Mentre che 'l danno e la vergogna dura
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura;
Però non mi destar; deh! parla basso!
Dear is my sleep, more dear to be but stone;
Whilst deep despair and dark dishonour reign
Not to hear, not to feel is greatest gain;
Then wake me not; speak in an undertone.
No one ever before gave such tragic beauty to the worn and tired figure of a woman who has lived through her many days of toil and suffered many labours. It is believed by a medical authority that the master meant [pg 214]the statue to represent rest after a labour, but it is rather the nightmare-troubled sleep of a tired woman, whose beautiful firm hips and worn breasts prove her to have bravely met and passed through many cares, and suckled many children. A horrid mask, symbolising these memories, in bad dreams, grimaces beside her left hand. The eyes of the mask are cut double so that the thing alters its glance as you move about the chapel, fascinates and is intolerable. The noble and splendid thighs of the woman again realise a favourite problem of Michael Angelo's. He represented these powerful limbs in the Flood and other parts of the Sistine vault, and in the Leda. Beneath is seen an owl; never before in sculpture has a bird been represented with such power and dignity, save only by the Greeks in the eaglets head on the coin of Eiis. There are wreaths of poppy heads, symbols of sleep, and a moon and stars to crown the head that is like the head of a greater than Diana.
Evening, a brawny, hard-worked man, looks across the chapel with pity towards the Night. He appears to be in the act of straightening and stretching out his limbs, lately bent by the toils of the day, in longed-for rest.