irthday,
Spoke to Master Fludribus:
"I have heard it oft related
How in France in lordly castles
They adorn the walls with frescoes.
Therefore try to paint now something
Like them here in my pavilion.
From the world secluded, I know
Naught about such compositions;
Therefore to your taste I leave all,
Only you must work in secret,
As the Baron must know nothing."

Fludribus looked consequential:
"Though but trifling is the order,
Still I coincide with Caesar,
And am rather here considered
First than at great Rome the second.
And besides, there all is finished.
Even in the Pope's own palace
All those thoughts high and aesthetic,
Which I in my bosom cherished,
Has a man by name of Raphael
Painted on the walls already.
But I shall great things achieve,
And shall do like Buffamalco,
Who with rich red wine imparted
Glowing warmth to the cold colours.
Therefore, furnish me with red wine
First; of course, good eating with it.
Rich reward I do not care for,
Since the thought is my enjoyment,
That I shall be made immortal
Through the efforts of my genius.
Thus I'll paint for almost nothing,
Just the square foot seven shillings."

Since two months he had been painting
On the walls beneath the arched roof;
Imitated Buffamalco;
But he drank himself the red wine.
And his compositions truly
Were artistic, highly proper,
And of elegant conception.

To begin with: there paraded
Perseus and Andromeda;
At their feet lay deadly wounded
The great Hydra, with a handsome
Face, much like a human being,
Who in dying still coquetted
With the lovely rock-bound captive.
Then the Judgment came of Paris;
And in order that the dazzling
Beauty of those heavenly ladies
Should not quite eclipse the hero,
They looked off toward the landscape,
With their backs to the spectator.
Similar were the other pictures:
As Diana and Actaeon,
Orpheus and Eurydice.
For the man of genius chooses
From mythology his subjects;
And he thinks, in nudeness only,
Is revealed the highest beauty.
Now the work was all accomplished,
And with feeling, said the master: