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?