Confessions: A New Translation

Translator Constantine (The Essential Writings of Rousseau) delivers a lyrical translation of what he calls “the world’s first autobiography,” transporting Augustine’s striking thoughts into streamlined modern prose. With personable candor, Augustine describes his lifelong battle against sexual temptation, remembering his youthful prayer: “Grant me chastity and continence, only not yet.” While the narrative voice feels contemporary, the content may jolt readers into recognizing that this work originates in a very different time. For example, extolling the virtues of his revered mother, Monica, whom he credits with his conversion, Augustine admires her skill in calming her violent, unfaithful husband, and her practice of scolding her friends for the “shameful marks of beatings on their faces,” which she suggests they deserve for forgetting they are slaves. Emphasizing the necessity of relying fully on God instead of self when faced with temptation, Augustine recounts how a virtuous friend, who avoided gladiator fights because of their cruelty, nevertheless succumbs to the spectacle’s seductive brutality when dragged by friends to the arena: “He drank in its savagery... intoxicated with blood-drenched delight.” Augustine’s direct appeals and poetic descriptions (“I was late in loving You, O Beauty so ancient and so new”) convey the passionate intimacy of his relationship with God. Constantine’s evocative rendering of this classic text will make it likely to appeal to a new generation of readers. (Jan.)