But in the careful bunches of grass and weeds
you will see what the fresco foregrounds were before they got spoiled;
and there are some things he can understand already, even about that
Agony, thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some things,--not
altogether to be explained by the old symbol of the angel with the cup.
He will try if he cannot explain them better in those two little
pictures below; which nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus
being put in front of them, and the light glancing on the new varnish
so that you must twist about like a lizard to see anything.
Nevertheless, you may make out what Giotto meant.
"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" In what
was its bitterness?--thought the boy. "Crucifixion?--Well, it hurts,
doubtless; but the thieves had to bear it too, and many poor human
wretches have to bear worse on our battlefields. But"--and he thinks,
and thinks, and then he paints his two little pictures for the
predella.
They represent, of course, the sequence of the time in Gethsemane; but
see what choice the youth made of his moments, having two panels to
fill. Plenty of choice for him--in pain. The Flagellation--the Mocking
--the Bearing of the Cross;--all habitually given by the Margheritones,
and their school, as extremes of pain.
"No," thinks Giotto. "There was worse than all that. Many a good man
has been mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain.
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