August 16, 2007

Michelangelo Buonarrota, Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, trans. Creighton Gilbert (Modern Library, 1965).

5. Sonnet to John of Pistoia on the Sistine Ceiling (1509-12)

I've got myself a goiter from this strain,
As water gives the cats of Lombardy
Or maybe it is in some other country;
My belly's pushed by force beneath my chin.

My beard toward Heaven, I feel the back of my brain
Upon my neck, I grow the breast of a Harpy;
My brush, above my face continually,
Makes it a splendid floor by dripping down.

My loins have penetrated to my paunch,
My rump's a crupper, as a counterweight,
And pointless the unseeing steps I go.

In front of me my skin is being stretched
While it folds up behind and forms a knot,
And I am bending like a Syrian bow.

And judgement, hence, must grow,
Borne in the mind, peculiar and untrue;
You cannot shoot well when the gun's askew.

John, come to the rescue
Of my dead painting now, and of my honor;
I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter (5-6).

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crupper=1. a leather strap fastened to the saddle of a harness and looping under the tail of a horse to prevent the harness from slipping forward. 2. the rump or buttocks of a horse. 3.armor for the rump of a horse.