MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                        When you two
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, which 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 mime,
That we should think all nature would stand still
If we were gone?  We must make room for others.

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

TITIAN, drawing hack 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.

TITIAN. 
                      The model truly
Was beautiful.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
And more, that you were present,
And saw the showery Jove from high Olympus
Descend in all his splendor.

TITIAN. 
                        From your lips
Such words are full of sweetness.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                      You have caught
These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets.

TITIAN. 
Possibly.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
    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
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living,
With such divine perfection.