SCENE II.

MICHAEL ANGELO, returning to his work.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How will men speak of me when I am gone,
When all this colorless, sad life is ended,
And I am dust? They will remember only
The wrinkled forehead, the marred countenance,
The rudeness of my speech, and my rough man-

ners,

And never dream that underneath them all
There was a woman's heart of tenderness;
They will not know the secret of my life,
Locked up in silence, or but vaguely hinted
In uncouth rhymes, that may perchance survive
Some little space in memories of men!

Each one performs his life-work, and then leaves

it ;

Those that come after him will estimate

His influence on the age in which he lived.1
March 10, 1872.]

V.

PALAZZO BELVEDERE.

TITIAN'S studio. A painting of Danaë with a curtain before it. TITIAN, MICHAEL ANGELO, and GIORGIO VASARI.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

So you have left at last your still lagoons,
Your City of Silence floating in the sea,
And come to us in Rome.

TITIAN.

I come to learn,

But I have come too late. I should have seen

1 See Appendix.

Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open
To new impressions. Our Vasari here

Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly
Among the marvels of the past. I touch them,
But do not see them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

There are things in Rome

That one might walk barefooted here from Venice But to see once, and then to die content.

TITIAN.

I must confess that these majestic ruins
Oppress me with their gloom. I feel as one
Who in the twilight stumbles among tombs,
And cannot read the inscriptions carved upon

them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

familiar

I felt so once; but I have grown
With desolation, and it has become
No more a pain to me, but a delight.

TITIAN.

I could not live here. I must have the sea,
And the sea-mist, with sunshine interwoven
Like cloth of gold; must have beneath my win

dows

The laughter of the waves, and at my door
Their pattering footsteps, or I am not happy.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

[Then tell me of your city in the sea,
Paved with red basalt of the Paduan hills.
Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names,
Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto,

Illustrate your Venetian school, and send
A challenge to the world. The first is dead,
But Tintoretto lives.

TITIAN.

And paints with fire,

Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints
The cloudy vault of heaven.

GIORGIO.

Does he still keep

Above his door the arrogant inscription

That once was painted there, "The color of

Titian,

With the design of Michael Angelo"?

TITIAN.

Indeed, I know not. "T was a foolish boast,

And does no harm to any but himself.

Perhaps he has grown wiser.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Are gone, who is there that remains behind
To seize the pencil falling from your fingers?

GIORGIO.

Oh, there are many hands upraised already
To clutch at such a prize, and hardly wait
For death to loose your grasp, a hundred of

them:

Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola,

Moretto, and Moroni; who can count them,
Or measure their ambition?

[TITIAN.

When we are gone,

The generation that comes after us

Will have far other thoughts than ours. Our

ruins

Will serve to build their palaces or tombs.

They will possess the world that we think ours,

And fashion it far otherwise.]

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I hear

Your son Orazio and your nephew Marco

Mentioned with honor.

TITIAN.

Ay, brave lads, brave lads.

But time will show. There is a youth in Venice, One Paul Cagliari, called the Veronese,

Still a mere stripling, but of such rare promise That we must guard our laurels, or may lose them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

These are good tidings; for I sometimes fear
That, when we die, with us all art will die.
'T is but a fancy. Nature will provide
Others to take our places. I rejoice
To see the young spring forward in the race,
Eager as we were, and as full of hope
And the sublime audacity of youth.

[TITIAN.

Men die and are forgotten. The great world
Goes on the same. Among the myriads

Of men that live, or have lived, or shall live,
What is a single life, or thine or mine,

That we should think all nature would stand still
If we were gone? We must make room for oth-

ers.

MICHAEL ANGELO.]

And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture
Of Danaë, of which I hear such praise.

TITIAN, drawing back the curtain.

What think you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

That Acrisius did well

To lock such beauty in a brazen tower,

And hide it from all eyes.

Was beautiful.

TITIAN.

The model truly

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And more, that you were present,

And saw the showery Jove from high Olympus
Descend in all his splendor.

Or from sunshine through a shower

On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic.
[Nature reveals herself in all our arts.
The pavements and the palaces of cities
Hint at the nature of the neighboring hills.
Red lavas from the Euganean quarries
Of Padua pave your streets; your palaces
Are the white stones of Istria, and gleam
Reflected in your waters and your pictures.
And thus the works of every artist show
Something of his surroundings and his habits.
The uttermost that can be reached by color]
Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and
softness

Mingle together. Never yet was flesh