Confessions of a courtesan...

I confess I find more ecstasy
in passion than in prayer.
I confess...
I pray still...
...to feel the touch
of my lover's lips...
...his hands upon me...
...his arms enfolding me
Such surrender has been mine.
I confess I hunger still
to be filled and inflamed.
To melt into the dream of us...
...beyond this troubled place...
...to where we are not even ourselves.
To know that always.
...always this is mine.
Your Grace...She hopes to bewitch us all.
If this had not been mine,
if I had lived another way...
...a child to a husband's whim...
...my soul hardened from lack of touch
and lack of love...
...I confess such endless days
and nights...
...would be punishment greater
than any you could mete out.

You, all of you...
...who hunger for what I give but cannot
bear to see such power in a woman...
...you call God's greatest gift...
...ourselves...
...our yearning, our need to love,
you call it filth...
...and sin and heresy...

I repent there was no other way
open to me. I do not repent my life.

From Dangerous Beauty, a movie based on a true story about Veronica Franco (1546–1591) was an Italian poet and courtesan in 16th century Venice.