Oh, blissful day! When in a single flash
Time slips away into eternity--
The sun no longer rides across the skies....
Michelangelo was conscious of his near kinship with Dante; he
illustrated a copy of the _Divine Comedy_ which, unfortunately, is lost,
and wrote a poem on Dante in which the following lines occur:
Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains,
Against his exile, coupled with his good,
I'd gladly change the world's inheritage.
(_Transl. by_ J.A. SYMONDS.)
The paintings in the Sistine Chapel, with their materialised thoughts of
destiny, retribution and eternity, originated in a feeling akin to the
feeling underlying the _Divine Comedy_. Both here and there the creation
of celestial and infernal spirits was the outcome of the infinite
longing of the artistic imagination. Both men could spend the human and
creative passions with which their souls were thrilled only on the
supreme and universal.
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