Note 22 — III The Homogenic Attachment
Reading edition
I may be excused for quoting here the sonnet No. 54, from J. A. Symonds’ translation of the sonnets of Michel Angelo:—
“From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord, That which no mortal tongue can rightly say: The soul, imprisoned in her house of clay, Holpen by thee to God hath often soared: And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde Attribute what their grosser wills obey, Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay, This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford, Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth, Resemble for the soul that rightly sees, That source of bliss divine which gave us birth: Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally, I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee.”
The labours of von Scheffler, followed by J. A. Symonds, have now pretty conclusively established the pious frauds of the nephew, and the fact that the love-poems of the elder Michel Angelo were, for the most part, written to male friends.