ine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, `Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark'--and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! *

--
* Claus of Innsbruck and also Fra Pandolf (v. 3) are imaginary
artists.
--

The last ten verses illustrate well the poet's skilful management
of his difficult art-form. After the envoy has had his look
at the portrait, the Duke, thinking it time to return to his guests,
says "Will't please you rise? We'll meet the company below, then."
His next speech, which indicates what he has been talking about,
during the envoy's study of the picture, must be understood
as uttered while they are moving toward the stairway. The next,
"Nay, we'll go together down, sir", shows that they have reached
the head of the stairway, and that the envoy has politely motioned
the Duke to lead the way down. This is implied in the "Nay".
The last speech indicates that on the stairway is a window
which affords an outlook into the courtyard, where he calls
the attention of the envoy to a Neptune, taming a sea-horse,
cast in bronze for him by Claus of Innsbruck. The pride
of the virtuoso is also implied in the word, "though".

It should be noticed, also, that the Duke values his wife's picture
wholly as a picture, not as the "counterfeit presentment" and reminder
of a sweet and lovely woman, who might have blessed his life,
if he had been capable of being blessed. It is to him a picture
by a great artist, and he values it only as such.