And, smiling, Michael said: "He knows, Madam, that I have already done so, and that I have already released her entirely to him; for as I do not possess such powers as such great love demands, he has said what he has said, as of one who belongs to him."
"I confess," said I, "Madam, that he has released her to me, but she does not wish to go with me, so that she still remains at home with him; neither would I, although she is so worthy, like to see her come to my country, for there are but few there who know how to esteem her, and my most serene king, unless it were in his unoccupied moments, would not favour her, especially if there happened to be any unrest through war, in which she is of no use; and so she would become angry and perhaps in a fit of temper she would one day throw herself into the ocean, which is hard by, and cause me to sing many times the verse:
Audieras: et fama fuit; sed opera tantum
nostra valent, Lycida, tela inter maria, quantum
chaonias dicunt aquila veniente columbas.
But if she were of use in time of war, I would desire her to come at once."
"I quite understand," said the Marchioness, "but as now the day is far spent, let your question be for next Sunday." And as she said this she rose, and all of us with her, and we went away.
THIRD DIALOGUE
Not only were we unable to meet together on the following Sunday with the Marchioness and M. Angelo, but even on the next one, eight days later, we were almost prevented, and indeed did not wish to meet, because at that time was being celebrated in the city of Rome the feast of the twelve triumphal cars in the Camp Nagao[199] in the ancient manner. Starting from the Capitol with such magnificence and ancient pomp that it seemed as if one were back in the old times of the Emperors and the triumphs of the Romans. This feast was celebrated on the occasion of the marriage[200] of Senhor Ottavio,[201] son of Pedro Luiz, and grand-nephew of our Lord Pope Paul III., to Senhora Margarida,[202] adopted daughter of the Emperor. She had been a short time previously the wife of Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence, who was killed through treason in Florence. And now, she being a widow and very young and beautiful, his Holiness and his Majesty married her to Senhor Ottavio, a very young and estimable man, consequently the city and the Court feasted them as much as could be at night with serenades and banquets, and the whole of Rome ablaze with lights and illuminations, especially the Castle of St. Angelo, and every day feasts and great expenditure. Such as the feast of Monte Trestacho, with its twenty bulls attached to twenty carts, killed as a public spectacle in the square of St. Peter's; and the race which was run between buffaloes and horses along the entire Via di Nostra Signora Transpontina to the square of the said palace. And also those festivals which I have mentioned of the twelve triumphal cars, gilded and ornamented with many fine figures and very noble devices; there were Romans and [pg 306]the heads of the districts of Rome, dressed in the old style, with all the pomp and pride that could be desired; one hundred sons of citizens on horseback, so brave and so bizarre in their gallantry of painted antiquity, that in comparison with them the velvet mantles and plumes and the infinity of novelties and costumes in which Italy exceeds every other province of Europe, appeared very ordinary. But when I had seen this noble phalanx and company descending from the Capitol with many infantry, and had viewed all the bravery of the cars and the ediles, dressed in the old fashion, and had seen Senhor Giulio Cesarino pass with the standard of the city of Rome, on a horse with trappings covered with a white coat of arms and black brocade, I at once turned my horse towards Monte Cavallo, and thus went riding along the Thermae road pondering over many things of the olden times, in which I then felt myself to be more than in the present.