Asemics of Purpose / EZE, 2024

Purpose

Committed

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud

Resounded through the air without a star,

Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,

Accents of anger, words of agony,

And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on

For ever in that air for ever black,

Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head with horror bound,

Said: “Master, what is this which now I hear?

What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?”

And he to me: “This miserable mode

Maintain the melancholy souls of those

Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir

Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,

Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;

Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,

For glory none the damned would have from them.”

And I: “O Master, what so grievous is

To these, that maketh them lament so sore?”

He answered: “I will tell thee very briefly.

These have no longer any hope of death;

And this blind life of theirs is so debased,

They envious are of every other fate.

No fame of them the world permits to be;

Misericord and Justice both disdain them.

Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.”

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,

Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,T

hat of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

And after it there came so long a train

Of people, that I ne’er would have believed

That ever Death so many had undone.

When some among them I had recognised.

I looked, and I beheld the shade of him

Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,

That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches

Hateful to God and to his enemies.

These miscreants, who never were alive,

Were naked, and were stung exceedingly

By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

These did their faces irrigate with blood,

Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet

By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

Opinion

Opinion

Uncommitted

Transhumanism

Nietzsche

Intelligence

Intelligence