The article demonstrates how the 4th canto of Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone (1623) reflects the perennial, but recently augmented antagonism between moral concerns and aesthetic interests. It is argued, that this quintessential Counter-Reformation issue is discernible in the “Novelletta” canto’s ambiguous concern with the increasing amount of material obstacles perceived on the way to spiritual excellence, observable on different textual levels: in the thematic occupation with the notions of trial and discipline, in the excursive structure and ambiguous rhetoric, and in the use of stylistic devices, which obstruct the reading and interpretation of the text.