The Complete Poems of Michelangelo

by Michelangelo; Nims, John Frederick

• ISBN13: 9780226080307
• ISBN10: 0226080307
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

There is no artist more celebrated than Michelangelo. Yet the magnificence of his achievements as a visual artist often overshadow his devotion to poetry. Michelangelo used poetry to express what was too personal to display in sculpture or painting. John Frederick Nims has brought the entire body of Michelangelo's verse, from the artist's ardent twenties to his anguished and turbulent eighties, to life in English in this unprecedented collection. The result is a tantalizing glimpse into a most fascinating mind. "Wonderful. . . . Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphous love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals."Kirkus Reviews "A splendid, fresh and eloquent translation. . . . Nims, an eminent poet and among the best translators of our time, conveys the full meaning and message of Michelangelo's love sonnets and religious poems in fluently rhymed, metrical forms."St. Louis Post-Dispatch "The best so far. . . . Nims is best at capturing the sound and sense of Michelangelo's poetic vocabulary."Choice "Surely the most compelling translations of Michelangelo currently available in English."Ronald L. Martinez, Washington Times John Frederick Nims (1913-1999) was the author of eight books of poetry, including Knowledge of the Evening, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Among his many translations is The Poems of Saint John of the Cross, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Preface	xvii
I The Long Beginning (1475--1532)	2	(34)
A man who's happy many a year, one hour	9	(1)
Brow burning, in cool gloom, as sundown shears	9	(1)
I was happy, with fate favoring, to abide	9	(1)
How joyfully it shows, the garland there	10	(1)
A goiter it seems I got from this backward craning	10	(1)
If any of those old proveebs, lord, make sense	11	(1)
Who's this that draws me forcibly to you?	11	(1)
O God, O God, O God, how can I be	11	(1)
He Who made all there is, made every part	12	(1)
Chalices hammered into sword and helmet!	12	(1)
How much less torment to breathe out my soul	12	(1)
How could I, since it's so	13	(1)
Fame keeps the epitaphs where they lie	13	(1)
The Day and the Night speak	13	(1)
Seeing I'm yours, I rouse me from afar	14	(1)
From one all loveliness and all allure	14	(1)
Rancorous heart, cruel, pitiless, though showing	14	(1)
Though shouldered from the road I chose when young	15	(1)
Fine lass or lady, they	15	(1)
Sweeter your face than grapes are, stewed to mush	15	(1)
Once born, death's our destination	16	(1)
What's to become of me? What's this you're doing	17	(1)
I was, for years and years now, wounded, killed	18	(1)
I made my eyes an entryway for poison	19	(1)
When with a clanking chain a master locks	19	(1)
Uproot a plant---there's no way it can seal	20	(1)
Flee from this Love, you lovers; flee the flame!	20	(1)
Because there's never a time I'm not enchanted	20	(1)
All rage, all misery, all show of strength	21	(1)
From eyes of my beloved one, come burning	21	(1)
Love in your eyes? No; life and death are there	21	(1)
I live for sinning, for the self that dies	22	(1)
Were it true that, besides my own, another's arms	22	(1)
Where my love lives is nowhere in my heart	23	(1)
The eyelid, shadowing, doesn't interfere	23	(1)
My lover stole my heart, just over there	24	(1)
In me there's only death; my life's in you	24	(1)
He who beguiles both time and death together	24	(1)
For a wound from the searing arrows Love lets fly	24	(1)
When blithely Love would lift me up to heaven	25	(1)
O noble soul, in whom, as mirrored, show	25	(1)
Pray tell me, Love, if what my eyes can see	26	(1)
My reason, out of sorts with me, deplores	26	(1)
When to that beauty that I saw before	27	(1)
It well may be, so vehement my sighing	27	(1)
If my rough hammer shapes the obdurate stone	28	(1)
When the occasioner of my many a sigh	28	(1)
Just as a flame, by wind and weather flailed	29	(1)
Your beauty, Love, stuns mortal reckonings	29	(1)
What's to become of her, long years from now	29	(1)
Alas! Alas! for the way I've been betrayed	29	(1)
Were one allowed to kill himself right here	30	(1)
Who rides by night on horseback, come the day	30	(1)
I do believe, if you were made of stone	31	(3)
Though quite expensive, look, I've bought you this	34	(1)
My death is what I live on; seems to me	34	(1)
If I'm more alive because love burns and chars me	34	(2)
II Three Loves (1532--1547)	36	(100)
If longings for the immortal, which exalt	47	(1)
If pure devotion, passion without stain	47	(1)
You know, my lord, that I too know you know	48	(1)
If, when it caught my eye first, I'd been bolder	48	(1)
Only with fire can men at forge and flue	49	(1)
So fond is fire of the frigid stone it waits	49	(1)
If fire can melt down steel and shatter flint	50	(1)
Just when I'm lost in adoration of you	50	(1)
Maybe, so I'd look kindly on souls in need	50	(1)
A new and more commendable delight	51	(3)
Then there's this giant---tall! So tall he can't	54	(2)
Nature knows what it's doing: one cruel as you	56	(1)
O cruel star, or say instead, cruel will	56	(1)
I have your letter, thank you, as received	57	(1)
If, through our eyes, the heart's seen in the face	58	(1)
Now that I'm banned and routed from the fire	58	(1)
I weep, I burn---burn up!---my heart thereby	59	(1)
Too much! the way he flaunts himself around	59	(1)
Whether or not the light I long for, sent	59	(1)
Supposing the passionate fire your eyes enkindle	60	(1)
From grief I cherished to a rueful laugh	60	(1)
Blissful spirit, thanks to whom new passion	61	(1)
I really believed, that first great day when, awed	61	(1)
In everything I see, the meaning's plain	62	(1)
Not even, in dreams sent soaring, can I imagine	62	(1)
What in your handsome face I see, my lord	63	(1)
From ink, from pen in hand we see outflow	63	(1)
Having, my friend, your letter here in hand	64	(1)
Already burdened with a heavy heart	65	(2)
I wish I'd want what I don't want, Lord, at all	67	(1)
By a face of fiery cold, I'm set aflame	68	(1)
Through your fine eyes I see such mellow light	68	(1)
I'm dearer to me, much more, than ever I was	69	(1)
So I can best endure	69	(1)
Although time presses hard and prods us on	70	(1)
Should the senses' rapturous burning override	70	(1)
Kindly to others, to itself unkind	71	(1)
Give back to my eyes their flow, O spring, O river	71	(1)
With all my heart I love you; if not so	72	(1)
With heart of sulphur, flesh of tinder too	72	(1)
Why ease the tension of this wild desire	72	(1)
What a chance I had! I should have, while I could	73	(1)
When heaven confirmed your brilliance, most of all	73	(1)
The night prevails where Phoebus---that's our sun	74	(1)
O night, comforting night, dark though you are	74	(1)
Every shut-in room or space, every covered one	75	(1)
The One Who made, and from utter nothing too	75	(1)
My gaze saw no mere mortal on the day	76	(1)
From heaven it ventured forth, there must return	76	(1)
Drawn to each lovely thing, my doting eyes	77	(1)
No rest here for the wicked, as folk say	77	(1)
Not always so prized and cherished by us all	77	(1)
I'm here to say you've given earth your all	78	(1)
My lady, if it's true	78	(1)
For a safe haven, for escape at last	78	(1)
No slightest chance on earth her heavenly eyes	79	(1)
Easily you confound	79	(1)
Wiles, guiles, smiles, gold and pearls, her gala ways	80	(1)
I wouldn't if I could, Love, check the urge	80	(1)
If right desire takes wing	80	(1)
Although my heart had often been aflame	81	(1)
From the first whimper to the expiring sigh	81	(1)
Time now good-byes were said	82	(1)
Just as you cannot not be lovely here	82	(1)
If fire, so quick to char	83	(1)
The more it seems I agonize, the more	83	(1)
My lady is so impetuous, devil-may-care	84	(1)
Such wealth of promise lies	84	(1)
If the soul, in truth, from body once set free	85	(1)
Not death so much, but its terror rescues me	85	(1)
The fear of death! Who'd shove	86	(1)
By light more brilliant of a star more bright	86	(1)
No doubt much peril lies	87	(1)
From beneath two arching brows	87	(1)
Whenever my past unrolls before these eyes	87	(1)
Life's final hours: brought there by many a year	88	(1)
O blessed souls, who high in heaven delight	88	(1)
With much of time and life gone, all the more	89	(1)
Flooded, the soul pours out	89	(1)
If, to rejoice, you crave our tears and woe	90	(1)
Humbly I bow my shoulders, bear the yoke	90	(1)
In lovelier and crueller flesh than yours	90	(1)
If the soul returns, that last	91	(1)
If I'm to believe my eyes now, your response	91	(1)
I think it may be, so	92	(1)
Life's quick and brief; the more my days fly by	92	(1)
At times I project ahead	92	(1)
If she rejoices in my tears, and you	93	(1)
Looks thrown away on others	93	(1)
Please tell me, Love, if that lady had a soul	94	(1)
I'd feel the more secure	94	(1)
I'll surely be thought a dullard in talent, art	95	(1)
Great mercy, my lady, as likely as great pain	95	(1)
Nothing the best of artists can conceive	96	(1)
As by subtracting, my lady, one creates	96	(1)
A mould's not alone in this	96	(1)
My lady, you raise me so	97	(1)
Your kindness to me, and the ways of fate	97	(1)
That whole way up to your brilliant diadem	98	(1)
Your merciful, sweet care	98	(1)
It seems, Love, out you've flung	99	(1)
To be less unworthy, my exalted lady	99	(1)
If obligated by so great a favor	100	(1)
What file's incessant bite	100	(1)
Now on the left foot shuffling, now the right	101	(1)
Hating myself, the more I run away	101	(1)
For a reliable guide in my vocation	102	(1)
If we constrain the eyes' easy response	102	(1)
My lady, these eyes see vividly---far, near	102	(1)
From where you triumphed in me, Love, right here	103	(1)
Because there's half of me which, heaven-born	103	(1)
Impassioned as I am	104	(1)
Great beauty scattering its brilliant flame	104	(1)
Among the memory of all lovely things	104	(1)
She's made her mind up, the	105	(1)
If a joyous heart makes beautiful the face	105	(1)
From what these eyes, my lady, see of you	106	(1)
So, Love, it hasn't healed, not even the least	106	(1)
No need at all for your angel loveliness	107	(1)
Bright in our minds, but in the dark earth stranded	107	(1)
Her beauty's alive in heaven! I believe her	107	(1)
If his bright eyes are closed and laid to rest	108	(1)
My fervent prayer, if any pity me	108	(1)
``So tell me, Death, why not possess some face	108	(1)
Death didn't wish to lay Cecchino low	108	(1)
Such brightness, under earth now, put to shame	108	(1)
My name meant ``Arms.'' But little help to me	108	(1)
Born, died. Now bedded by the churchyard wall	109	(1)
No way he who undid me can restore	109	(1)
Inside, his soul could not be outside too	109	(1)
If nature now deferred to death, dejected	109	(1)
Closed now his shining eyes, that dazzled so	109	(1)
Here I'm thought dead. Alive, I comforted	109	(1)
Souls rise alive from the body's sad last bed	110	(1)
If true (and it is) that with body's final breath	110	(1)
His beautiful eyes! I hardly saw them, only	110	(1)
Too early fallen asleep here, I'm alive	111	(1)
``If two hours' dying steals a hundred years	111	(1)
O lucky me, to look upon me dead!	111	(1)
My flesh turned earth, my bones turned naked shame	111	(1)
If it could be, to revive my life once more	111	(1)
Who grieve now at my grave, in vain they pray	112	(1)
Cold stone, none knows but you, my gaol forever	112	(1)
From clutch of clock and calendar now fled	112	(1)
One of the Bracci, I. Now, as you see	112	(1)
A Bracci born. From birth, born wailing, I'd	112	(1)
I'm dearer dead than ever I was, before	112	(1)
If death has buried here, hardly in leaf	113	(1)
From heaven my beauty, flawless and divine	113	(1)
I'm death's forever, who, that one forlorn	113	(1)
Gone under now, the sun you loved to greet	113	(1)
Why fallen so soon asleep? Not hard to tell	113	(1)
Peace, life---he found them in my open eyes	113	(1)
If, while I lived, a someone, eyes on me	114	(1)
No other handsome face such power possessed	114	(1)
Young Braccio's buried here. To mend a lack	114	(1)
His life gave yours rich reason for thanksgiving	114	(1)
Ashes to ashes, spirit to the sky	114	(1)
Within this tomb our handsome Braccio's laid	114	(1)
If Braccio's beauty, phoenix-like, could be	115	(1)
The sun of Braccio's under earth. The sun	115	(1)
A Bracci, I. Alive because I'm dead	115	(1)
Cecchino here has laid his body low	115	(1)
Braccio lies here. No less a tomb could show	115	(1)
Death stretched an arm, stole fruit not ripened yet.	115	(1)
Mere mortal once. Divine, though, born to be	116	(1)
Death shut those eyes, him too it shut below	116	(1)
A Bracci once. The soul in me withdrew	116	(1)
The soul lives on, I know it, lying here	116	(1)
Braccio retrieves from earth the mortal scrim	116	(1)
Earth lends us flesh, heaven lends the soul, the two	116	(1)
Be sure, my eyes, you know	117	(1)
To see that your famous beauty still endures	117	(1)
Too late for Love to set my heart aflame	117	(1)
No differently the guilty wretch hangs back	118	(1)
If, vulnerable from early youth, a heart	118	(1)
It's not enough, if it doesn't come from you	119	(1)
A man within a woman---no, I'd say	119	(1)
If by its heaven-sent power the mind conceives	120	(1)
To one of taste both flawless and robust	120	(1)
On earth, it's no unworthy soul that nurses	120	(1)
My lady, how comes it about---what all can see	121	(1)
This face, says art, alone	121	(1)
Through many a year and many a vain assay	121	(1)
As, working in hard stone to make the face	122	(1)
Whenever remembrance of the one I love	122	(1)
If sorrow makes one beautiful (it's said)	123	(1)
``Say the face I'm speaking of now, hers I mean	123	(1)
You revel in my torments, only you	124	(1)
To sleep, even more be made of stone: how these	124	(1)
Straight down from heaven, and in the flesh, he came	125	(1)
``Your beauty an angel's, Lady, you were meant	125	(1)
All there's to say of him, no way of saying	126	(1)
There's pleasure in great favors done, but hidden	126	(1)
Since I'm too obligated	127	(1)
Had I, when young, been leery of the glow	127	(1)
Though bent with age, to me	128	(1)
Your lovely eyes, now bent	128	(1)
Suppose a lady has no other graces	129	(1)
Why only at long last, why next to never	129	(1)
Although it's amply true your human face	130	(1)
No question but, when my desire's aflame	130	(1)
Not true that it's always grim with mortal sin	131	(1)
Love long delayed comes kindly, by fortune's favor	131	(1)
If a god, Love, can't you do	132	(1)
A woman's beauty, new	132	(1)
As I've carried in my heart this many a year	133	(1)
So it wouldn't need to retrieve the total sum	133	(1)
What wonder that---seeing how, beside your fire	134	(2)
III The Four Last Things (1547--1564)	136	(21)
I'm packaged in here like the pulp in fruit	143	(1)
Because age steals away	144	(1)
Now armed with biting ice, now tongues of fire	145	(1)
You give me only what you're glutted with	145	(1)
I fed on you, and with you, many a year	145	(1)
Bring back the day the reins hung slack and free	145	(1)
Though always one and the same, the one same who	146	(1)
Oh let me see You everywhere I go!	146	(1)
Enclosed and hidden in a monstrous stone	147	(1)
Whatever the eye finds lovely, in a flash	147	(1)
Though you with line and color excel, securing	148	(1)
If leaves aren't what you're wanting	148	(1)
Power of a lovely face impels me where?	148	(1)
Confused, with itself at odds, soul fails to find	148	(1)
Time was my fire burned high, yes, even on ice	149	(1)
In such servility! and all so boring!	149	(1)
The springtime, fresh and green, can never guess	149	(1)
If, in Your name, some image comes to mind	149	(1)
So now it's over, my day's long voyage, through	150	(1)
My infinite thoughts, so many gone awry	150	(1)
Day in, day out, from childhood long ago	150	(1)
The world and all its fables long ago	150	(1)
There's nothing lower on earth, of less account	151	(1)
Rid of this nagging nattering cadaver	151	(1)
I think, indeed know well, some crushing sin	152	(1)
How very sweet indeed the prayers I'd say	152	(1)
Burdened with years and crapulous with sin	152	(1)
It leaves me plunged in gloom and pain---yet dear	153	(1)
Assured of death, of its timing, though, not so	153	(1)
If our very thirst for longer life bids fair	154	(1)
Though years and years in dour allurement lapped	154	(1)
With no less joy than grief and consternation	154	(1)
For the sugar, for the mule, those candles too	155	(1)
By merit of grace, the cross, and all we've suffered	155	(1)
My eyes are saddened by so much they see	156	(1)
One way remains to loose me yet, dear Lord	156	(1)
The Text of the Poems	157	(2)
Translating Poetry	159	(6)
Acknowledgments	165	(2)
Notes	167	(18)
Bibliography	185