Sonnets | Page 7

writer
whose thoughts exceed his power of expression, and who complicates
the verbal form by his endeavour to project what cannot easily be said
in verse.[14] A little patience will generally make it clear what
Campanella meant, except in cases where the text itself is corrupt. But
it may sometimes be doubted whether Michael Angelo could himself
have done more than indicate the general drift of his thought, or have
disengaged his own conception from the tangled skein of elliptical and
ungrammatical sentences in which he has enveloped it. The form of
Campanella's poetry, though often grotesque, is always clear. Michael
Angelo has left too many of his compositions in the same state as his
marbles--unfinished and colossal abbozzi, which lack the final touches
to make their outlines distinct. Under these circumstances, it can hardly
happen that the translator should succeed in reproducing all the
sharpness and vivacity of Campanella's style, or should wholly refrain
from softening, simplifying, and prettifying Michael Angelo in his
attempt to produce an intelligible version. In both cases he is tempted
to make his translation serve the purpose also of a commentary, and has
to exercise caution and self-control lest he impose a sense too narrow
or too definite upon the original.
So far as this was possible, I have adhered to the rhyming structure of
my originals, feeling that this is a point of no small moment in
translation. Yet when the choice lay between a sacrifice of metrical
exactitude and a sacrifice of sense, I have not hesitated to prefer the
former, especially in dealing with Campanella's quatrains.
Michael Angelo and Campanella follow different rules in their
treatment of the triplets. Michael Angelo allows himself three rhymes,
while Campanella usually confines himself to two. My practice has
been to study in each sonnet the cadence both of thought and diction, so
as to satisfy an English ear, accustomed to the various forms of
termination exemplified by Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, and

Rossetti--the sweetest, the most sublime, the least artificial, and the
most artful sonnet-writers in our language.
The short titles attached to each sonnet are intended to help the eye,
rather than to guide the understanding of the reader. Michael Angelo
and his editors supply no arguments or mottoes for his poems; while
those printed by Adami in his edition of Campanella are, like mine,
meant obviously to serve as signposts to the student. It may savour of
impudence to ticket and to label little masterpieces, each one of which,
like all good poems, is a microcosm of very varied meanings. Yet I
have some authority in modern times for this impertinence; and, when
it is acknowledged that the titles merely profess to guide the reader
through a labyrinth of abstract and reflective compositions, without
attempting to supply him with a comprehensive argument or to
dogmatise concerning the main drift of each poem, I trust that enough
will have been said by way of self-defence against the charge of
arrogance.
The sonnet prefixed as a proem to the whole book is generally
attributed to Giordano Bruno, in whose Dialogue on the Eroici Furori
it occurs. There seems, however, good reason to suppose that it was
really written by Tansillo, who recites it in that Dialogue. Whoever
may have been its author, it expresses in noble and impassioned verse
the sense of danger, the audacity, and the exultation of those pioneers
of modern thought, for whom philosophy was a voyage of discovery
into untravelled regions. Its spirit is rather that of Campanella than of
Michael Angelo. Yet the elevation at which Michael Angelo habitually
lived in thought and feeling was so far above the plains of common life,
that from the summit of his solitary watch-tower he might have
followed even such high-fliers as Bruno or as Campanella in their
Icarian excursions with the eyes of speculative interest.
DAVOS PLATZ. Nov. 1877.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 'Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pittore, Scultore e Architetto,
cavate dagli Autografi e pubblicate da Cesare Guasti, Accademico della

Crusca. In Firenze, per Felice le Monmer. MDCCCLXIII.'
[2] See, however, page xlvii of Signor Guasti's Discorso.
[3] I have so fully expressed my admiration for Signor Guasti's edition
in the text that I may allow myself to point out in a note what seems to
me its chief defect, and why I think there is still, perhaps, room for
another and more critical edition. The materials are amply and
conscientiously supplied by Signor Guasti, indeed, I suppose we are
justified in believing that his single volume reproduces all the extant
manuscript authorities, with the exception, perhaps, of the British
Museum Codex. But, while it is so comprehensive, we are still left in
some doubt as to the preference of one reading rather than another in
the large type text presented to us as