Colui Che Fece, E Non Di Cosa Alcuna

He who did erst from primal nothing bring Time, integral and property of none, To half, dividing, gave the distant sun, To half the moon, a lamp more neighboring. All in a moment, Destiny and Chance Began, and over mortals ruled with power; To me they gave the still and sober hour, As like to like, in birth and circumstance. As attribute in action is expressed, And darkness is the property of night, So e’en to be myself is sad to be; Yet is my troubled spirit soothed to rest, Remembering, its dusk may render bright The sun that Fortune lent for friend to thee.

In No. XLII Night is lauded, as the shadow in which man is engendered, while in the day the soil is broken only for the seed of the corn; but the composition does not rival the sweetness and sublimity of No. XLIV.

20 [LII] This fine sonnet, belonging to the later period, may be set down as among those inspired by Vittoria Colonna. Thoroughly characteristic is the grand fifth line, in which the soul is said to have been created as God’s equal. The nephew, of course, diluted such daring conceptions into commonplace, and his restoration altogether fails to convey the essential meaning of the piece. Wordsworth, unfortunately, knew only the emasculated version.

Similar in theme is another sonnet, No. LX, also rendered by Wordsworth, from a text more nearly representative. In this instance the English poet has transcended his source, and furnished a proof that on fortunate occasions a translation may belong to the very best poetry, and deserve that immortality which commonly belongs only to expressions of original genius.

Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, undismayed; For if of our affections none find grace In sight of heaven, then wherefore hath God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have, than that in loving thee Glory to that eternal peace is paid, Which such divinity to thee imparts, As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only, whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour; But in chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power Of earthly change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.

21 [LVI] The sonnet is to be classed with the preceding. In a variant, the theologic metaphor is carried further: “From without, I know not whence, came that immortal part which separateth not from thy sacred breast, yet traverseth the entire world, healeth every intellect, and honoreth heaven.”

22 [LXI] As all tools used by man are formed by means of other tools, the archetypal tool must be that celestial instrument by which the world is fashioned. On earth, Vittoria Colonna had been the hammer (as we now say, the chisel) by which had been inspired the creative activity of the artist. By her death, this influence had been withdrawn to heaven, there to become united with the all-forming hammer of the eternal Maker; it is, therefore, only from on high that the artist can look for the completion of his own genius.

To the text, in the hand of Michelangelo, is added a sentence expressing his sense of the incomparable merit of Vittoria, as the divine instrument which none other is able to wield, and a prayer that his own hammer, as he metaphorically says, may also attain a reception in heaven.

The mystically expressed, but in reality simple and direct verse is crowded with ideas which strive for utterance. The sculptor seems to have written prophetically; after the passing away of Vittoria, the last of his animating impulses appears to have been removed, and his life becomes that of a recluse, struggling with the infirmities of advancing age.

Several other pieces relate to the death of Vittoria.