Explore "Pietro of Abano" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_Petrus Aponensis_ -- there was a magician! / When that strange adventure happened, which I mean to tell my / hearers, / Nearly had he tried all trades -- beside physician, / Architect, astronomer, astrologer, -- or worse: / How else, as the old books warrant, was he able, / All at once, through all the world, to prove the promptest of / appearers / Where was prince to cure, tower to build as high as Babel, / Star to name or sky-sign read, -- yet pouch, for pains, a curse?
-- Curse: for when a vagrant, -- foot-sore, travel-tattered, / Now a young man, now an old man, Turk or Arab, Jew or Gypsy, -- / Proffered folk in passing -- Oh, for pay, what mattered? -- / "I 'll be doctor, I 'll play builder, star I 'll name -- sign read! " / Soon as prince was cured, tower built, and fate predicted, / "Who may you be? " came the question; when he answered "_Petrus / ipse_," / "Just as we divined! " cried folk -- "A wretch convicted / Long ago of dealing with the devil -- -you indeed!"