Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Online: Michelangelo 151 No brilliant artist any vision ever made
that wasn’t there already, grafted by the block, beneath excess of marble, only caught by hands obedient to the brain.
The evil I flee is hidden with my longed-for grace
in You, beloved— blessèd, fair, but when I’ve sought, dear lady, to design it so, the work I’ve wrought
has almost cut the life from me. My plans have failed. No fault of love’s or of your scorn, however harsh,
or fortune, luck, your beauty or my fate,
these evil states by which I’m so beset—
with death and mercy held together in your heart,
the only thing my lowly talents make,
however ardently they burn, is death.
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