Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Online: The Saint When in that hell of self-created afflictions, Ghastly obscene images oppressed him—
No heart was ever so beguiled by the thrall
Of lasciviousness as his, and no heart so racked By God—he lifts his withered hands,
Those undelivered, praying up to heaven. Only a painfully unslaked lust forms
His rutting, fevered prayer, whose fire Sweeps through mystic eternities, And that evoë1 of Dionysus
Does not sound as drunk as when in deadly, Rage-sputtering ecstasy his tortured cry Wrings fulfillment: Exaudi me, o Maria! 1
Note: evoë, the traditional Greek–Latin exclamation to honor the wine god Dionysus; line 13, Exaudi me (hear me), is found in such Latin prayers to the Virgin Mary as “Obsecro te” (I beseech thee) and “Memorare, O piissima Virgo Maria” (Remember, O gracious Virgin Mary).
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