The 'Rivista Europea' of June 1875 publishes an article by Signor V. de
Tivoli concerning an inedited sonnet of Michael Angelo, which he
deciphered from the Autograph, written upon the back of one of the
original drawings in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford. This drawing formed
part of the Ottley and Lawrence Collection. It represents horses in
various attitudes, together with a skirmish between a mounted soldier
and a group of men on foot. Signor de Tivoli not only prints the text
with all its orthographical confusions, abbreviations, and alterations;
but he also adds what he modestly terms a restoration of the sonnet. Of
this restoration I have made the subjoined version in rhyme, though I
frankly admit that the difficulties of the text, as given in the rough
by Signor de Tivoli, seem to me insuperable, and that his readings,
though ingenious, cannot in my opinion be accepted as absolutely
certain. He himself describes the MS. as a palimpsest, deliberately
defaced by Michael Angelo, from which the words originally written have
to be recovered in many cases by a process of conjecture. That the
style of the restoration is thoroughly Michael Angelesque, will be
admitted by all students of Signor Guasti's edition. The only word I
felt inclined to question, is _donne_ in line 13, where I should have
expected _donna_. But I am informed that about this word there is no
doubt. The sonnet itself ranks among the less interesting and the least
finished compositions of the poet's old age.
Thrice blest was I what time thy piercing dart
I could withstand and conquer in days past:
But now my breast with grief is overcast;
Against my will I weep, and suffer smart.
And if those shafts, aimed with so fierce an art,
The mark of my frail bosom over-passed,
Now canst thou take revenge with blows at last
From those fair eyes which must consume my heart.
O Love, how many a net, how many a snare
Shuns through long years the bird by fate malign,
Only at last to die more piteously!
Thus love hath let me run as free as air,
Ladies, through many a year, to make me pine
In sad old age, and a worse death to die.