Finally some progress with Juliana

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Meanwhile the Guthlac translation is getting tons of hits and Andreas is just as well read as ever.

I have had such trouble getting through Juliana. Two measly sections were giving me fits (the final two posted below) -- and suddenly I lost confidence in my ability to translate effectively, then I got very busy with another season on the job market (better known 'round these parts as the susel-tid). But things are settling down now and I have some time to work on this again

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IV.

Then the holy woman asked wordfully the enemy of heroes,
the workman of crime, the originator of sinful deeds.
“You must speak to me further, enemy of souls,
about how you grievously harm, by falling into sins,
the soothfast encompassed round with guilt.” (345-351a)

To her the fiend answered, a faithless wretch,
and spoke his words: “I will make it known to you,
blessed virgin, of every evil from the start forth unto the end
that I, wounded by sins, have performed—
and not just a few times—so that by this you may plainly know
yourself that this is the truth, and not at all lies.
I believed and reckoned it certain, an audacious thought,
that I could, without difficulty and by my own craft,
turn you away from your salvation, so that you renounced
the Heaven-King, the Lord of Victories, and bowed down
to an inferior, sacrificed to the Origin of Sins.
(352b-62a)

Thus I turn the minds of soothfast men through varying forms.
Where I find him making steadfast his spirit to the desire of God,
I am soon ready that I him multifold the lusts of the mind
towards bear horrible thoughts, dark errors, through
delusions uncountable. (362b-68)

I sweeten in him the desires for sin, the wicked loves of his heart,
so that he, quickly for evil deeds attached to his crimes, hears my teachings.
I enflame him very strongly in these sins so that he, burning,
ceases his prayers, stepping willfully—he can not abide
in the place of prayer firm as a foundation
for long on account of the love of his crimes.
And so I conduct a hateful dread to the man whom I begrudge
life and the clarity of belief, and he wishes to hear my teachings
through the desires of his mind and perform sins, he shall afterwards
turn away, deprived of all good virtues. (369-81)