Prose Paraphrase

That’s a painting of my wife, looking lively, on the wall. I call it amazing, Fra Pandolf’s worked a day on it, and now it is there. Will you look at her, please? I told you it was a “Fra Pandolf” design, for strangers like you that pictured a face. The depth and passion of how it appears, to myself they have changed( since no one sets the curtain aside but myself.) They dared ask how such an appearance was there. You are not the first to change and ask, “It wasn’t only her husband’s presence that made the duchess blush. Maybe Fra Pandolf meant to say, “Her cloak covers her wrist too much,” or, “Paint can’t hope to reproduce the faint blush that fades along her throat.” She thought that stuff was courtesy and had enough cause to blush. She had a heart too easily made happy, too easily impressed. She looked everywhere and liked whatever she looked at.

As the sun sets she rode a white mule and people would try to make her talk or blush. She thanked men but thanked them as if comparing the surname with any gift. If she let herself stoop low, or lower her intelligence and made an excuse, then there would be stooping and he chose to never stoop. She smiled whenever I passed, but to who else does she give the same smile? He gave commands and then the smiling stopped altogether. He asked her to rise and meet the company below. So he could show that his generosity is justification that a dowry from him won’t be disallowed.  Though his daughter is the object. They’ll go down together. Notice the bronze statue in which Neptune is taming a sea horse.