The Adventures of Enea, Part 5 of 13

Enea Gets the Red Hat Finally, he's getting somewhere. Fifty years of age and almost crippled, prematurely aged, but at last, sweet recognition rains down on the poet. Kneeling before Calixtus, he accepts the Cardinal's hat. Fancy that. With every triumph, we're swept nearer Hell. Each anthem that we sing's a kind of knell. No matter what we get, or grab, or gain, we're human, and our lot is death and pain. Both Frederick and Ladislas had to do a lot of lobbying (Calixtus was a Borgia, after all: and family is family.) Por fin, esta elevado. Behold the scene. Frederick with his back to us and Ladislas holding on to him (shouldn't that be the other way round?) deserve their pride of place. The seething swell of humans swirls around the little altar, but can't budge it. The clear-cut marble doesn't give. What is the painter telling us? Men move, and flow, and live, and go, but soon or later, their energy is spent? The Church is permanent? Regard the four main players, the upper crust of Mankind's many layers, yet each one a loser clone. Calixtus took the throne already old, and singing one stale tune (and that, corrupt!) He didn't use a long spoon when he supped. There's Frederick, the Emperor, a joke. Bullied by his minions, unhappy, hapless, broke. And Ladislas, a king without a kingdom, a cock without a crest, he's Frederick's long-term guest (another kind of jest). A prisoner -- or let's say, at home, he and Frederick make a palindrome: august additions to this Pleasure Dome. Enea: worn out, homesick, ill. Surviving now on sheer will. Is that Nature's tonsure, or Man's? He's kept alive by feverish plans to mount a Great Crusade -- but we all know it won't be made. Two rigid windows and an altarpiece. The Trinity? (The painting is the Holy Ghost.) Or are those plain, framed panes the Empire and the Papacy? You think we're reading too much in? We point you to one subtle artist's touch. The youth, right-centre, in the azure cloak, who's smirking at some "only-I-know" joke: head cocked, as if he's watching all, askance: he finds the dainty, double-dealing dance amusing. Isn't he Rafael? Hatted like some crimson Cardinal, he's watching how they rise up, how they fall. He's waiting, calmly, to inherit all.