"¡Qué amables tus moradas..." (Psalm 84 [Vg 83]), by fray Pedro Malón de Echaide, and fray Luís de León's model for biblical psalms translation

Abstract

ln this paper I propose an analysis of the biblical paraphrases included in La conversión de la Madalena (Barcelona, Hubert Gotard, 1588), by fray Pedro Malón de Echaide. ln this ascetic treatise the Augustinian writer inserts several poems, most of them translations or, rather, exegetical paraphrases of different biblical Psalms, following the model of fray Luís de León. My commentary focuses on the poem that begins "¡Qué amables tus moradas...", placed in the "Parte primera del tratado de la Madalena", § 1, a parafrase of Psalm 84 (Vulgata 83), "Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum''. I offer an annotated version of the text and analyse its content and structure, as well as the amplificatio technique used by Malón de Echaide in his translation and the main rhetorical devices.