god who made me knows why he made me what i am a goldsmith a mere artificer
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i know my life is wasted and consumed in vanities but i have better hours and higher aspirations than you think
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that was nothing it did not kill me only lamed me slightly i am quite well again
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can you sit down in them on summer afternoons and play the lute or sing or sleep the time away
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i have not time did you meet benvenuto as you came up the stair
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i cannot go the sibylline leaves of life grow precious now when only few remain
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i seem to hear her hearing the boughs and breezes and leaves and birds lamenting and the waters murmuring flee along the verdant herbage
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i beg you to take note of what he says about the papal seals for that concerns your office and yourself
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