The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella; Now for the First Time Translated into Rhymed English · Chapter 6Appendix I
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
I have translated one Canzone out of Campanella's collection, partly as a specimen of his style in this kind of composition, partly because it illustrates his personal history and throws light on many of the sonnets. It is the first of three prayers to God from his prison, entitled by Adami Orazioni tre in Salmodia Metafisicale congiunte insieme.
Almighty God! what though the laws of Fate Invincible, and this long misery, Proving my prayers not merely spent in vain But heard and granted crosswise, banish me Far from Thy sight,—still humbly obstinate I turn to Thee. No other hopes remain. Were there another God with vows to gain, To Him for succour I would surely go: Nor could I be called impious, if I turned In this great agony from one who spurned, To one who bade me come and cured my woe. Nay, Lord! I babble vainly. Help! I cry, Before the temple where Thy reason burned, Become a mosque of imbecility!
Well know I that there are no words which can Move Thee to favour him for whom Thy grace Was not reserved from all eternity. Repentance in Thy counsel finds no place: Nor can the eloquence of mortal man Bend Thee to mercy, when Thy sure decree Hath stablished that this frame of mine should be Rent by these pangs that flesh and spirit tire. Nay if the whole world knows my martyrdom— Heaven, earth, and all that in them have their home— Why tell the tale to Thee, their Lord and Sire? And if all change is death or some such state, Thou deathless God, to whom for help I come, How shall I make Thee change, to change my fate?
Nathless for grace I once more sue to Thee, Spurred on by anguish sore and deep distress:— Yet have I neither art nor voice to plead Before Thy judgment-seat of righteousness. It is not faith, it is not charity, Nor hope that fails me in my hour of need; And if, as some men teach, the soul is freed From sin and quickened to deserve Thy grace By torments suffered on this earth below, The Alps have neither ice, I ween, nor snow To match my purity before Thy face! For prisons fifty, tortures seven, twelve years Of want and injury and woe— These have I borne, and still I stand ringed round with fears.
We lay all wrapped with darkness: for some slept The sleep of ignorance, and players played Music to sweeten that vile sleep for gold: While others waked, and hands of rapine laid On honours, wealth, and blood; or sexless crept Into the place of harlots, basely bold.— I lit a light:—like swarming bees, behold! Stripped of their sheltering gloom, on me Sleepers and wakers rush to wreak their spite: Their wounds, their brutal joys disturbed by light, Their broken bestial sleep fill them with jealousy.— Thus with the wolves the silly sheep agreed Against the valiant dogs to fight; Then fell the prey of their false friends' insatiate greed.
Help, mighty Shepherd! Save Thy lamp, Thy hound, From wolves that ravin and from thieves that prey! Make known the whole truth to the witless crowd! For if my light, my voice, are cast away— If sinfulness in these Thy gifts be found— The sun that rules in heaven is disallowed. Thou knowest without wings I cannot fly: Give me the wings of grace to speed my flight! Mine eyes are always turned to greet Thy light: Is it my crime if still it pass me by? Thou didst free Bocca and Gilardo; these, Worthless, are made the angels of Thy might.— Hast Thou lost counsel? Shall Thine empire cease?
With Thee I speak: Lord, thou dost understand! Nor mind I how mad tongues my life reprove. Full well I know the world is 'neath Thine eye. And to each part thereof belongs Thy love: But for the general welfare wisely planned The parts must suffer change;—they do not die, For nature ebbs and flows eternally;— But to such change we give the name of Death Or Evil, whensoe'er we feel the strife Which for the universe is joy and life, Though for each part it seems mere lack of breath.— So in my body every part I see With lives and deaths alternate rife, All tending to its vital unity.
Thus then the Universe grieves not, and I Mid woes innumerable languish still To cheer the whole and every happier part.— Yet, if each part is suffered by Thy will To call for aid—as Thou art God most High, Who to all beings wilt Thy strength impart; Who smoothest every change by secret art, With fond care tempering the force of fate, Necessity and concord, power and thought, And love divine through all things subtly wrought— I am persuaded, when I iterate My prayers to Thee, some comfort I must find For these pangs poison-fraught, Or leave the sweet sharp lust of life behind.
The Universe hath nought that changes not, Nor in its change feels not the pangs of pain, Nor prays not unto God to ease that woe. Mid these are many who the grace obtain Of aid from Thee:—thus Thou didst rule their lot: And many who without Thy help must go. How shall I tell toward whom Thy favours flow, Seeing I sat not at Thy council-board? One argument at least doth hearten me To hope those prayers may not unanswered be, Which reason and pure thoughts to me afford: Since often, if not always, Thou dost will In Thy deep wisdom, Lord, Best laboured soil with fairest fruits to fill.
The tilth of this my field by plough and hoe Yields me good hope—but more the fostering sun Of Sense divine that quickens me within, Whose rays those many minor stars outshone— That it is destined in high heaven to show Mercy, and grant my prayer; so I may win The end Thy gifts betoken, enter in The realm reserved for me from earliest time. Christ prayed but 'If it may be,' knowing well He might not shun that cup so terrible: His angel answered, that the law sublime Ordained his death. I prayed not thus, and mine— Was mine then sent from Hell?— Made answer diverse from that voice divine.
Go song, go tell my Lord—'Lo! he who lies Tortured in chains within a pit for Thee, Cries, how can flight be free Wingless?—Send Thy word down, or Thou Show that fate's wheel turns not iniquity, And that in heaven there is no lip that lies.'— Yet, song, too boldly flies Thy shaft; stay yet for this that follows now!
The 'Rivista Europea' of June 1875 publishes an article by Signor V. de Tivoli concerning an inedited sonnet of Michael Angelo, which he deciphered from the Autograph, written upon the back of one of the original drawings in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford. This drawing formed part of the Ottley and Lawrence Collection. It represents horses in various attitudes, together with a skirmish between a mounted soldier and a group of men on foot. Signor de Tivoli not only prints the text with all its orthographical confusions, abbreviations, and alterations; but he also adds what he modestly terms a restoration of the sonnet. Of this restoration I have made the subjoined version in rhyme, though I frankly admit that the difficulties of the text, as given in the rough by Signor de Tivoli, seem to me insuperable, and that his readings, though ingenious, cannot in my opinion be accepted as absolutely certain. He himself describes the MS. as a palimpsest, deliberately defaced by Michael Angelo, from which the words originally written have to be recovered in many cases by a process of conjecture. That the style of the restoration is thoroughly Michael Angelesque, will be admitted by all students of Signor Guasti's edition. The only word I felt inclined to question, is donne in line 13, where I should have expected donna. But I am informed that about this word there is no doubt. The sonnet itself ranks among the less interesting and the least finished compositions of the poet's old age.
Thrice blest was I what time thy piercing dart I could withstand and conquer in days past: But now my breast with grief is overcast; Against my will I weep, and suffer smart. And if those shafts, aimed with so fierce an art, The mark of my frail bosom over-passed, Now canst thou take revenge with blows at last From those fair eyes which must consume my heart. O Love, how many a net, how many a snare Shuns through long years the bird by fate malign, Only at last to die more piteously! Thus love hath let me run as free as air, Ladies, through many a year, to make me pine In sad old age, and a worse death to die.
The following translations of a madrigal, a quatrain, and a stanza by Michael Angelo, may be worth insertion here for the additional light they throw upon some of the preceding sonnets—especially upon Sonnets I. and II. and Sonnets LXV.-LXXVII. In my version of the stanza I have followed Michelangelo the younger's readings.
Per molti, donna.
'Lady, for joy of lovers numberless Thou wast created fair as angels are. Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar, When one man calls the bliss of many his! Give back to streaming eyes The daylight of thy face that seems to shun Those who must live defrauded of their bliss!' 'Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs: For he who robs you of my light, hath none. Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness; Since amid those who love, their joy is less, Whose great desire great plenty still curtails, Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails.'
Caro m' è'l sonno.
Sweet is my sleep, but more to be mere stone, So long as ruin and dishonour reign; To bear nought, to feel nought, is my great gain; Then wake me not, speak in an undertone!
Ohimè, ohimè!
Ah me! Ah me! whene'er I think Of my past years, I find that none Among those many years, alas, was mine; False hopes and longings vain have made me pine, With tears, sighs, passions, fires, upon life's brink. Of mortal loves I have known every one. Full well I feel it now; lost and undone, From truth and goodness banished far away, I dwindle day by day. Longer the shade, more short the sunbeams grow; While I am near to falling, faint and low.