Fra Lippo Lippi

Fra Lippo Lippi by Robert Browning

Stopped by night watchmen after leaving his lodging to join street revelers, the monk and painter Lippo recounts his hungry childhood and entry into a convent. He defends painting bodies and the visible world against the Prior's demands for spiritual instruction. Before departing as dawn begins, he describes a planned religious painting at Sant' Ambrogio that will include himself.

By Robert Browning · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Narrative Poetry · 5,352 words

First lines

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! / You need not clap your torches to my face. / Zooks, what 's to blame? you think you see a monk! / What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, / And here you catch me at an alley's end / Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? / The Carmine 's my cloister: hunt it up, / Do, -- harry out, if you must show your zeal, / Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, / And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, / _Weke, weke_, that 's crept to keep him company! / Aha, you know your betters! Then, you 'll take / Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat, / And please to know me likewise. Who am I? / Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend / Three streets off -- he 's a certain... how d 'ye call? / Master -- a... Cosimo of the Medici, / I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! / Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, / How you affected such a gullet's-gripe! / But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves / Pick up a manner nor discredit you: / Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets / And count fair prize what comes into their net? / He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is! / Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. / Lord, I 'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go / Drink out this quarter-florin to the health / Of the munificent House that harbors me / (And many more beside, lads! more beside! ) / And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face -- / His, elbowing on his comrade in the door / With the pike and lantern, -- for the slave that holds / John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair / With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) / And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! / It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, / A wood-coal or the like? or you should see! / Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. / What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, / You know them and they take you? like enough! / I saw the proper twinkle in your eye -- / 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. / Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. / Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands / To roam the town and sing out carnival, / And I 've been three weeks shut within my mow, / A-painting for the great man, saints and saints / And saints again. I could not paint all night -- / Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. / There came a hurry of feet and little feet, / A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, -- / _Flower o' the broom,_ / _Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! _ / _Flower o' the Quince,_ / _I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? _ / _Flower o' the thyme_ -- and so on. Round they went. / Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter / Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, -- three slim shapes, / And a face that looked up... zooks, sir, flesh and blood, / That 's all I 'm made of! Into shreds it went, / Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, / All the bed-furniture -- a dozen knots, / There was a ladder! Down I let myself, / Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, / And after them. I came up with the fun / Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, -- / _Flower o' the rose,_ / _If I've been merry, what matter who knows? _ / And so as I was stealing back again / To get to bed and have a bit of sleep / Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work / On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast / With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, / You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! / Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head -- / Mine's shaved -- a monk, you say -- the sting's in that! / If Master Cosimo announced himself, / Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! / Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! / I was a baby when my mother died / And father died and left me in the street. / I starved there, God knows how, a year or two / On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, / Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, / My stomach being empty as your hat, / The wind doubled me up and down I went. / Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, / (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) / And so along the wall, over the bridge, / By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, / While I stood munching my first bread that month: / "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father, / Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time, -- / "To quit this very miserable world?

Genres

Tags

painting · monastic life · religious art · artistic patronage · street revelry · dramatic monologue

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