Observations placeholder
Michelangelo - Sonnet LXI - If my rough hammer makes a human form
Identifier
024482
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Theobald_van_Oer_Michelangelo_am_Sarg_der_Vittoria_Colonna
A description of the experience
Michelangelo – Sonnets [translated by Elizabeth Jennings]
Sonnet LXI
ON THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA
If my rough hammer makes a human form
And carves it in the hard, unyielding stone,
My hand is guided, does not move alone,
But follows where that other worker came.
Yet the first worker, God, remains above,
Whose very motion makes all loveliness.
To make a tool I need a tool, but his
Power is the first cause and makes all things move.
That stroke which in the forge is raised most high
Has the most strength. Now she who lifted me,
Has, by her death, been raised much higher still.
So I am left unfinished now until
She gives her help to God himself that I
May be completed, not abandoned lie.