Michelangelo Buonarroti | S'egli è che 'n dura pietra alcun somigli | Sonetto 242

S’egli è che ’n dura pietra alcun somigli

talor l’immagin d’ogni altri a se stesso,

squalido e smorto spesso

il fo, com’i’ son fatto da costei.

E par ch’esempro pigli

ognor da me, ch’i’ penso di far lei.

Ben la pietra potrei,

per l’aspra suo durezza,

in ch’io l’esempro, dir c’a lei s’assembra;

del resto non saprei,

mentre mi strugge e sprezza,

altro sculpir che le mie afflitte membra.

Ma se l’arte rimembra

agli anni la beltà per durare ella,

farà me lieto, ond’io le’ farò bella.

Since it's true that, in hard stone, one will at times

Since it's true that, in hard stone, one will at times

make the image of someone else look like himself,

I often make her dreary

and ashen, just as I'm made by this woman;

and I seem to keep taking myself

as a model, whenever I think of depicting her.

I could well say that the stone

in which I model her

resembles her in its harsh hardness; but

in any case I could not,

while she scorns and destroys me,

sculpt anything but my own tormented features.

So, since art preserves the memory

of beauty through the years, if she wants to last,

she will make me glad, so that I'll make her beautiful.