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MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI
He is best known and universally admired for his statues, such as ‘David’ and the ‘Pieta’, for the painting of the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, and for his architectural design of the Vatican Basilica. He is perhaps lesser known as the writer of over three hundred poems (largely sonnets and madrigals) These reveal not only the thinker who reflects upon neo-platonic ideas of art, the theological preoccupation of a profoundly religious man, but also a man who lets us know his very personal feelings, often with humour and self-irony.
***
The first translation is of a sonnet caudato (that is with three additional lines), a form used by burlesque poets. Here, he complains about the pain and fatigue he often suffered when frescoing the Sistine chapel:
*
I’ve already got a goiter from this toil,
like those which cats get from water in Lombardy,
perhaps too in some other country.
It’s forcing my belly up to stick beneath my chin.
With my beard pointing to heaven, I feel as if my memory’s
on my back, that my chest is now a harpy’s,
while the brush forever held above my face
dribbles and turns it into a richly painted floor.
My loins have got into my chest, so I make
my arse a counterbalance to my rump.
Without my eyes, in vain do I try to move.
My skin stretched out in front of me
just scrunches up when I tilt back,
and I’m bent just like a Syrian bow.
Yet, weird and faulty now comes
the judgement from my mind,
which fires badly through a twisted gun.
Henceforth, Giovanni, defend
my dead painting, and my honour,
as I’m not in a good position, nor a painter.
***
Pope Julius II wanted to emphasise the political dominance of the papacy and deployed an extensive programme of patronage. He was displeased by a bust of himself
which Michelangelo had fashioned in bronze and not carved from stone. When Raphael and Bramante were brought in from Urbino and began the construction of St Peter’s church, Michelangelo was jealous and resentful, convinced that they had poisoned Julius against him. This sonnet is not addressed to Julius but is obviously aimed at him:
*
My Lord, if any ancient proverb is true,
it’s surely this, that he who is able never wants
to prove it. You have put your trust in fables
and empty words, rewarding an enemy of truth.
I am and long have been your unfailing servant,
have given myself to you as rays to the sun,
yet for my time you feel no sadness or regret,
and you like me less, the more I tire myself.
Once, I hoped to rise through your eminence,
the justice of your judgement, and the powerful sword
were it needed, and not the echoing voice.
But heaven it is that scorns all virtue
in the world, if it then wants others to go
and pluck the fruit from a tree that is dry.is is warmly
***
That sonnet expressed a personal dissatisfaction whereas in the next one he rails against the hypocrisy and abuses of this religious community, its belligerence and materialism.
*
Here helmets and swords are made from chalices
and the blood of Christ is sold by the handful,
and the cross and the thorns become lances and shields,
and yet upon us Christ’s patience still descends.
But let him no longer come into these parts,
his blood would rise even to the stars,
for now, in Rome, they sell even his skin,
and all roads to virtue here are closed.
If ever I were to wish away my riches,
as no work for me remains, the mantled man
can do as Medusa did in Mauretania.
But if poverty is warmly received in heaven,
how then might we get our state’s reward
if another ensign comes and belittles that other life?
***
Michelangelo’s poems are not always about his contemporary world, in which he was reliant on patronage and often had to negotiate the moral imperatives of his time. He was also a thinker who reflected upon neo-platonic ideas. In this sonnet, he expresses his belief in the power of art to triumph over time. It is addressed to Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547), a pious and erudite member of an ancient Roman family and virtually the only woman in his emotional life.
*
How, Lady, can it be, as we can see
from long experience, that the living image
in alpine stone endures longer
than its maker whom the years turn to ashes?
The cause bows down to the effect and yields,
which shows that nature is by art defeated.
I know this, as I prove in beautiful sculpture
that time and death are no threat to the work.
Therefore, I can give to both of us long life,
whether it be in painting or in stone
by crafting these likenesses of you and me.
Thus, a thousand years after we have gone
will still be seen your beauty and my weariness
and how in loving you I was no fool.
***
This poignant sonnet written after Colonna’s death is also a lament on the passing of his own youth.
*
Return me to the time when slack and loose
were bridle and bit holding back my blind passion.
Give back to me that angelic and untroubled face
with which each virtue has now been buried.
Short steps I now take with such great effort,
and so slow in one weighed down with years;
bring back the water and the fire to my breast
if you would feast yourself on me once more.
And if, O Love, it’s true that you can only live
on the bittersweet tears of mortals, then
on those of a tired old man there is little to enjoy;
for my soul, which has almost reached the other shore,
shields me from your arrows with more merciful ones
and fire is little match for wood already charred.
***
Michelangelo knew that people were suspicious about his professions of chastity towards what were ‘unorthodox’ objects of love and affection. Whereas Vittoria Colonna seems to be the only woman to whom his poems were addressed, Tomasso de’ Cavalieri(1509-87), a patrician from an ancient Roman family is often addressed in others. Michelangelo formed a passion for him which sometimes the younger man found disturbing. Although they eventually became distant from each other, Cavalieri’s admiration for him as an artist remained constant. This sonnet expresses Michelangelo’s irritation at the effect of malicious gossip.
*
If the desire for the immortal which inspires
and corrects the thoughts of others would draw
out mine, perhaps even in the house of Love
it would make merciful the one who rules with none.
But as the soul has, by divine law, a long life,
and the body’s is of short duration
its senses cannot fully describe or praise
the worth of what they are unable to perceive.
And so, alas, how will the chaste desire
which burns within the heart be heard
by one who always sees himself in others?
I am kept away from my precious day
with my lord, who listens to lies, when in truth
the liar is the one who does not believe.
***
Michelangelo, aware of the hazards of his erotic dilemma, asserts and celebrates the ennobling neo-Platonic ideal of spiritual male friendship. In this final sonnet, the female is conceived as rather unworthy.
*
A fierce ardour for matchless beauty
Is not always a harsh and deadly fault,
if then the heart is left so melted
that a divine arrow may soon pierce it.
Love is roused and awakens, pluming its wings,
nor does it hinder empty passion from flying high,
as, unsatisfied with this very first step
to its creator, the soul will then rise up and climb.
The love of the one of whom I speak aspires high,
and as woman is not at all like this it ill befits
a wise and manly heart to burn for her.
One love aims towards the sky, the other at the ground;
one lives in the soul, the other in the senses,
drawing its bow at low and ignoble things.
Allen Prowle was born in Aberdare in 1940. Education took him to England where he has lived ever since, without losing his ‘Cymreictod’. He began writing poetry at Sheffield University where he graduated in French. His poems have appeared in many journals, his first collection, Landmarks was published in 1973. His Europeanism explains his interest in translation; he has translated French Italian and Spanish poems, for Magma, MPT and The High Window. In 2009, MPT published his translations of Rocco Scotellaro in its first-ever single author collection. He was awarded the Stephen Spender prize for translations of Attilio Bertolucci.
The High Window 