Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 23

From sweet laments to bitter joys, from peace Eternal to a brief and hollow truce, How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose, Mere sense survives our reason's dear decease.

I know not if my heart bred this disease, That still more pleasing grows with growing use; Or else thy face, thine eyes, in which the hues And fires of Paradise dart ecstasies.

Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent From heaven on high to make our earth divine: Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content; For in thy sight what could I do but pine?

If G.o.d Himself thus rules my destiny, Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?

The next is saddened by old age and death. Love has yielded to piety, and is only remembered as what used to be. Yet in form and feeling this is quite one of the most beautiful in the series supposed to refer to Vittoria Colonna:[425]--

TORNAMI AL TEMPO

Bring back the time when blind desire ran free, With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight; Give back the buried face, once angel-bright, That hides in earth all comely things from me; Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely, So toilsome-slow to him whose hairs are white; Those tears and flames that in one breast unite; If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!

Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive Only on bitter honey-dews of tears, Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.

My soul that toward the other sh.o.r.e doth strive, Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears; And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.

After this it only remains to quote the celebrated sonnet used by Varchi for his dissertation, the best known of all Michael Angelo's poems.[426]

The thought is this: just as a sculptor hews from a block of marble the form that lies concealed within, so the lover has to extract from his lady's heart the life or death of his soul,

NON HA L'OTTIMO ARTISTA

The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous sh.e.l.l Doth not include: to break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.

The ill I shun, the good I seek, even so In thee, fair lady, proud, ineffable, Lies hidden: but the art I wield so well Works adverse to my wish, and lays me low.

Therefore not love, nor thy transcendent face, Nor cruelty, nor fortune, nor disdain, Cause my mischance, nor fate, nor destiny: Since in thy heart thou carriest death and grace Enclosed together, and my worthless brain Can draw forth only death to feed on me.

The fire of youth was not extinct, we feel, after reading these last sonnets. There is, indeed, an almost pathetic intensity of pa.s.sion in the recurrence of Michael Angelo's thoughts to a sublime love on the verge of the grave. Not less important in their bearing on his state of feeling are the sonnets addressed to Cavalieri; and though his modern editor shrinks from putting a literal interpretation upon them, I am convinced that we must accept them simply as an expression of the artist's homage for the worth and beauty of an excellent young man. The two sonnets I intend to quote next[427] were written, according to Varchi's direct testimony, for Tommaso Cavalieri, "in whom"--the words are Varchi's--"I discovered, besides incomparable personal beauty, so much charm of nature, such excellent abilities, and such a graceful manner, that he deserved, and still deserves, to be the better loved the more he is known." The play of words upon Cavalieri's name in the last line of the first sonnet, the evidence of Varchi, and the indirect witness of Condivi, together with Michael Angelo's own letters,[428] are sufficient in my judgment to warrant the explanation I have given above. Nor do I think that the doubts expressed by Guasti about the intention of the sonnets,[429] or Gotti's curious theory that the letters, though addressed to Cavalieri, were meant for Vittoria Colonna,[430] are much more honourable to Michael Angelo's reputation than the garbling process whereby the verses were rendered unintelligible in the edition of 1623.

A CHE PIu DEBB' IO

Why should I seek to ease intense desire With still more tears and windy words of grief, When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief To souls whom love hath robed around with fire?

Why need my aching heart to death aspire When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!

Therefore because I cannot shun the blow I rather seek, say who must rule my breast, Gliding between her gladness and her woe?

If only chains and bands can make me blest, No marvel if alone and bare I go An armed Knight's captive and slave confessed.

VEGGIO CO' BEI VOSTRI OCCHI

With your fair eyes a charming light I see, For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain; Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain Which my lame feet find all too strong for me; Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly; Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain; E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again, Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.

Your will includes and is the lord of mine; Life to my thoughts within your heart is given; My words begin to breathe upon your breath: Like to the moon am I, that cannot shine Alone; for lo! our eyes see nought in heaven Save what the living sun illumineth.

Whether we are justified in a.s.signing the following pair to the Cavalieri series is more doubtful. They seem, however, to proceed from a similar mood of the poet's mind.[431]

S' UN CASTO AMOR

If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will; If in two bodies one soul triumph still, Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond, If love with one blow and one golden wand Have power both smitten b.r.e.a.s.t.s to pierce and thrill;

If each the other love, himself foregoing, With such delight, such savour, and so well, That both to one sole end their wills combine; If thousands of these thoughts all thought outgoing Fail the least part of their firm love to tell; Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine?

COLUI CHE FECE

He who ordained, when first the world began, Time that was not before creation's hour, Divided it, and gave the sun's high power To rule the one, the moon the other span: Thence fate and changeful chance and fortune's ban Did in one moment down on mortals shower: To me they portioned darkness for a dower; Dark hath my lot been since I was a man.

Myself am ever mine own counterfeit; And as deep night grows still more dim and dun, So still of more mis-doing must I rue: Meanwhile this solace to my soul is sweet, That my black night doth make more clear the sun Which at your birth was given to wait on you.

A sonnet written for Luigi del Riccio, on the death of his friend Cecchino Bracci, is curious on account of its conceit.[432] Michael Angelo says: "Cecchino, whom you loved, is dead; and if I am to make his portrait, I can only do so by drawing you, in whom he still lives." Here, again, we trace the Platonic conception of love as nothing if not spiritual, and of beauty as a form that finds its immortality within the lover's soul. This Cecchino was a boy who died at the age of seventeen. Michael Angelo wrote his epicedion in several centuries of verses, distributed among his friends in the form of what he terms _polizzini_, as though they were trifles.

A PENA PRIMA

Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes Which to thy living eyes are life and light, When closed at last in death's injurious night He opened them on G.o.d in Paradise.

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 thy better memory never dies.

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, Thee must I carve to tell the world of him.

In contrast with the philosophical obscurity of many of the sonnets. .h.i.therto quoted, I place the following address to Night--one, certainly, of Michael Angelo's most beautiful and characteristic compositions, as it is also the most transparent in style[433]:--

O NOTT', O DOLCE TEMPO

O night, O sweet though sombre span of time!-- All things find rest upon their journey's end-- Whoso hath praised thee, well doth apprehend; And whoso honours thee, hath wisdom's prime.

Our cares thou canst to quietude sublime, For dews and darkness are of peace the friend; Often by thee in dreams upborne I wend From earth to heaven, where yet I hope to climb.

Thou shade of Death, through whom the soul at length Shuns pain and sadness hostile to the heart, Whom mourners find their last and sure relief!

Thou dost restore our suffering flesh to strength, Driest our tears, a.s.suagest every smart, Purging the spirits of the pure from grief.

The religious sonnets have been reserved to the last. These were composed in old age, when the early impressions of Savonarola's teaching revived, and when Michael Angelo had grown to regard even his art and the beauty he had loved go purely, as a snare. If we did not bear in mind the piety expressed throughout his correspondence, their ascetic tone, and the remorse they seem to indicate, would convey a painful sense of cheerlessness and disappointment. As it is, they strike me as the natural utterance of a profoundly devout and somewhat melancholy man, in whom religion has survived all other interests, and who, reviewing his past life of fame and toil, finds that the sole reality is G.o.d. The two first of these compositions are addressed to Giorgio Vasari.[434]

GIUNIO e GIa

Now hath my life across a stormy sea Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all Are bidden ere the final judgment fall, Of good or evil deeds to pay the fee.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal Is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, What are they when the double death is nigh?

The one I know for sure, the other dread.

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.

LE FAVOLE DEL MONDO

The fables of the world have filched away The time I had for thinking upon G.o.d; His grace lies buried deep 'neath oblivion's sod, Whence springs an evil-crop of sins alway.

What makes another wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades; but still desire ascends that G.o.d May free me from self-love, my sure decay.

Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth?

Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise, Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage: Teach me to hate the world so little worth, And all the lovely things I once did prize; That endless life, not death, may be my wage.

The same note is struck in the following, which breathes the spirit of a Penitential Psalm:[435]--

CARICO D' ANNI

Burdened with years and full of sinfulness, With evil custom grown inveterate, Both deaths I dread that close before me wait, Yet feed my heart on poisonous thoughts no less.

No strength I find in mine own feebleness To change or life or love or use or fate, Unless Thy heavenly guidance come, though late, Which only helps and stays our nothingness.