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. He says,
parenthetically, "since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you,
but I." It's too precious a work of art to be entrusted to anybody else.




IV. Browning's Verse.