The Sleeping Venus

    Image: Giorgione, Sleeping Venus (c. 1510). Oil on canvas. 108 x 175 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/giorgion/various/venus.html , 23 September 2015.

    Giorgione

    The Dresden Gallery
     

    HERE is Venus by our homes
    And resting on the verdant swell
    Of a soft country flanked with mountain domes :
    She has left her arched shell, 
    Has left the barren wave that foams,
    Amid earth's fruitful tilths to dwell.
    Nobly lighted while she sleeps
    As sward-lands or the corn-field sweeps,
    Pure as are the things that man
    Needs for life and using can
    Never violate nor spot—
    Thus she slumbers in no grot, 
    But on open ground.
    With the great hill-sides around.

    And her body has the curves,
    The same extensive smoothness seen
    In yonder breadths of pasture, in the swerves
    Of the grassy mountain-green
    That for her propping pillow serves :
    There is a sympathy between
    Her and Earth of largest reach,
    For the sex that forms them each
    Is a bond, a holiness,
    That unconsciously must bless
    And unite them, as they lie
    Shameless underneath the sky
    A long, opal cloud
    Doth in noontide haze enshroud.

    O'er her head her right arm bends ;
    And from the elbow raised aloft
    Down to the crossing knees a line descends
    Unimpeachable and soft
    As the adjacent slope that ends
    In chequered plain of hedge and croft.
    Circular as lovely knolls, 
    Up to which a landscape rolls
    With desirous sway, each breast
    Rises from the level chest, 
    One in contour, one in round—
    Either exquisite, low mound
    Firm in shape and given
    To the August warmth of heaven.

    With bold freedom of incline, 
    With an uttermost repose,
    From hip to herbage-cushioned foot the line
    Of her left leg stretching shows
    Against the turf direct and fine,
    Dissimilar in grace to those
    Little bays that in and out
    By the ankle wind about ;
    Or that shallow bend, the right
    Curled-up knee has brought to sight
    Underneath its bossy rise,
    Where the loveliest shadow lies !
    Charmed umbrage rests
    On her neck and by her breasts.

    Her left arm remains beside
    The plastic body's lower heaves,
    Controlled by them, as when a river-side
    With its sandy margin weaves
    Deflections in a lenient tide ;
    Her hand the thigh's tense surface leaves, 
    Falling inward. Not even sleep
    Dare invalidate the deep,
    Universal pleasure sex
    Must unto itself annex—
    Even the stillest sleep ; at peace, 
    More profound with rest's increase, 
    She enjoys the good
    Of delicious womanhood.

    Cheek and eyebrow touch the fold
    Of the raised arm that frames her hair, 
    Her braided hair in colour like to old
    Copper glinting here and there :
    While through her skin of olive-gold
    The scarce carnations mount and share
    Faultlessly the oval space
    Of her temperate, grave face.
    Eyelids underneath the day
    Wrinkle as full buds that stay,
    Through the tranquil, summer hours,
    Closed although they might be flowers ;
    The red lips shut in
    Gracious secrets that begin.

    On white drapery she sleeps,
    That fold by fold is stained with shade ;
    Her mantle's ruddy pomegranate in heaps
    For a cushion she has laid
    Beneath her; and the glow that steeps
    Its grain of richer depth is made
    By an overswelling bank,
    Tufted with dun grasses rank.
    From this hillock's outer heaves
    One small bush defines its leaves
    Broadly on the sober blue
    The pale cloud-bank rises to, 
    Whilst it sinks in bland
    Sunshine on the distant land.

    Near her resting-place are spread,
    In deep or greener-lighted brown,
    Wolds, that half-withered by the heat o'erhead,
    Press up to a little town
    Of castle, archway, roof and shed,
    Then slope in grave continuance down :
    On their border, in a group.
    Trees of brooding foliage droop
    Sidelong ; and a single tree
    Springs with bright simplicity,
    Central from the sunlit plain.
    Of a blue no flowers attain,
    On the fair, vague sky
    Adamantine summits lie.

    And her resting is so strong
    That while we gaze it seems as though
    She had lain thus the solemn glebes among
    In the ages far ago
    And would continue, till the long,
    Last evening of Earth's summer glow
    In communion with the sweet
    Life that ripens at her feet :
    We can never fear that she
    From Italian fields will flee,
    For she does not come from far,
    She is of the things that are ;
    And she will not pass
    While the sun strikes on the grass.

     

    Giorgione

    The Dresden Gallery
     

    HERE is Venus by our homes
    And resting on the verdant swell
    Of a soft country flanked with mountain domes :
    She has left her arched shell, 
    Has left the barren wave that foams,
    Amid earth's fruitful tilths to dwell.
    Nobly lighted while she sleeps
    As sward-lands or the corn-field sweeps,
    Pure as are the things that man
    Needs for life and using can
    Never violate nor spot—
    Thus she slumbers in no grot, 
    But on open ground.
    With the great hill-sides around.

    And her body has the curves,
    The same extensive smoothness seen
    In yonder breadths of pasture, in the swerves
    Of the grassy mountain-green
    That for her propping pillow serves :
    There is a sympathy between
    Her and Earth of largest reach,
    For the sex that forms them each
    Is a bond, a holiness,
    That unconsciously must bless
    And unite them, as they lie
    Shameless underneath the sky
    A long, opal cloud
    Doth in noontide haze enshroud.

    O'er her head her right arm bends ;
    And from the elbow raised aloft
    Down to the crossing knees a line descends
    Unimpeachable and soft
    As the adjacent slope that ends
    In chequered plain of hedge and croft.
    Circular as lovely knolls, 
    Up to which a landscape rolls
    With desirous sway, each breast
    Rises from the level chest, 
    One in contour, one in round—
    Either exquisite, low mound
    Firm in shape and given
    To the August warmth of heaven.

    With bold freedom of incline, 
    With an uttermost repose,
    From hip to herbage-cushioned foot the line
    Of her left leg stretching shows
    Against the turf direct and fine,
    Dissimilar in grace to those
    Little bays that in and out
    By the ankle wind about ;
    Or that shallow bend, the right
    Curled-up knee has brought to sight
    Underneath its bossy rise,
    Where the loveliest shadow lies !
    Charmed umbrage rests
    On her neck and by her breasts.

    Her left arm remains beside
    The plastic body's lower heaves,
    Controlled by them, as when a river-side
    With its sandy margin weaves
    Deflections in a lenient tide ;
    Her hand the thigh's tense surface leaves, 
    Falling inward. Not even sleep
    Dare invalidate the deep,
    Universal pleasure sex
    Must unto itself annex—
    Even the stillest sleep ; at peace, 
    More profound with rest's increase, 
    She enjoys the good
    Of delicious womanhood.

    Cheek and eyebrow touch the fold
    Of the raised arm that frames her hair, 
    Her braided hair in colour like to old
    Copper glinting here and there :
    While through her skin of olive-gold
    The scarce carnations mount and share
    Faultlessly the oval space
    Of her temperate, grave face.
    Eyelids underneath the day
    Wrinkle as full buds that stay,
    Through the tranquil, summer hours,
    Closed although they might be flowers ;
    The red lips shut in
    Gracious secrets that begin.

    On white drapery she sleeps,
    That fold by fold is stained with shade ;
    Her mantle's ruddy pomegranate in heaps
    For a cushion she has laid
    Beneath her; and the glow that steeps
    Its grain of richer depth is made
    By an overswelling bank,
    Tufted with dun grasses rank.
    From this hillock's outer heaves
    One small bush defines its leaves
    Broadly on the sober blue
    The pale cloud-bank rises to, 
    Whilst it sinks in bland
    Sunshine on the distant land.

    Near her resting-place are spread,
    In deep or greener-lighted brown,
    Wolds, that half-withered by the heat o'erhead,
    Press up to a little town
    Of castle, archway, roof and shed,
    Then slope in grave continuance down :
    On their border, in a group.
    Trees of brooding foliage droop
    Sidelong ; and a single tree
    Springs with bright simplicity,
    Central from the sunlit plain.
    Of a blue no flowers attain,
    On the fair, vague sky
    Adamantine summits lie.

    And her resting is so strong
    That while we gaze it seems as though
    She had lain thus the solemn glebes among
    In the ages far ago
    And would continue, till the long,
    Last evening of Earth's summer glow
    In communion with the sweet
    Life that ripens at her feet :
    We can never fear that she
    From Italian fields will flee,
    For she does not come from far,
    She is of the things that are ;
    And she will not pass
    While the sun strikes on the grass.