Chapter XXV

_Amor, se tu se’ dio,
Non puo’ ciò che tu vuoi?
Deh fa’ per me, se puoi,
Quel ch’io farei per te, s’amor fuss’io!
Sconviensi al gran desio
D’alta beltà la speme,
Viepiù l’effetto, a chi è presso al morire.
Pon nel tuo grado il mio:
Dolce gli fie chi ’l preme?
Chè grazia per poc’ or, doppia ’l martire.
Ben ti voglio ancor dire:
Che sarie morte, s’a’ miseri è dura,
A chi muor giunto all’alta sua ventura?_

“_O love, thou art divine,
A god to work thy will;
Prithee, for me fulfil
All I would do for thee, if deity were mine._”
“_He were no friend of thine,
Who hope of lofty beauty should bestow
On one who presently must life forego;
Come put thee in my place,
Thy idle prayer retrace;
Wilt thou implore a gain,
That granted, only would enlarge the pain?
Death hath a sober face;
If even the unhappy find him rude,
How stern to one arrived at full beatitude?_”

NOTES ON THE SONNETS EPIGRAMS AND MADRIGALS

NOTES ON THE SONNETS

_The Roman numbers, in the Introduction and Notes, refer to the numeration of Guasti (Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florence, 1863)._

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE POEMS.--On the corrupted texts of 1623 were based the versions of J. E. Taylor (Michael Angelo considered as a Philosophic Poet. With Translations. London, 1840), and of J. S. Harford (Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti. With Translations of many of his Poems and Letters. London, 1857). The beautiful renderings of Wordsworth (five sonnets) depended on the same faulty presentation. The correct texts of Guasti were followed by J. A. Symonds in his complete translation of the sonnets (The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommasi Campanella. London, 1878). In his biography of the sculptor (The Life of Michael-Angelo Buonarroti. London, 1893), Symonds rendered several of the madrigals. A selection from the poems, with the Italian text, and renderings by different hands, was edited by Mrs. E. D. Cheney (Selected Poems from Michael-Angelo Buonarroti. With Translations from various sources. Boston, 1885). This publication includes thirteen epitaphs for Cecchino Bracchi, and the verses written by Michelangelo on the death of his father, as well as a number of the sonnets of the last period (after 1547). Versions of single sonnets may be found scattered through periodical literature.

1 [I] Donato Giannotti wrote an essay concerning the duration of the journey through Hell and Purgatory, as related in the “Divina Commedia.” This discussion he cast into the form of a dialogue, in which Michelangelo is given the principal part; the conversation is dated as taking place in 1545, and one of the interlocutors is made to recite the sonnet which, with doubtful accuracy, is said to have been composed a few days before. The work of Giannotti is interesting as containing the estimate of a contemporary concerning the character of Michelangelo, but the words assigned to him cannot be considered as a record of his actual expressions. The essayist seems to have applied to the artist for material, as indicated by the subscription of the following sonnet, probably composed at this time.

[II]

QUANTE DIRNE SI DE’ NON SI PUÒ DIRE

_His praise remains unuttered, for his fire
Of glory burneth with o’ervivid flame;
The home that wronged him easier to blame,
Than toward his humblest merit to aspire.
This man for us descended, where God’s ire
Subdueth sin, once more toward heaven rose;
The gates that his Creator did not close,
A cruel city barred to his desire.
Ah ruthless mother, nurse of her own woe,
In measure as her sons are excellent,
Their sorrow making bitterly to flow!
Of thousand instances one argument;
No man hath lived more shamefully exiled,
No age hath known a like, a greater child._

2 [XIV] The sketch, characterized by rude vigor, lacks the truth and harmony essential to a beautiful work; these qualities are to be attained by the final touches of the hammer, or, as we should now say, of the chisel. So it is only the influence of the beloved person which can perfect the incomplete design of Nature, and bestow on the character its final excellence. Of all the sonnets, this is the most celebrated.

Respecting an inferior variant, the younger Buonarroti, in an obscure mention, appears to say that it was contained in a letter of the sculptor written in 1550, which letter made mention of the marchioness of Pescara; and this assertion has led Guasti to refer the sonnet to that date. It is quite clear, however, that the treatment does not belong to the later period, after the death of Vittoria Colonna, in which the productions of Michelangelo had assumed the monotone of a colorless piety. It seems to me more likely that the time of composition is to be set earlier than 1534, and that the conception, ideal in character, had no relation to Vittoria, with whom the sculptor had perhaps not yet become acquainted.

3 [XV] The sculptor, who is designated as the best of artists, on beholding the block of marble at his disposal, obtains the suggestion of a statue; this possible work appears to him as a figure concealed beneath the veil of superincumbent matter, which he proceeds to remove. His success will depend on the clearness of internal vision; if he lack the vivid conception, the result will be an abortive product, which metaphorically may be called a likeness of Death. So if the lover, in place of the “mercy” which he desires to awaken, can create in the heart of his lady only a feeling inconsistent with his wishes, the blame should be laid solely to his own insufficiency. The idea is poetic, not philosophic, and the sonnet a poem of love, belonging to what I have called the earlier manner of the poet. The sonnet has been paraphrased by Emerson:--

_Never did sculptor’s dream unfold
A form which marble doth not hold
In its white block; yet it therein shall find
Only the hand secure and bold
Which still obeys the mind.
So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame,
The ill I shun, the good I claim;
I, alas! not well alive,
Miss the aim whereto I strive.
Not love, nor beauty’s pride,
Nor fortune, nor thy coldness can I chide,
If whilst within thy heart abide
Both death and pity, my unequal skill
Fails of the life, but draws the death and ill._

In this rendering the fourth line is open to criticism; it is not want of manual skill that is the cause of failure, but the inability to form an adequate idea. Harford modernizes the introductory lines:--

_Whate’er conception a great artist fires,
Its answering semblance latent lies within
A block of marble._

The metaphor is thus reduced to the scholastic platitude, that in all matter lies the potentiality of form. So Varchi understood the lines, and cites Aristotle as authority that the action of an agent is nothing but the extraction of a thing from potency to act; with changes on such intolerable jargon he occupies two pages. The lecture, intended to be flattering, only serves to show with what contemporary crassness the delicate conceptions of Michelangelo were obliged to struggle.

4 [XVII] The contrast between the permanence of the artistic product and the transitoriness of the mortal subject suggests reflections which may take different turns. (See madrigal No. 9 [XIII].) One is reminded of certain sonnets of Shakespeare.

5 [XIX] The lover feels himself enriched by the impression of the beloved, which, like the divine name on the seal of Solomon, confers the power of working miracles. The pretty composition is among the few which may be said to be inspired by a really cheerful and joyous sentiment, and, like the preceding, may be held to belong to the earlier manner of the poet.

6 [XX] This most beautiful sonnet, somewhat immature in its music, is a precious relic of Michelangelo’s early love verse. The poem was written below a letter from his father, received in Bologna, and dated 24 December, 1507. Subscribed is the line: _La m’arde e lega et emmi e parmi un zucchero_. “She burns me and binds me and eats me, and I think her a sugarplum.” The lines, therefore, have a biographic inspiration, and may be presumed to have been in honor of some young beauty of Bologna. A fragment of a madrigal seems akin.

[CII]

_Lezzi, vezzi, carezze, or feste e perle;
Chi potria ma’ vederle
Cogli atti suo’ divin l’uman lavoro,
Ove l’argento e l’oro
Da le’ ricieve o duplica suo luce?
Ogni gemma più luce
Dagli occhi suo’ che da propia virtute._

“_Looks, laughter, graces, gaud, and pearl;
Who that gazeth on the girl
Ever hath a thought to spare
For the gold that gleameth there,
Or if silver sparkle fair?
Every gem that on her lies
Borroweth lustre from her eyes._”

In this connection also should be cited the sonnet which Guasti has placed next in order, and which also seems to contain internal evidence of belonging to a period relatively early.

[XXI]

D’ALTRUI PIETOSO E SOL DI SÈ SPIETATO

_To others kind, and only self-oppressed,
Doth live a lowly worm, that to adorn
A lady’s beauty will her life divest,
In death alone appearing nobly born.
So would my lady might esteem no scorn
Her life in my mortality to vest,
That I might shed this slough, and be reborn
Forth from my being to a state more blest.
Would that of me the silken thread were twined,
That fashioned to her happy gown, doth use
So fair a bosom with content to bind,
By day at least to wear me; or the shoes,
That like the column’s base, her steps sustain,
If only in the falling of the rain!_

It would seem that these remains of the poetical activity of early manhood, though not numerous, are yet sufficient to refute the rash generalizations of biographers who undertake to sum up the personality from their impressions of the artistic product. It does seem strange that with these lines before him, Mr. Symonds could have written: “Michelangelo emerges as a mighty master who was dominated by the vision of male beauty, and who saw the female mainly through the fascination of the other sex. The defect of his art is due to a certain constitutional callousness, a want of sensuous or imaginative sensibility for what is specifically feminine.... Michelangelo neither loved nor admired nor yielded to the female sex.... I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that Michelangelo felt himself compelled to treat women as though they were another and less graceful sort of males. What he did not comprehend and could not represent was woman in her girlishness, her youthful joy, her physical attractions, her magic of seduction.... What makes Michelangelo’s crudity in his plastic treatment of the female form the more remarkable is that in his poetry he seems to feel the influence of women mystically. I shall have to discuss this topic in another place. It is enough here to say that, with very few exceptions, we remain in doubt whether he is addressing a woman at all. There are none of those spontaneous utterances by which a man involuntarily expresses the outgoings of his heart to a beloved object, the throb of irresistible emotion, the physical ache, the sense of wanting, the joys and pains, the hopes and fears, which belong to genuine passion.... Michelangelo’s ‘donna’ might just as well be a man; and indeed, the poems he addressed to men, though they have nothing sensual about them, reveal a finer touch in the emotion of the writer.” (Life, vol. i, c. vi, 8. See vol. ii, pp. 381-5.)

The reasons for the limitation which may have prevented Michelangelo from adequately representing the sensuous aspect of womanhood, should be sought in the character of his plastic genius. So far as the power of appreciation is concerned, and especially in regard to the spirit of the verse, the opinion of Mr. Symonds appears to me to reverse the fact. The nature of the artist may be pronounced especially sensitive to the physical influence of woman. If, in the extant poetry, this sentiment appears in chastened form, such calmness may be set down solely to the period of life. Yet even in these later compositions, extreme impressibility is revealed in every line. Mr. Symonds’s error has prevented him from entering into the spirit of the sonnets, and also constitutes a deficiency in his instructive biography. (See note to sonnet No. 13 [XXX].)

7 [XXII] The verse, direct and passionate, though doubtless of a later date, still bears the character of pieces which must be pronounced relatively early. Observable is the use of theologic metaphor, employed only for the sake of poetic coloring, and not yet sublimed to pure thought.

8 [XXIV] This delightful sonnet, according to the nephew, was found on a letter bearing date of 1529. (See p. 7.) The lines seem to give the idea of a gentle and lovely personage whose countenance shines out as through a golden mist. In later compositions, the conflict of Death and Love is worked out differently. (See madrigal No. 9 [XIII].)

9 [XXV] On the same authority, this inexpressibly charming production is assigned to 1529. Here appear the germs of Platonic imagination. The soul, a divine essence, endows the visible suggestion with the spiritual essence derived from its own store. But the object is not completely divinized; the end is still possession. The reflective element will increase, the sensuous lessen, until poetry passes over into piety.

10 [XXVII] The love verse is not to be taken as wholly biographic, but rather as ideal.

11 [XXVIII] The atmosphere of the sonnet is that of later time and of a more rarefied height. We are now in full Platonism. The soul, heaven-born, perceives in the eyes of the beloved its primal home, the Paradise whence itself has descended, and the heavenly affection of which earthly love is a reminiscence. But the period may still be before the Roman residence, and the meeting with Vittoria Colonna.

12 [XXIX] This sonnet may safely be set down as belonging to the later time. The sentiment of unhappy attachment, impossible desire, wistful loneliness, breathes through the verse. The piece contains two mystical but grand lines. Whoever has hoped for an elevation not given to mortals has wasted his thought in the endeavor to penetrate the recesses of deity, as seed is lost on the stony ground, and words spent in the limitless air.

13 [XXX] This gentle and tender poem, of the earlier period, somewhat similar in sentiment to No. 5 [XIX], and obviously from the heart, is penetrated by the same feeling as that discernible in Nos. 8 and 9 [XXIV and XXV]. Varchi, with his characteristic want of perception, chose to fancy that it might be addressed to a man, like the following, said to be composed for Tommaso Cavalieri.

[XXXI]

A CHE PIÙ DEBB’IO MAI L’INTENSA VOGLIA

_What right have I to give my passion vent
In bitter plaint and words of sighing breath,
If Heaven, soon or late, apparelleth
Each living soul in mantle of lament?
Why ere his time, invoke the feet of Death,
When Death will come? Nay, rather let my glance
At last dwell peaceful on his countenance,
Since other good my sorrow vanquisheth.
Yet if no power is mine to shun the blow
I court and seek; what help will be my own,
To interpose ’twixt dolor and delight?
Since prison and defeat allure me so,
It is not strange, if naked and alone,
I remain captive of an armèd knight._

The words _cavalier armato_ are supposed to have referred to the aforesaid Cavalieri, a Roman youth whom Varchi describes as all that was beautiful and lovable. The highest male beauty seems to have had for Italians of the Renaissance, an attraction similar to that which it possessed for Athenians, a charm which our modern taste does not entirely comprehend. Thus the early death of Cecchino Bracchi had produced a great sensation; the epitaphs addressed to his memory by Michelangelo, who had never looked on his face, attest the sincerity of his own sentiment. For Cavalieri, whom the artist had known in 1533, he seems to have what can be described only as a passion; the three extant letters addressed to the young man breathe that timidity, sense of inferiority, and fear of misunderstanding which ordinarily belong only to sexual attachment. This emotion needs no apology other than that contained in a letter to this friend: “And if you are sure of my affection, you ought to think and know that he who loveth remembereth, and can no more forget the things he fervently loves, than a hungry man the food that nourishes him; nay, much less may one forget beloved objects than the food on which man liveth; for they nourish both soul and body, the last with the greatest sobriety, and the first with tranquil felicity and the expectation of everlasting salvation.” (Lettere, No. 4, 16.) The susceptibility of Michelangelo toward external impressions is noted by Giannotti, who makes him affirm that as often as he set eyes on any person endowed with excellence he could not help becoming enamored of him in such manner that he surrendered himself to him as a prey. (Guasti, Rime, p. XXXI.) To the point is Michelangelo’s own estimate of his character expressed in a sonnet.

[XVIII]

AL COR DI ZOLFO, ALLA CARNE DI STOPPA

_The heart of sulphur and the flesh of tow,
The bones inflammable as tinder dried,
The soul without a bridle, without guide,
In liking prompt, toward joy o’erswift to go,
The reason purblind, halting, lame, and slow,
Tangled in nets wherewith the world doth teem,
No marvel ’tis, if even in a gleam
I kindle up in flame that first doth glow.
With that fair art endowed, whereby the mind
From heaven that bringeth, Nature doth outvie,
And with itself all being occupy,
If I thereto was born nor deaf nor blind,
Proportionate to heat that I desire,
’Tis fault of him who made for me the fire._

It is well to know that Cavalieri seems to have had a modest and noble nature, and that his personal attachment and artistic appreciation soothed the declining days of Michelangelo, at whose end he was present.

The mention of Michelangelo himself (Lettere, No. 466; Symonds, Life, vol. ii, p. 130) seems to prove that this sonnet was really composed for his young friend. But it is one thing to conclude that the piece was addressed to Cavalieri, quite another to suppose that it was inspired by him. The ideas are the same as those elsewhere appearing in reference to women. The composition does not appear to me one of the most original, and I should be disposed to regard it as ordinary love verse, into which, out of compliment, the writer had introduced the punning allusion. In any case, it is to be observed that in the Platonic compositions treating of male friendship, the whole argument is metaphorical, the comparisons being borrowed from the earlier poetry of sexual love.

Fundamental is the question, What proportion of Michelangelo’s verse was intended to relate to men, and how far can such verse, if existent, be taken to imply that he had no separate way of feeling for women? The opinions of Mr. Symonds have already been cited (see note to No. 6 [XX]). In noticing Michelangelo’s use of the idiomatic Tuscan word _signore_, lord, as applied in the sonnets to female persons as well as male (the English _liege_ may similarly be used), he says, “But that Michelangelo by the _signore_ always or frequently meant a woman can be disproved in many ways. I will only adduce the fragment of one sonnet” (No. LXXXIII). It is a pity that Mr. Symonds did not enter into detail; I am quite at a loss for any circumstances that can be held to warrant his declaration. For the word, the sonnets only afford information. No. XVI, containing the words _signior mie car_, is a variant of No. XV, expressly addressed to a lady. In No. XXII, no one will doubt that the reference is to a woman. In No. XXXV the sex is shown by the epithet _leggiadre_, fair, applied to the arms (Mr. Symonds renders “fragile”). No. XXXVII qualifies _signor_ by _donna_. No. LV treats of the shyness of a lady in presence of her lover. In No. XL, instead of _signior_, the variant gives _donna_. No. XLVII seems obviously addressed to Vittoria Colonna. In No. XXXVI, the feminine application appears to be indicated by the description of the sovereign person as reigning _nella casa d’amore_. Thus in not a single instance can the suggestion of Mr. Symonds be accepted.

There remains the fragment mentioned, No. LXXXIII, a beautiful and interesting piece, unhappily imperfect. “Yonder it was that Love (_amor_; variant, _signior_), his mercy, took my heart, rather my life; here with beauteous eyes he promised me aid, and with the same took it away. Yonder he bound me, here he loosed me; here for myself I wept, and with infinite grief saw issue from this stone him who took me from myself, and of me would none.” It will be seen that the masculine pronoun is rendered necessary by the reference to personified Love, and that the allusion is clearly to sexual passion. Mr. Symonds has not entirely comprehended the scope of the fragment. The mystical description of Love as issuing from a stone (_sasso_) may probably be an application of the familiar sculpturesque metaphor.

As, in the instances considered, the opinion of Mr. Symonds appears void of foundation, so it is counter to the tenor of the poetry. If No. XXXI really was written for Cavalieri, the reference probably consisted of no more than the introduction, into the ordinary phrases of a love poem, of a complimentary play on words. As for the metaphor by which a lady is compared to an armed enemy, that was already commonplace in the day of Dante.

14 [XXXII] From pieces dealing with ideal affection we pass to one obviously biographic in its inspiration. The poem is written below a letter of 1532, addressed to the sculptor when in Rome. The artist seems to refer to his own impetuous nature, too liable to quarrel with friends. Analogous is the sonnet addressed to Luigi del Riccio. (See madrigal No. 3 [IV] note.) But this composition evidently relates to a lady, as is shown by the mention of the _dorato strale_, gilded dart of Love.

15 [XXXIII] As with all lyric poetry, so in the compositions of Michelangelo, it is not to be assumed that every expression of emotion of necessity corresponds to some particular experience. Yet the tenderness, melancholy, and gentle regret which inspire the verse evidently reflect the character and habitual manner of feeling of the author. Related in sentiment are the following sonnets:--

[XXVI]

NON MEN GRAN GRAZIA, DONNA, CHE GRAN DOGLIA

_By happiness as deep as agony
Below the scaffold is the caitiff slain,
When lost to hope, and ice in every vein,
His pardon comes, his sudden liberty;
So when, beyond thy wonted charity,
My heaven overcast with many a pain
Thy sovereign pity doth make clear again,
More deep than anguish, pierceth ecstasy.
Sweet news and cruel in so far agree,
As either in a moment may destroy
The heart by grief, or sunder it through joy;
If thou desirest that I live for thee,
The rapture mete, for many a creature frail
Hath died of grace too free for its avail._

[XXXV]

SENTO D’UN FOCO UN FREDDO ASPETTO ACCESO

_I See a face that in itself is cold,
Yet lit with fire that burneth me afar;
Two arms, that quiet and unmoving are,
Whereby all else is moved and controlled;
The vision of a beauty I behold,
Immortal, yet pursuing me to death;
A power that free, my own envelopeth;
Another’s balm, that may my hurt enfold.
How can befall, that a fair countenance
Hath power to cause effect so contrary,
Creating what it doth now own? Perchance,
The life that taketh my felicity,
Yet doth itself deny, is like the sun,
That yieldeth the world heat, yet heat hath none._

[XXXVIII]

RENDETE A GLI OCCHI MIEI, O FONTE O FIUME

_Ah give me back, or river thou or source,
The turbid waters that enlarge thee so,
That thy augmented current doth o’erflow,
And hasten on an unaccustomed course;
O laden air, whose gathered mists allay
And temper heaven’s shining to these eyes,
Return my weary heart her many sighs,
And cloudless leave the countenance of day.
Earth, render to my feet their steps again,
Along the track they trod let grass grow green;
Restore, deaf Echo, my petitions vain;
And ye, alas! unmovèd eyes serene!
Give mine their wasted looks, that they may see
Some kinder loveliness, disdained by thee!_

With these sonnets of ideal love may be compared one later in date, apparently more biographic in sentiment, and doubtless inspired by Vittoria Colonna.

[L]

S’I’ AVESSI CREDUTO AL PRIMO SGUARDO

_Had I believed, when first I met the glow
Of this bright soul, my sun, that I might rise
Through fire renewed in such triumphal wise
As doth the Phœnix from her ashes go,
Like some fleet-footed creature, pard or roe,
That seeks its joy and flieth from its fear,
To meet the act, the smile, the accent dear,
I would have leaped, now in my swiftness slow.
Yet why indulge regret, the while I see
In eyes of this glad angel, without cease,
My calm repose and everlasting peace?
More painful days, perchance, had dawned on me,
If I had earlier met, yet been denied
The wings she lendeth me to fly beside._

16 [XXXIX] The timid lover, who finds himself involved in the dangers of a hopeless passion, endeavors to withdraw from the perilous situation, but in so doing finds himself confronted by another danger, that of losing the affection which has become his life. As the vain desire will prove the death of the body, so the renunciation will be that of the soul; thus the suitor, according to the familiar metaphorical system furnished by plastic art, is said to see his lady with a statue of Death on either hand.

The beautiful and mystic sonnet was written on a stray leaf bearing a memorandum of 1529, and was probably composed in that year. According to the statement of the nephew, Nos. 8 and 9 [XXIV and XXV] were also written on letters of that year; and these two poems correspond in sentiment with the present piece.

17 [XL] This most beautiful sonnet might conjecturally be referred to the same period as No. 12 [XXIX]. The spirit of the verse ought to be enough to satisfy any reader that it was composed with reference to a woman. (See note to No. 13 [XXX].)

18, 19 [XLIII, XLIV] These two pieces, containing respectively the dispraise and praise of night, are obviously intended to be counterparts, the first forming an introduction to the second. The consolations belonging to darkness and slumber have furnished themes to very many writers of verse; but among all such pieces Michelangelo’s tribute is entitled to preëminence. The emotion, deepening with the progress of the rhyme, ends in one of those outbursts which make the poetry a key to the character. Two other sonnets treating of the same subject do not appear to be connected.

[XLI]

COLUI CHE FECE, E NON DI COSA ALCUNA

_He who did erst from primal nothing bring
Time, integral and property of none,
To half, dividing, gave the distant sun,
To half the moon, a lamp more neighboring.
All in a moment, Destiny and Chance
Began, and over mortals ruled with power;
To me they gave the still and sober hour,
As like to like, in birth and circumstance.
As attribute in action is expressed,
And darkness is the property of night,
So e’en to be myself is sad to be;
Yet is my troubled spirit soothed to rest,
Remembering, its dusk may render bright
The sun that Fortune lent for friend to thee._

In No. XLII Night is lauded, as the shadow in which man is engendered, while in the day the soil is broken only for the seed of the corn; but the composition does not rival the sweetness and sublimity of No. XLIV.

20 [LII] This fine sonnet, belonging to the later period, may be set down as among those inspired by Vittoria Colonna. Thoroughly characteristic is the grand fifth line, in which the soul is said to have been created as God’s equal. The nephew, of course, diluted such daring conceptions into commonplace, and his restoration altogether fails to convey the essential meaning of the piece. Wordsworth, unfortunately, knew only the emasculated version.

Similar in theme is another sonnet, No. LX, also rendered by Wordsworth, from a text more nearly representative. In this instance the English poet has transcended his source, and furnished a proof that on fortunate occasions a translation may belong to the very best poetry, and deserve that immortality which commonly belongs only to expressions of original genius.

_Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
And I be undeluded, undismayed;
For if of our affections none find grace
In sight of heaven, then wherefore hath God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea
Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
Which such divinity to thee imparts,
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only, whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour;
But in chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power
Of earthly change, there blooms a deathless flower,
That breathes on earth the air of Paradise._

21 [LVI] The sonnet is to be classed with the preceding. In a variant, the theologic metaphor is carried further: “From without, I know not whence, came that immortal part which separateth not from thy sacred breast, yet traverseth the entire world, healeth every intellect, and honoreth heaven.”

22 [LXI] As all tools used by man are formed by means of other tools, the archetypal tool must be that celestial instrument by which the world is fashioned. On earth, Vittoria Colonna had been the hammer (as we now say, the chisel) by which had been inspired the creative activity of the artist. By her death, this influence had been withdrawn to heaven, there to become united with the all-forming hammer of the eternal Maker; it is, therefore, only from on high that the artist can look for the completion of his own genius.

To the text, in the hand of Michelangelo, is added a sentence expressing his sense of the incomparable merit of Vittoria, as the divine instrument which none other is able to wield, and a prayer that his own hammer, as he metaphorically says, may also attain a reception in heaven.

The mystically expressed, but in reality simple and direct verse is crowded with ideas which strive for utterance. The sculptor seems to have written prophetically; after the passing away of Vittoria, the last of his animating impulses appears to have been removed, and his life becomes that of a recluse, struggling with the infirmities of advancing age.

Several other pieces relate to the death of Vittoria.

[LXII]

QUAND’EL MINISTRO DE’ SOSPIR ME’ TANTI

_When she who ministereth sighs, withdrew
From the world’s sight, from her own self and mine,
Nature, who made her in our eyes to shine,
Remained abashed, and downcast all who knew.
Yet be not Death of his loud vauntings rife
O’er the sun’s sun, as over others; Love
Hath him subdued, and her endowed with life
Both here below, and with the pure above.
Unjust and haughty Death did so engage
To hush her praises, and her soul bestow
Where it would seem less beautiful; and lo!
Reverse effects illuminate Time’s page;
On earth, more life than she in life possessed,
While Heaven who wished her, now enjoyeth blest._

The thought, that Nature is disgraced in the loss of its best creation, is repeated in Michelangelo’s poetry. (See sonnet No. 4 [XVII], madrigal No. 9 [XIII].)

Two other sonnets, Nos. LXIII and LXIV, breathe an atmosphere of the most gloomy despair. The first expresses a profound self-reproach; the time to soar heavenward was while the sun of life still shone; it is now too late. The second declares that the flame has expired, to leave only ashes without a spark.

I do not doubt that here also belongs another sonnet, placed by Guasti as if belonging to an earlier date.

[LI]

TORNAMI AL TEMPO ALLOR CHE LENTA E SCIOLTA

_Give me the day when free was cast the rein
For headlong ardor’s unreflecting race;
Restore to me the calm angelic face
Wherewith interred seems Virtue to remain;
Give back the wanderings, the steps of pain,
So slow to him by weary age oppressed;
Give water to my eyes, fire to my breast,
If thou wilt take thy fill of me again.
If, Love, ’tis true, thou livest on no more
Than sighs and tears of lovers bitter-sweet,
A weary age hath nought of thy desire;
The soul already near the further shore,
With shield of holier darts doth thine defeat,
And the burned wood is proof against the fire._

A madrigal relates to the same theme.

[VI]

PER NON S’AVERE A RIPIGLIAR DA TANTI

_That perfectness of beauty free from peer
Might be reclaimed and garnered without fail,
Upon a lady excellently clear
Was it bestowed beneath a shining veil;
The heavenly boon had hardly been repaid,
If scattered among all that Heaven had made.
Now, from world unaware,
In breathing of a sigh,
Hath God who reigns on high
Resumed, and hid away his beauty fair.
Yet, though the body die,
Cherish shall memory still
Sacred and sweet, her written legacy.
Compassionate and stern, if Heaven’s will
To all had granted what to her alone,
We all had died for making good the loan._

The madrigal recites that deity had chosen to embody in a single life the sum of beauty, to the end that the celestial gift might be more easily resumed. Similar _concetti_ are to be found in the series of epitaphs composed on Cecchino Bracci, in 1544. Mr. Symonds very unjustly criticises the verse as constrained, affected, and exhibiting an absence of genuine grief.

NOTES ON THE EPIGRAMS

1 [I] THE NIGHT OF THE MEDICI CHAPEL. According to Vasari, when the statues of the Medici Chapel were exposed to view, after Michelangelo’s departure for Rome, early in 1535, an unknown author affixed a quatrain to the image of Night. This person was afterwards known as Giovanni di Carlo Strozzi, at the time eighteen years of age. The verse, not ungraceful but superficial, recited that Night, carved by an angel, was living, for the very reason that she seemed to sleep, and if accosted, would make reply. To this fanciful compliment, Michelangelo responded in the beautiful quatrain, which exhibits his view of the Medicean usurpation.

It were to be wished that in presence of the awful forms, visitors would bear in mind the sculptor’s advice. I have heard a young American lady, in a voice somewhat strident, expound to her mother the theme of the statue, reading aloud the information furnished by Baedeker.

2 [II] DEATH AND THE COFFIN. The younger Buonarroti cites the statement of Bernardo Buontalenti, that in his house in Rome, halfway up the stair, Michelangelo had drawn a skeleton Death carrying on his shoulder a coffin, on which were inscribed these lines. The story is interesting, in connection with the part taken by Death in the verse of the sculptor. Giannotti represents him as declining to attend a merry-making on the ground that it was necessary to muse on Death. (See madrigal No. 12 [XVI].) The idea appears to be that death cannot be dreadful, since it bequeaths to life not only the immortal soul, but even the body; probably the artist meant to say the body made immortal through art.

3 [V] DEFINITION OF LOVE. With this definition from the subjective point of view, may be compared madrigal No. 5 [VIII]. As usual the imagination of the poet takes plastic form; Love, in his mind, is a statue lying in the heart, and waiting to be unveiled. Akin is the celebrated sonnet of Dante, _Amor e cor gentil sono una cosa_, which contains the same conception, and which perhaps Michelangelo may have remembered. But the more mystical idea of the sculptor borrows only the suggestion.

NOTES ON THE MADRIGALS

1 [I] During his Roman residence, Michelangelo was brought into intimate relations with Florentine exiles, who gathered in Rome, where ruled a Farnese pope, and where certain cardinals favored the anti-Medicean faction. From the course of a turbulent mountain-brook, Florence, following an inevitable law, was obliged to issue into the quiet but lifeless flow of inevitable despotism. It could not be expected that the fiery Michelangelo could comprehend the inexorableness of the fate which, in consequence of the necessities of trade, compelled Florence to prefer conditions ensuring tranquillity, though under an inglorious and corrupt personal rule. The sublime madrigal shows the depth of his republican sentiments. (See No. 22 [LXVIII].)

2 [III] The difficult but very interesting madrigal gives a profound insight into the spirit of the writer, who felt himself to move in a society foreign from the higher flight of his genius. His habits of isolation are remarked by contemporaries. Giannotti, in the dialogue above mentioned, discourses amusingly on this trait of character, putting into the mouth of the artist a reply to an invitation. “I won’t promise.” “Why?” “Because I had rather stay at home.” “For what reason?” “Because, if I should put myself under such conditions, I should be too gay; and I don’t want to be gay.” Luigi del Riccio, introduced as interlocutor, exclaims that he never heard of such a thing; in this sad world one must seize every opportunity of distraction; he himself would supply a monochord, and they would all dance, to drive away sorrow. To this comforting proposition, Michelangelo returns that he should much prefer to cry. Giannotti romances; but Francis of Holland is nearer the fact when he makes the sculptor answer an accusation urged against solitary habits. The artist declares that there is good ground for such accusation against one who withdraws from the world by reason of eccentricity, but not against a man who has something better to do with his time. The particular occasion of the madrigal seems to have been dissatisfaction with praise lavished on what to Michelangelo seemed an unworthy work. Southey paraphrases the poem, but gives the idea only imperfectly.

Here, in connection with the idea of beauty as furnished from within, may be introduced a version of a madrigal interesting rather on account of the philosophic conception than the poetic excellence. (See also sonnet XVIII, translated in the note to No. XXX.)

[VII]

PER FIDO ESEMPLO ALLA MIA VOCAZIONE

_On me hath been bestowed by birthtide-gift,
Of both mine arts the mirror and the light,
Beauty, my model in my calling here.
It only hath the competence to lift
The vision of the artist to that height
At which I aim in form or color clear._

_If judgment rash and fantasy unwise
Degrade to sense the beauty, that doth bear
And raise toward heaven all sane intelligence,
Man’s wavering glances have no power to rise,
Above inconstant, faithful only where
They linger, unless mercy call them thence._

3 [IV] The madrigal is addressed to Luigi del Riccio, friend of Michelangelo’s declining years, and a correspondent to whom were transmitted many of the extant poems. In 1544 Luigi, during a sickness of the sculptor, took him into his own house and acted as his nurse; but shortly afterwards, he refused a request of the artist, declining to suppress an engraving he had been requested to destroy. The indignation of Michelangelo found vent in a bitter letter. Riccio died in 1546. Symonds (Life, vol. ii, p. 194) thinks that Michelangelo speedily excused his friend and repented his anger. Here the whole heart of the artist is disclosed, and we have a revelation of the manner in which internal brooding and many disappointments had rendered somewhat morose a gentle and affectionate nature, characterized by pride amounting to a fault.

With the idea may be compared Emerson’s essay on “Gifts.” “Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things, for gifts. This giving is usurpation, and therefore, when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with the anger of my lord Timon. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap.” He adds, entirely in the spirit of Michelangelo, “No services are of any value, but only likeness.”

4 [V] The poet addresses to his friend Vittoria Colonna a theologic inquiry, after the manner of the appeals of Dante to Beatrice. Apparently the letter included a blank leaf for an answer. The question is, “In heaven are contrite sinners less valued than self-satisfied saints?” The obvious reply must be that in the nature of things such saints are impossible. The inquiry, therefore, is not to be taken as serious, but as playful and ironical. I should be inclined to interpret the verse as asking, “Am I, an humble artist, but sincerely devoted, of less value in your eyes than the very courtly and important personages by whom you are surrounded?” (as Vittoria was in close intimacy with high ecclesiastical functionaries). The sentiment is gay and jesting, while full of pleading affection.

5 [VIII] If of all the compositions of Michelangelo, one were asked to name the most representative, it would be natural to select this incomparably lovely madrigal. No lyric poet has brought into a few words more music, more truth, more illumination. The four lines cited at the end of the Introduction might well be taken as the motto for a gathering of the poems; and if the arrangement had not seemed inconsistent with the numbering of the pieces, I would gladly have placed the madrigal at the end, as summing up the especial contribution of Michelangelo to letters.

6 [IX] A charming and light-hearted piece of music, obviously belonging to the earlier period of Michelangelo’s poetic activity. The verse is written on blue paper, with the subscription, “Divine things are spoken of in an azure field” (in heaven). The suggestion is furnished by a conventional _concetto_ of the period; but the familiarity does not prevent the thought lending itself to genuinely poetical treatment. No. X is a pretty variant, in which the cruelty of the lady is compared to the hardness of the marble in which her image is wrought. The lines are subscribed “for sculptors” (_Da scultori_). The close connection with his art lends to even the most simple of these verses an unspeakable attraction.

7 [XI] In this magnificent song, worthy of the greatest of lyric poets, we are still occupied with the concepts of plastic art. The artist achieves the complete expression of his idea only through painful toil, and often lapse of years which leave him ready to depart from a world in which accomplishment is itself a sign of ripeness for death. With that universal animism, as we now say, by which all general truths of man’s life are felt to be also applicable to the course of Nature, the poet is entitled to apply the idea to external being. And with what insight! If ever genius can be said to have forecast the conclusions of scientific inquiry, it is so in this instance; Michelangelo presents us with a truly modern conception of Nature, as the creative artist, who through a series of ages and a succession of sketches, is occupied with continually unsuccessful, but ever-improving efforts at the expression of her internal life. The perfection of the creature, which marks the accomplishment of the undertaking, signifies also the end of the process; with such completeness is felt the sorrow incident to all termination, and especially the pain of the mortal, who feels that delight in perfect beauty enforces the consciousness of his own transitoriness, and emphasizes the sense of Nature as perishable. Hence, perhaps it may be explained that all perception of perfect loveliness is said to be accompanied by a sensation of fear. The piece possesses a grandeur of rhythm corresponding to its depth of intellectual apprehension, and is worthy to stand beside the greatest of the artist’s plastic productions, as equally immortal. In such verse Michelangelo rose to the level of a world poet; nor has early English literature anything of a kindred nature worthy to be placed in comparison.

8 [XII] Michelangelo perpetually varies but never repeats the theme. Once more, it is not the trembling of the hand which causes the artist’s failure; it is the uncertainty of the mind, not clear as to its intent.

9 [XIII] Again the bitter contrast of the permanence of art with the fleeting period of human life. We have had the idea in sonnet XVII. But the argument is now carried a step further. According to mediæval (and also modern) national morality, the destruction of kindred implies the duty of blood-vengeance. On whom, then, devolves the conduct of the feud made necessary by the taking away of the beloved? Not on man, but on Nature, whose pride must be offended by the preference given to the works of her children as compared with the transitoriness of her own. The permanence of the artistic product is therefore a sign that Nature herself is bound to require of Time atonement for the wrong done to imagination; and thus art is made the prophet of restoration.

10 [XIV] The metaphor is now furnished by the work of the metal-caster; and since in this case there has been no change in the conditions of manufacture, the comparison still seems simple and natural.

11 [XV] The tender, simple, and universally applicable lament at the same time includes its own consolation.

12 [XVI] The idea of Death as deliverer from Love is often repeated by the poet. Giannotti probably followed rather the verse than any spoken words in the sentences he has put into the lips of the artist: “I remind you that to re-discover one’s self, and to enjoy one’s self, it is not necessary to seize on so many pleasures and delights, but only to reflect on death. This is the only thought which enables us to recognize ourselves, which maintains us in unity with ourselves, and prevents us from being robbed by parents, kinsfolk, friends, great masters, ambition, avarice, and other vices and sins, which take man from man, and keep him dispersed and dissipated, without suffering him ever to find himself and become at one with himself. Marvellous is the effect of this thought of death, which in virtue of its nature all-destructive, nevertheless conserves and supports those who include it in their meditation, and defends them from every human passion. Which, methinks, I have sufficiently indicated in a madrigal, where, in treating of love, I conclude that against it is no better defence than the thought of death.”

A beautiful variation, characterized by the author’s invariable originality, is furnished by the number next in Guasti’s edition.

[XVII]

NELLA MEMORIA DELLE COSE BELLE

_When Memory may cherish and endear
Some lovely sight, resolve availeth not
For her discrowning, until Death appear,
And exile her, as she made him forgot,
Chill flame to frost, change laughter into pain,
And make abhorred the beauty loved before,
That tenanteth the empty heart no more.
Yet if she turn again
Her lucid eyes toward home of their desire,
With arid bough more ardent grows the fire._

13 [XVIII] The idea that only through contemplating the person of the beloved can the soul transcend from time to eternity is familiar in the later compositions of Michelangelo. Compare sonnet 21 [LVI].

14 [XIX] The same conception receives a different treatment; mortal beauty is now represented as exercising too potent an attraction, and preventing the desire from mounting beyond it.

15 [XXI] The thought has been elaborated in a modern sense by Lowell in his “Endymion:”--

_Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more
An inaccessible splendor to adore,
A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth
As bred ennobling discontent with earth;
Give back the longing, back the elated mood
That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good;
Give even the spur of impotent despair
That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare;
Give back the need to worship that still pours
Down to the soul that virtue it adores!_

So far the idea coincides with that of Michelangelo; but the conclusion of the later poet varies:--

_Goddess triform, I own thy triple spell,
My heaven’s queen,--queen, too, of my earth and hell!_

Such could not be the termination of the author of the Renaissance, at a time when his star was Vittoria Colonna.

16 [XXIII] The sweet and plaintive verse was popular as a song even in the lifetime of Michelangelo, as may be inferred from its mention by Varchi.

17 [XXV] The madrigal has all the spirit of English song in the early part of the seventeenth century; but what English verse, having the same idea, could be mentioned in comparison?

18 [LII] The beautiful song exhibits a great number of variations. Perhaps on account of the musical character, counteracting a meditative tendency, Platonic philosophy appears only as lending a gentle mist transformed by the sunshine of pleasurable passion.

19 [LIII] Compare No. LXXII. I should assign this madrigal, in spite of its light character, to the later epoch.

20 [LIV] The ninth line appears to contain a reference to Vittoria Colonna, who lived in a convent, toward which the desires of the poet, as he says, scarce dared to reach.

21 [LVII] It can scarce be doubted that the attribution of masculine thought to the beloved is a reference to the character of Vittoria.

22 [LXVIII] The dialogue of this madrigal is intentionally veiled, as if the poet were conscious of dealing with a dangerous theme. Sublime are the last two lines, containing all the Michelangelo of the Sistine frescoes; the sentiment is not the purely Christian conception of forgiveness of injuries, the mildness which on principle turns the other cheek. Significant is the word _altero_, haughty; Michelangelo describes the sentiment of a great and proud spirit, so lofty as to feel a superiority to personal resentment, so truly Florentine as to receive no satisfaction in the prospect of vengeance taken on a citizen of Florence.

23 [LXIX] A pretty piece of poetic ratiocination, cast into the form of a case tried before a court of love, and ending, in the spirit of the poet, with a universal truth.

24 [LXXII] Compare No. 20 [LIV]. It will be seen that the allusions give some reason to believe that the idea is intended to be biographic, though of course not to be taken as entirely literal.

25 [XCIII] A pleasing way of expressing a sense of the incompatibility of Love and Death, that appears in many variations, and must be considered biographic in its sentiment.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

_The Roman numbers refer to the numeration of Guasti_

SONNETS

PAGE

XXXI. _A che più debb’io mai l’intensa voglia_ 72

XVIII. _Al cor di zolfo, alla carne di stoppa_ 74

XLI. _Colui che fece, e non di cosa alcuna_ 83

XVII. _Com’esser, donna, può quel ch’alcun vede_ 7

XIV. _Da che concetto ha l’arte intera e diva_ 5

I. _Dal ciel discese, e col mortal suo, poi_ 3

XXI. _D’altrui pietoso e sol di sè spietato_ 68

XXV. _Dimmi di grazia, amor, se gli occhi mei_ 11

XXIX. _I’ mi credetti, il primo giorno ch’io_ 15

XIX. _Io mi son caro assai più ch’io non soglio_ 7

XXXIX. _La ragion meco si lamenta e dole_ 19

XXVIII. _La vita dal mie amor non è ’l cor mio_ 13

XV. _Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto_ 5

XXVI. _Non men gran grazia, donna, che gran doglia_ 79

XXVII. _Non posso altra figura immaginarmi_ 13

XL. _Non so se s’è la desiata luce_ 19

LII. _Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale_ 23

XLIV. _O nott’, o dolce tempo benchè nero_ 21

XLIII. _Perchè Febo non torc’e non distende_ 21

XXXIII. _Perchè tuo gran bellezze al mondo sieno_ 17

LVI. _Per ritornar là donde venne fora_ 23

LXII. _Quand’el ministro de’ sospir me’ tanti_ 86

II. _Quante dirne si de’ non si può dire_ 63

XX. _Quanto si gode lieta e ben contesta_ 9

XXXVIII. _Rendete a gli occhi miei, o fonte o fiume_ 80

LXI. _Se ’l mie rozzo martello i duri sassi_ 25

XXII. _Se nel volto per gli occhi il cor si vede_ 9

XXXV. _Sento d’un foco un freddo aspetto acceso_ 79

L. _S’i’ avessi creduto al primo sguardo_ 81

XXIV. _Spirto ben nato, in cui si specchia e vede_ 11

XXXII. _S’un casto amor, s’una pietà superna_ 17

LI. _Tornami al tempo allor che lenta e sciolta_ 87

XXX. _Veggio co’ bei vostri occhi un dolce lume_ 15

EPIGRAMS

I. _Caro m’è ’l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso_ 27

II. _Io dico a voi, ch’al mondo avete dato_ 27

V. _Amore è un concetto di bellezza_ 27

MADRIGALS

XXI. _A l’alta tuo lucente diadema_ 47

XCIII. _Amor, se tu se’ dio_ 57

XV. _Beati, voi che su nel ciel godete_ 41

LIII. _Chi è quel che per forza a te mi mena_ 51

XXV. _Come può esser ch’io non sia più mio_ 49

XXIII. _Deh! dimmi, amor, se l’alma di costei_ 47

VIII. _Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle_ 35

LXVIII. _Io dico che fra noi, potenti dei_ 53

CII. _Lezzi, vezzi, carezze, or feste e perle_ 67

LXXIII. _Mestier non era all’alma tuo beltate_ 55

XI. _Negli anni molte e nelle molte pruove_ 37

XVII. _Nella memoria delle cose belle_ 100

XIV. _Non pur d’argento o d’oro_ 39

XVI. _Non pur la morte, ma ’l timor di quella_ 41

III. _Non sempre al mondo è sì pregiato e caro_ 31

LII. _Ogni cosa ch’i’ veggio mi consiglia_ 49

V. _Ora in sul destro, ora in sul manco piede_ 33

IV. _Perchè è troppo molesta_ 31

VII. _Per fido esemplo alla mia vocazione_ 93

I. _Per molti, donna, anzi per mille amanti_ 29

VI. _Per non s’avere a ripigliar da tanti_ 88

XIX. _Quantunche ver sia, che l’alta e divina_ 45

LXIX. _S’alcuna parte in donna è che sia bella_ 55

IX. _Se dal cor lieto divien bello il volto_ 35

XIII. _Se d’una pietra viva_ 39

XVIII. _S’egli è che ’l buon desio_ 43

LIV. _Se ’l commodo de gli occhi alcun constringe_ 51

XII. _Sì come per levar, donna, si pone_ 37

LVII. _Un uomo in una donna, anzi uno dio_ 53

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

English translations have been moved to imediately follow the original
text, rather than on opposing pages as in the original text.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 10: “tuo” replaced with “tue”
Pg 90: “Gianotti” replaced with “Giannotti”