See also d2_MaiT_001 and d2_MaiT_025. Metre: elegiac couplets.
In ejusdem imaginem (n.d.)
[p178]
In ejusdem imaginem
Quam bene miranda pictor celebrandis ab arte
formosi pinxit corporis effigiem: 1
tam bene virtutes animi, gestusque loquaces,
et molles linguae dulcia verba sonos;
Syderibusque pares oculos, mentisque figuram
cur nequit artificis docta referre manus? 2
Humana non est natura imitabilis arte,
nec capit immensam parva tabella Deam. 3
[p178]
On a painting of the same woman
How well the painter, with his wondrous skill, has painted a likeness of your shapely body, which should itself be celebrated: why did his learned hand fail to capture as well the virtues of your mind and your talkative gestures, and the soft tones and sweet words of your speech, and eyes equal to the stars, and the outline of your mind? Human nature cannot be replicated in art, nor puny tablets capture an infinite goddess.
Notes:
Original
1: 'formosi...corporis': Seneca, Phaedra 772
2: 'docta...manus': Seneca, Phaedra 1259
3: 'parva tabella': found in Appendix Vergiliana, Moretum 19, but more likely sourced from Ovid (where the term is found frequently, and often in the same metrical position, eg Fasti II.408, Tristia II.1.524) or Martial, Epigrammata VII.19.6 (in same metrical position).
