slator by
Michael Angelo and by Campanella are of different kinds. Both, indeed,
pack their thoughts so closely that it is not easy to reproduce them
without either awkwardness or sacrifice of matter. But while Campanella
is difficult from the abruptness of his transitions and the violence of
his phrases, Michael Angelo has the obscurity of a writer whose
thoughts exceed his power of expression, and who complicates the verbal
form by his endeavour to project what cannot easily be said in
verse.[14] A little patience will generally make it clear what
Campanella meant, except in cases where the text itself is corrupt. But
it may sometimes be doubted whether Michael Angelo could himself have
done more than indicate the general drift of his thought, or have
disengaged his own conception from the tangled skein of elliptical and
ungrammatical sentences in which he has enveloped it. The form of
Campanella's poetry, though often grotesque, is always clear. Michael
Angelo has left too many of his compositions in the same state as his
marbles--unfinished and colossal _abbozzi,_ which lack the final
touches to make their outlines distinct. Under these circumstances, it
can hardly happen that the translator should succeed in reproducing all
the sharpness and vivacity of Campanella's style, or should wholly
refrain from softening, simplifying, and prettifying Michael Angelo in
his attempt to produce an intelligible version. In both cases he is
tempted to make his translation serve the purpose also of a commentary,
and has to exercise caution and self-control lest he impose a sense too
narrow or too definite upon the original.

So far as this was possible, I have adhered to the rhyming structure of
my originals, feeling that this is a point of no small moment in
translation. Yet when the choice lay between a sacrifice of metrical
exactitude and a sacrifice of sense, I have not hesitated to prefer the
former, especially in dealing with Campanella's quatrains.

Michael Angelo and Campanella follow different rules in their treatment
of the triplets. Michael Angelo allows himself three rhymes, while
Campanella usually confines himself to two. My practice has been to
study in each sonnet the cadence both of thought and diction, so as to
satisfy an English ear, accustomed to the various forms of termination
exemplified by Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, and Rossetti--the sweetest,
the most sublime, the least artificial, and the most artful s