Marquis de Sade La Vérité (The Truth) Translated by: Julius Maximus Étikus What is this powerless and sterile chimera, This divinity preached to the fool By a hateful rabble of impostor priests? Do they want to place me among their followers? Ah! Never, I swear it, and I will keep my word, Never will this bizarre and disgusting idol, This child of delirium and derision, Make the slightest impression on my heart. Content and proud of my epicureanism, I intend to expire in the bosom of atheism And that the infamous God they try to frighten me with Should only be conceived by me to blaspheme against. Yes, vain illusion, my soul detests you, And to better convince you of this, here I protest, I wish for a moment you could exist To enjoy the pleasure of insulting you more deeply. What is he indeed, this execrable phantom, This good - for - nothing God, this dreadful being Who offers nothing to the eyes or shows to the mind, Whom the fool fears and the wise man laughs at, Whom nothing reveals to the senses, whom no one can understand, Whose savage worship throughout all time has caused More blood to be shed than war or the wrath of Themis Could pour out among us in a thousand years? I may analyze him in vain, this deific scoundrel, I may study him in vain, my philosophical eye Sees in this motive of your religions Nothing but a foul mixture of contradictions. Who yields to examination as soon as one considers it, That one insults with pleasure, defies, outrages, Born of fear, begotten by hope, That our mind could never conceive, Becoming by turns, in the hands of whoever erects it, An object of terror, joy, or dizziness, That the cunning impostor who proclaims it to humans Makes reign as he wishes over our sad destinies, That he sometimes portrays as wicked and sometimes as benevolent, Sometimes massacring us, or serving as our father, Always attributing to him, according to his passions, His manners, his character, and his opinions: Either the forgiving hand or the one that pierces us. Here is this foolish God that the priest cradles us with. But by what right does he whom lies constrain Pretend to subject me to the error that afflicts him? Do I need the God whom my wisdom renounces To understand the laws of nature? In it everything moves, and its creative bosom Acts at every moment without the aid of a mover. Do I gain anything from this double embarrassment? Does this God demonstrate the cause of the universe? If he creates, he is created, and here I am still Uncertain, as before, whether to resort to him. Flee, flee far from my heart, infernal imposture; Yield, by disappearing, to the laws of nature She alone has made everything, you are nothing But the void from which her hand brought us forth one day in creating us. Vanish then, execrable chimera! Flee from these climes, abandon the earth Where you will see nothing but hardened hearts To the deceitful jargon of your pitiful friends! As for me, I admit, the horror I bear for you Is at once so just, and so great , and so strong, That with pleasure, vile God, with tranquility, What am I saying? with transport, even with delight, I would be your executioner, if your frail existence Could offer a point to my dark vengeance, And my arm with charm would reach to your heart To prove the severity of my aversion to you. But it would be in vain to try to reach you, And your essence escapes whoever tries to constrain it. Unable to crush you, at least, among mortals, I would like to overthrow your dangerous altars And demonstrate to those whom a God still captivates That this cowardly offspring whom their weakness adores Is not fit to put an end to passions. Oh sacred impulses, proud impressions, Be forever the object of our homage, The only ones we can offer to the worship of true sages, The only ones in all times that delight their hearts, The only ones that nature offers to our happiness! Let us yield to their rule, and let their violence, Subjugating our minds without resistance, Make us with impunity the laws of our pleasures: What their voice prescribes suffices for our desires. Whatever disorder their organ leads us to, We must yield to them without remorse or pain, And without scrutinizing our laws or consulting our morals, We ardently surrender to all the errors That nature has always dictated to us through them. Let us never respect anything but her divine murmur; What our vain laws strike down in all countries Is what has always been most precious to her plans. What appears to man as a dreadful injustice Is on us only the effect of her corrupting hand, And when, according to our morals, we fear to fail, We only succeed in better embracing it. Those gentle actions you call crimes, Those excesses that fools deem illegitimate, Are nothing but deviations that please her eyes, Vices, inclinations that delight her more; What she engraves in us is always sublime; By counseling horror, she offers the victim: Let us strike her without trembling, and never fear Having, by yielding to her, committed any crimes. Let us examine the thunder in her bloodstained hands: It strikes at random, fathers and sons, Temples, brothels, devotees, bandits, Everything pleases nature: she requires crimes. We serve her likewise by committing crime: The more our hand extends it, the more she values it. Let us exercise the powerful rights she exercises over us By constantly surrendering to the most monstrous tastes: None are forbidden by her homicidal laws, And incest, rape, theft, parricide, The pleasures of Sodom and the games of Sappho, Everything that harms man or plunges him into the grave, We can be certain, is only a means to please her. By overthrowing the gods, let us steal their thunder And destroy with this dazzling lightning Everything that displeases us in a terrifying world. Above all, let us spare nothing: let her villainies Serve as examples in all our dark exploits. Nothing is sacred: everything in this universe Must bend under the yoke of our fervent transgressions. The more we multiply, vary infamy, The more we will feel it in our strengthened souls, Doubling, encouraging our cynical experiments, Step by step every day leading us to crimes. After the most beautiful years if his voice calls us back, Mocking the gods, let's return to her: To reward us, her crucible awaits us; What her power took, her need returns to us. There everything reproduces, there everything regenerates; The prostitute is the mother of the great and the small, And we are always just as dear to her eyes, Monsters and villains as well as the good and virtuous. Translators note: Haha gooning is fun