Opening Remarks
The pessimist makes a gospel of suffering and derives his actions from that.
Only by force
Only by force and ruse can man survive:
For pity is a weakness in his breast,
His goodness is a laxity in the nerves,
His kindness an investment for return,
His altruism is ego’s other face:
He serves the world that him the world may serve.
He believes that man needs force rather than wisdom and love, beauty and kindness. He believes that kindness and pity are a weakness and goodness a sign of laxity. If he sees men as kind, he believes that it is for some selfish purpose. Altruism is for him another name for the aggrandisement of his ego. His service to the world is with the intent that the world may serve him.
The Titan’s strength
If once the Titan’s strength could wake in me,
If Enceladus from Etna could arise,
I then would reign the master of the world
And like a god enjoy man’s bliss and pain.
All that he feels he needs is the strength of the Titans (like the Greek Titan Enceladus) so that he could reign as master of the world and enjoy human pleasure and pain like a god.
God has taken away Force
But God has taken from me the ancient Force.
His ancient Force has been taken away from him.
Only by suffering can he excel
There is a dull consent in my sluggish heart,
A fierce satisfaction with my special pangs
As if they made me taller than my kind;
Only by suffering can I excel.
He gives a dull consent in his slow heart and finds a satisfaction with his pangs of suffering as if they made him special and excel.
Victim of ills
I am the victim of titanic ills,
I am the doer of demoniac deeds;
I was made for evil, evil is my lot;
Evil I must be and by evil live;
Nought other can I do but be myself;
What Nature made me, that I must remain.
He is the victim of titanic ills and the doer of demoniac deeds. He believes that he was made for evil and must live for evil which is what he has been made for. He cannot change and must remain what Nature made him for.
Suffer and toil
I suffer and toil and weep; I moan and hate.”
Life for the Asura of suffering is toil and tears and moan and hate.
Closing Remarks
Thus the Asura becomes a symbol of the dark and negative side of creation and bears its load by limiting himself to the life of the ego.
