[91]NOTES ON THE MADRIGALS
[91]
1 [I] During his Roman residence, Michelangelo was brought into intimate relations with Florentine exiles, who gathered in Rome, where ruled a Farnese pope, and where certain cardinals favored the anti-Medicean faction. From the course of a turbulent mountain-brook, Florence, following an inevitable law, was obliged to issue into the quiet but lifeless flow of inevitable despotism. It could not be expected that the fiery Michelangelo could comprehend the inexorableness of the fate which, in consequence of the necessities of trade, compelled Florence to prefer conditions ensuring tranquillity, though under an inglorious and corrupt personal rule. The sublime madrigal shows the depth of his republican sentiments. (See No. 22 [LXVIII].)
2 [III] The difficult but very interesting madrigal gives a profound insight into the spirit of the writer, who felt himself to move in a society foreign from the higher flight of his genius. His habits of isolation are remarked by contemporaries. Giannotti, in the dialogue above mentioned, discourses amusingly on this trait of character, putting[92]into the mouth of the artist a reply to an invitation. “I won’t promise.” “Why?” “Because I had rather stay at home.” “For what reason?” “Because, if I should put myself under such conditions, I should be too gay; and I don’t want to be gay.” Luigi del Riccio, introduced as interlocutor, exclaims that he never heard of such a thing; in this sad world one must seize every opportunity of distraction; he himself would supply a monochord, and they would all dance, to drive away sorrow. To this comforting proposition, Michelangelo returns that he should much prefer to cry. Giannotti romances; but Francis of Holland is nearer the fact when he makes the sculptor answer an accusation urged against solitary habits. The artist declares that there is good ground for such accusation against one who withdraws from the world by reason of eccentricity, but not against a man who has something better to do with his time. The particular occasion of the madrigal seems to have been dissatisfaction with praise lavished on what to Michelangelo seemed an unworthy work. Southey paraphrases the poem, but gives the idea only imperfectly.
Here, in connection with the idea of beauty as furnished from within, may be introduced a version of a madrigal interesting rather on[93]account of the philosophic conception than the poetic excellence. (See also sonnetXVIII, translated in the note to No.XXX.)
On me hath been bestowed by birthtide-gift,Of both mine arts the mirror and the light,Beauty, my model in my calling here.It only hath the competence to liftThe vision of the artist to that heightAt which I aim in form or color clear.If judgment rash and fantasy unwiseDegrade to sense the beauty, that doth bearAnd raise toward heaven all sane intelligence,Man’s wavering glances have no power to rise,Above inconstant, faithful only whereThey linger, unless mercy call them thence.
On me hath been bestowed by birthtide-gift,Of both mine arts the mirror and the light,Beauty, my model in my calling here.It only hath the competence to liftThe vision of the artist to that heightAt which I aim in form or color clear.If judgment rash and fantasy unwiseDegrade to sense the beauty, that doth bearAnd raise toward heaven all sane intelligence,Man’s wavering glances have no power to rise,Above inconstant, faithful only whereThey linger, unless mercy call them thence.
On me hath been bestowed by birthtide-gift,Of both mine arts the mirror and the light,Beauty, my model in my calling here.It only hath the competence to liftThe vision of the artist to that heightAt which I aim in form or color clear.
On me hath been bestowed by birthtide-gift,
Of both mine arts the mirror and the light,
Beauty, my model in my calling here.
It only hath the competence to lift
The vision of the artist to that height
At which I aim in form or color clear.
If judgment rash and fantasy unwiseDegrade to sense the beauty, that doth bearAnd raise toward heaven all sane intelligence,Man’s wavering glances have no power to rise,Above inconstant, faithful only whereThey linger, unless mercy call them thence.
If judgment rash and fantasy unwise
Degrade to sense the beauty, that doth bear
And raise toward heaven all sane intelligence,
Man’s wavering glances have no power to rise,
Above inconstant, faithful only where
They linger, unless mercy call them thence.
3 [IV] The madrigal is addressed to Luigi del Riccio, friend of Michelangelo’s declining years, and a correspondent to whom were transmitted many of the extant poems. In 1544 Luigi, during a sickness of the sculptor, took him into his own house and acted as his nurse; but shortly afterwards, he refused a request of the artist, declining to suppress an engraving he had been requested to destroy.[94]The indignation of Michelangelo found vent in a bitter letter. Riccio died in 1546. Symonds (Life, vol. ii, p. 194) thinks that Michelangelo speedily excused his friend and repented his anger. Here the whole heart of the artist is disclosed, and we have a revelation of the manner in which internal brooding and many disappointments had rendered somewhat morose a gentle and affectionate nature, characterized by pride amounting to a fault.
With the idea may be compared Emerson’s essay on “Gifts.” “Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things, for gifts. This giving is usurpation, and therefore, when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with the anger of my lord Timon. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap.” He adds, entirely in the spirit of Michelangelo, “No services are of any value, but only likeness.”
[95]
4 [V] The poet addresses to his friend Vittoria Colonna a theologic inquiry, after the manner of the appeals of Dante to Beatrice. Apparently the letter included a blank leaf for an answer. The question is, “In heaven are contrite sinners less valued than self-satisfied saints?” The obvious reply must be that in the nature of things such saints are impossible. The inquiry, therefore, is not to be taken as serious, but as playful and ironical. I should be inclined to interpret the verse as asking, “Am I, an humble artist, but sincerely devoted, of less value in your eyes than the very courtly and important personages by whom you are surrounded?” (as Vittoria was in close intimacy with high ecclesiastical functionaries). The sentiment is gay and jesting, while full of pleading affection.
5 [VIII] If of all the compositions of Michelangelo, one were asked to name the most representative, it would be natural to select this incomparably lovely madrigal. No lyric poet has brought into a few words more music, more truth, more illumination. The four lines cited at the end of the Introduction might well be taken as the motto for a gathering of the poems; and if the arrangement had not seemed inconsistent with the numbering of the pieces, I would gladly have placed[96]the madrigal at the end, as summing up the especial contribution of Michelangelo to letters.
6 [IX] A charming and light-hearted piece of music, obviously belonging to the earlier period of Michelangelo’s poetic activity. The verse is written on blue paper, with the subscription, “Divine things are spoken of in an azure field” (in heaven). The suggestion is furnished by a conventionalconcettoof the period; but the familiarity does not prevent the thought lending itself to genuinely poetical treatment. No.Xis a pretty variant, in which the cruelty of the lady is compared to the hardness of the marble in which her image is wrought. The lines are subscribed “for sculptors” (Da scultori). The close connection with his art lends to even the most simple of these verses an unspeakable attraction.
7 [XI] In this magnificent song, worthy of the greatest of lyric poets, we are still occupied with the concepts of plastic art. The artist achieves the complete expression of his idea only through painful toil, and often lapse of years which leave him ready to depart from a world in which accomplishment is itself a sign of ripeness for death. With that universal animism, as we now say, by which all general truths of man’s life are felt to be also applicable to the course of Nature, the poet[97]is entitled to apply the idea to external being. And with what insight! If ever genius can be said to have forecast the conclusions of scientific inquiry, it is so in this instance; Michelangelo presents us with a truly modern conception of Nature, as the creative artist, who through a series of ages and a succession of sketches, is occupied with continually unsuccessful, but ever-improving efforts at the expression of her internal life. The perfection of the creature, which marks the accomplishment of the undertaking, signifies also the end of the process; with such completeness is felt the sorrow incident to all termination, and especially the pain of the mortal, who feels that delight in perfect beauty enforces the consciousness of his own transitoriness, and emphasizes the sense of Nature as perishable. Hence, perhaps it may be explained that all perception of perfect loveliness is said to be accompanied by a sensation of fear. The piece possesses a grandeur of rhythm corresponding to its depth of intellectual apprehension, and is worthy to stand beside the greatest of the artist’s plastic productions, as equally immortal. In such verse Michelangelo rose to the level of a world poet; nor has early English literature anything of a kindred nature worthy to be placed in comparison.
8 [XII] Michelangelo perpetually varies[98]but never repeats the theme. Once more, it is not the trembling of the hand which causes the artist’s failure; it is the uncertainty of the mind, not clear as to its intent.
9 [XIII] Again the bitter contrast of the permanence of art with the fleeting period of human life. We have had the idea in sonnetXVII. But the argument is now carried a step further. According to mediæval (and also modern) national morality, the destruction of kindred implies the duty of blood-vengeance. On whom, then, devolves the conduct of the feud made necessary by the taking away of the beloved? Not on man, but on Nature, whose pride must be offended by the preference given to the works of her children as compared with the transitoriness of her own. The permanence of the artistic product is therefore a sign that Nature herself is bound to require of Time atonement for the wrong done to imagination; and thus art is made the prophet of restoration.
10 [XIV] The metaphor is now furnished by the work of the metal-caster; and since in this case there has been no change in the conditions of manufacture, the comparison still seems simple and natural.
11 [XV] The tender, simple, and universally applicable lament at the same time includes its own consolation.
[99]
12 [XVI] The idea of Death as deliverer from Love is often repeated by the poet. Giannotti probably followed rather the verse than any spoken words in the sentences he has put into the lips of the artist: “I remind you that to re-discover one’s self, and to enjoy one’s self, it is not necessary to seize on so many pleasures and delights, but only to reflect on death. This is the only thought which enables us to recognize ourselves, which maintains us in unity with ourselves, and prevents us from being robbed by parents, kinsfolk, friends, great masters, ambition, avarice, and other vices and sins, which take man from man, and keep him dispersed and dissipated, without suffering him ever to find himself and become at one with himself. Marvellous is the effect of this thought of death, which in virtue of its nature all-destructive, nevertheless conserves and supports those who include it in their meditation, and defends them from every human passion. Which, methinks, I have sufficiently indicated in a madrigal, where, in treating of love, I conclude that against it is no better defence than the thought of death.”
A beautiful variation, characterized by the author’s invariable originality, is furnished by the number next in Guasti’s edition.
[100]
When Memory may cherish and endearSome lovely sight, resolve availeth notFor her discrowning, until Death appear,And exile her, as she made him forgot,Chill flame to frost, change laughter into pain,And make abhorred the beauty loved before,That tenanteth the empty heart no more.Yet if she turn againHer lucid eyes toward home of their desire,With arid bough more ardent grows the fire.
When Memory may cherish and endearSome lovely sight, resolve availeth notFor her discrowning, until Death appear,And exile her, as she made him forgot,Chill flame to frost, change laughter into pain,And make abhorred the beauty loved before,That tenanteth the empty heart no more.Yet if she turn againHer lucid eyes toward home of their desire,With arid bough more ardent grows the fire.
When Memory may cherish and endearSome lovely sight, resolve availeth notFor her discrowning, until Death appear,And exile her, as she made him forgot,Chill flame to frost, change laughter into pain,And make abhorred the beauty loved before,That tenanteth the empty heart no more.Yet if she turn againHer lucid eyes toward home of their desire,With arid bough more ardent grows the fire.
When Memory may cherish and endear
Some lovely sight, resolve availeth not
For her discrowning, until Death appear,
And exile her, as she made him forgot,
Chill flame to frost, change laughter into pain,
And make abhorred the beauty loved before,
That tenanteth the empty heart no more.
Yet if she turn again
Her lucid eyes toward home of their desire,
With arid bough more ardent grows the fire.
13 [XVIII] The idea that only through contemplating the person of the beloved can the soul transcend from time to eternity is familiar in the later compositions of Michelangelo. Compare sonnet 21 [LVI].
14 [XIX] The same conception receives a different treatment; mortal beauty is now represented as exercising too potent an attraction, and preventing the desire from mounting beyond it.
15 [XXI] The thought has been elaborated in a modern sense by Lowell in his “Endymion:”—
[101]
Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once moreAn inaccessible splendor to adore,A faith, a hope of such transcendent worthAs bred ennobling discontent with earth;Give back the longing, back the elated moodThat, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good;Give even the spur of impotent despairThat, without hope, still bade aspire and dare;Give back the need to worship that still poursDown to the soul that virtue it adores!
Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once moreAn inaccessible splendor to adore,A faith, a hope of such transcendent worthAs bred ennobling discontent with earth;Give back the longing, back the elated moodThat, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good;Give even the spur of impotent despairThat, without hope, still bade aspire and dare;Give back the need to worship that still poursDown to the soul that virtue it adores!
Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once moreAn inaccessible splendor to adore,A faith, a hope of such transcendent worthAs bred ennobling discontent with earth;Give back the longing, back the elated moodThat, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good;Give even the spur of impotent despairThat, without hope, still bade aspire and dare;Give back the need to worship that still poursDown to the soul that virtue it adores!
Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more
An inaccessible splendor to adore,
A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth
As bred ennobling discontent with earth;
Give back the longing, back the elated mood
That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good;
Give even the spur of impotent despair
That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare;
Give back the need to worship that still pours
Down to the soul that virtue it adores!
So far the idea coincides with that of Michelangelo; but the conclusion of the later poet varies:—
Goddess triform, I own thy triple spell,My heaven’s queen,—queen, too, of my earth and hell!
Goddess triform, I own thy triple spell,My heaven’s queen,—queen, too, of my earth and hell!
Goddess triform, I own thy triple spell,My heaven’s queen,—queen, too, of my earth and hell!
Goddess triform, I own thy triple spell,
My heaven’s queen,—queen, too, of my earth and hell!
Such could not be the termination of the author of the Renaissance, at a time when his star was Vittoria Colonna.
16 [XXIII] The sweet and plaintive verse was popular as a song even in the lifetime of Michelangelo, as may be inferred from its mention by Varchi.
17 [XXV] The madrigal has all the spirit of English song in the early part of the seventeenth century; but what English verse, having the same idea, could be mentioned in comparison?
[102]
18 [LII] The beautiful song exhibits a great number of variations. Perhaps on account of the musical character, counteracting a meditative tendency, Platonic philosophy appears only as lending a gentle mist transformed by the sunshine of pleasurable passion.
19 [LIII] Compare No.LXXII. I should assign this madrigal, in spite of its light character, to the later epoch.
20 [LIV] The ninth line appears to contain a reference to Vittoria Colonna, who lived in a convent, toward which the desires of the poet, as he says, scarce dared to reach.
21 [LVII] It can scarce be doubted that the attribution of masculine thought to the beloved is a reference to the character of Vittoria.
22 [LXVIII] The dialogue of this madrigal is intentionally veiled, as if the poet were conscious of dealing with a dangerous theme. Sublime are the last two lines, containing all the Michelangelo of the Sistine frescoes; the sentiment is not the purely Christian conception of forgiveness of injuries, the mildness which on principle turns the other cheek. Significant is the wordaltero, haughty; Michelangelo describes the sentiment of a great and proud spirit, so lofty as to feel a superiority to personal resentment, so truly Florentine[103]as to receive no satisfaction in the prospect of vengeance taken on a citizen of Florence.
23 [LXIX] A pretty piece of poetic ratiocination, cast into the form of a case tried before a court of love, and ending, in the spirit of the poet, with a universal truth.
24 [LXXII] Compare No. 20 [LIV]. It will be seen that the allusions give some reason to believe that the idea is intended to be biographic, though of course not to be taken as entirely literal.
25 [XCIII] A pleasing way of expressing a sense of the incompatibility of Love and Death, that appears in many variations, and must be considered biographic in its sentiment.