Octavianus (poet)

Octavianus or Octavian was a Latin poet of the 6th century AD, to whom several poems are attributed in the Latin Anthology. Emil Baehrens (Poetae Latini Minores) conjectured that Octavianus had been the first editor of the Anthology, based on the fact that his name and other life details, such as his Carthaginian origin and tender age of sixteen, are mentioned therein.

Quotes

• Pinge, precor, pictor, tali candore puellam,
  Qualem pinxit Amor, qualem meus ignis anhelat.
  Nil pingendo neges; tegat omnia Serica vestis,
  Quae totum prodat tenui velamine corpus.
  Te quoque pulset amor, crucient pigmenta medullas:
  Si bonus es pictor, miseri suspiria pinge.
  • Paint a whitelimbed girl for me
    Such as love himself might fashion;
    So that nothing hidden be,
    Paint her with a lover's passion.
    Through her silken garments show
    All her body's rosy wonder—
    Love will set your sense aglow,
    Longing tear your heart asunder.
    Call it, when your work you scan,
    "Portrait of a wretched man."
    • Text and translation by Howard Mumford Jones in The Romanesque Lyric (1928), pp. 108, 329
      • Cp. Shakespeare, Othello, IV, i, 291: "O well painted passion!"

• Dic quid agis, formosa Venus, si nescis amanti
  Ferre vicem. Perit omne decus, dum deperit aetas.
  Marcent post rorem violae, rosa perdit odorem,
  Lilia post vernum posito candore nigrescunt.
  Haec metuas exempla precor et semper amanti
  Redde vicem, quia semper amat, qui semper amatur.

• Non redit in florem, sed munus perdit amantis,
  Quidquid vile jacet: dulce est, quodcumque negatur.
  Nam si formosam facilem penetravit amator,
  Fallit adulterio et munus perdit amantis.