Happy Birthday, Michelangelo, born March 6th, 1475.
He was a truly sublime artist.
And he was a gifted *poet*, too, writing sonnets that were emotional and raw.
His poems are surprising.
They carry a weight and a sadness.
A brief sampling of his verse: 🧵👇
Sonnet VIII to Luigi del Riccio
after the death of Cecchino Bracci
"Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes
Which to your living eyes were life and light,
When closed at last in death's injurious night
He opened them on God in Paradise.
1/
"I know it and I weep, too late made wise:
Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite
Robbed my desire of that supreme delight,
Which in your better memory never dies.
2/
"Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine
To make unique Cecchino smile in stone
For ever, now that earth hath made him dim,
If the beloved within the lover shine,
Since art without him cannot work alone,
You must I carve to tell the world of him."
3/
Sonnet XVII to Vittoria Colonna
"How can that be, lady, which all men learn
By long experience? Shapes that seem alive,
Wrought in hard mountain marble, will survive
Their maker, whom the years to dust return!
1/
"Thus to effect cause yields. Art hath her turn,
And triumphs over Nature. I, who strive
With Sculpture, know this well; her wonders live
In spite of time and death, those tyrants stern.
2/
"So I can give long life to both of us,
In either way, by colour or by stone,
Making the semblance of they face and mine.
Centuries hence when both are buried, thus
Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown,
And men shall say, 'For her 'twas wise to pine.'"
3/
from Sonnet LXIII, after the death of Vittoria Colonna
"Love lent me wings; my path was like a stair;
A lamp unto my feet, that sun was given;
And death was safety and great joy to find
1/
"But dying now, I shall not climb to heaven;
Nor can mere memory cheer my heart's despair:
What help remains when hope is left behind?"
2/
from Sonnet LXV to Georgio Vasari, On the Brink of Death
"Now hath my life across a stormy sea
Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all
Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall
Of good and evil for eternity.
1/
"...Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul that turns to His great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread."
2/
The above verses were translated from the Italian by John Addington Symonds and published in 1878.
Did any of these verses speak to you? Let me know.
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