The Sistine Chapel

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Michelangelo, great painter of the Italian renaissance, was forced into painting the Sistine Chapel by Pope Julius II in 1508. After finishing his work on the ceiling of the chapel, Michelangelo wrote this poem about the agony he experienced:

I've got myself a goiter from this strain,
As water gives the cats in Lombardy
Or maybe it is in some other country;
My belly's pushed by force beneath my chin.

My beard toward Heaven, I feel the back of my brain
Upon my neck, I grow the breast of a Harpy;
My brush, above my face continually,
Makes a splendid floor by dripping down.

My Lins have penetrated to my paunch,
My rump's a crupper, as a counterweight,
And pointless the unseeing steps I go.

In front of me my skin is being stretched
While it folds up behind and forms a knot,
And I am bending like a Syrian bow.

And judgment, hence must grow,
Borne in mind, peculiar and untrue;
You cannot shoot well when the gun's askew.

John, come to the rescue
Of my dead painting now, and of my honor;
I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter.