| Description |
xxi, 185 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (page 185). |
| Summary |
"Michelangelo studied and wrote poetry throughout his life, frequently turning to it in times of emotional crisis or stress. His finest literary efforts are often allied with the masterworks of his visual art. As he labored in the Sistine Chapel with visions of the Last Judgment, he composed a series of passionate love sonnets. And while struggling, near the end of his life, to complete his final Piet̀a, he worked at religious poems anguished in their fervor. Indeed, the power of his verse seemed to grow with age, as if compensating for his diminishing physical strength." "Nims, an eminent poet in his own right, has translated the entire body of Michelangelo's poetry, from the artist's ardent twenties to his anguished and turbulent eighties."--Jacket. |
| Contents |
The long beginning (1475-1532). A man who's happy many a year, one hour -- Who's this that draws me forcibly to you? -- Fame keeps the epitaphs where they lie -- Fine lass or lady, they -- When with a clanking chain a master locks -- Love in your eyes? No; life and death are there In me there's only death; my life's in you -- My reason, out of sorts with me, deplores -- Your beauty, Love, stuns mortal reckonings -- Three loves (1532-1547). If longings for the immortal, which exalt -- If fire can melt down steel and shatter flint -- O cruel star, or say instead, cruel will -- Whether or not the light I long for, sent -- Not even, in dreams sent soaring, can I imagine -- By a face of fiery cold, I'm set aflame -- Kindly to others, to itself unkind -- When heaven confirmed your brilliance, most of all -- From heaven it ventured forth, there must return -- For a safe haven, for escape at last -- Although my heart had often been aflame -- My lady is so impetuous, devil-may-care -- No doubt much peril lies -- Flooded, the soul pours out. |
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(Cont.) I think it may be, so -- I'd feel the more secure -- My lady, you raise me so -- If obligated by so great a favor -- My lady, these eyes see vividly -- far, near -- She's made her mind up, the -- Her beauty's alive in heaven! I believe her -- My name meant "Arms". But little help to me -- Here I'm thought dead. Alive, I comforted -- O lucky me, to look upon me dead! -- One of the Bracci, I. Now, as you see -- Gone under now, the sun you loved to greet -- His life gave yours rich reason for thanksgiving -- Cecchino here has laid his body low -- The soul lives on, I know it, lying here -- No differently the guilty wretch hangs back -- On earth, it's no unworthy soul that nurses -- If sorrow makes one beautiful (it's said) -- All there's to say of him, no way of saying -- Suppose a lady has no other graces -- If a god, Love, can't you do -- The four last things (1547-1564). I'm packaged in here like the pulp in fruit -- Though always one and the same, the one same who -- Power of a lovely face impels me where? |
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(Cont.) So now it's over, my day's long voyage, through -- I think, indeed know well, some crushing sin -- Though years and years in dour allurement lapped -- One way remains to loose me yet, dear Lord. |
| Subject |
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564.
|
|
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564 (OCoLC)fst00064395
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| Genre/Form |
Poetry. (OCoLC)fst01423828
|
|
Poetry.
|
| Added Author |
Nims, John Frederick, 1913-1999.
|
| Added Title |
Poems. English
|
| ISBN |
0226080331 (alk. paper) |
|
9780226080338 (alk. paper) |
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