And perhaps he loved the marble so well that he did not like to quit the good white stone without sparing a portion of its clinging strength and stubbornness, as symbol of the effort of his brain and hand to educe live thought from inert matter.
In the century after Michelangelo's death a sonnet was written by Giovanni Battista Felice Zappi upon this Moses.

It is famous in Italian literature, and expresses adequately the ideas which occur to ordinary minds when they approach the Moses.

For this reason I think that it is worthy of being introduced in a translation here:-- _Who is the man who, carved in this huge stone, Sits giant, all renowned things of art Transcending?
he whose living lips, that start, Speak eager words?
I hear, and take their tone.
He sure is Moses.

That the chin hath shown By its dense honour, the brows' beam bipart: 'Tis Moses, when he left the Mount, with part, A great-part, of God's glory round him thrown.
Such was the prophet when those sounding vast Waters he held suspense about him; such When he the sea barred, made it gulph his foe.
And you, his tribes, a vile calf did you cast?
Why not an idol worth like this so much?
To worship that had wrought you lesser woe._ VII Before quitting the Tomb of Julius, I must discuss the question of eight scattered statues, partly unfinished, which are supposed, on more or less good grounds, to have been designed for this monument.
About two of them, the bound Captives in the Louvre, there is no doubt.

Michelangelo mentions these in his petition to Pope Paul, saying that the change of scale implied by the last plan obliged him to abstain from using them.