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PLEASURE AND PAIN: Without pain, you men of pleasure, what pleasure could you possibly hope to obtain from life? For is not the absence of pain somewhat pleasurable to you and, conversely, the absence of pleasure somewhat painful?

Naturally, you do not care to speak very highly of pain, considering that you have hitherto found the subject rather painful and more like an obstacle to your pleasure than a goad to it. But you would not forsake your pleasures all the same, you shrewdly pleasurable men, since you are no fools when it comes to knowing where your advantage lies. For who, having just crossed the bridge which leads from pain to pleasure, has ever cared to look back over his shoulder to survey the opposite bank - the bank of his pains?

Of course, pain is a terrible thing, a real monster to deal with. But tell me, you shrewdly pleasurable men, how could we possibly flee from it if it were not so terrible, if its aspect were insufficiently disagreeable to send us shrieking to our advantage on the other side of the bridge?

Fortunately, it is far too negative a monster to ever cross the bridge after us. But, all the same, it is far too big and crafty a monster for us to destroy. Yet it knows its limits, this 'monster of pain', and it will not transgress these limits while the 'guardian of pleasure' sits beaming on the opposite bank and protects the bridge. For it knows that the 'guardian of pleasure' is ultimately the strongest, since it is to pleasure that all mortals daily aspire.

Just watch this 'monster of pain' slink away into the depths of its pitiless jungle when 'the guardian' sits beaming on the opposite bank, his countenance radiant with the positivity of his kingdom, one in which the monster's negativity has no place. For the 'guardian of pleasure' is no mean host, and his guests know that they will receive a warm welcome, once they enter the kingdom from which all negativity is eternally banned.

But you men of pleasure, you whom nature has endowed with a preponderance of the positive over the negative, you know well enough that you aren't wholly satisfied with pleasure alone, and that something deep inside your dual natures inevitably calls you back to the other bank, the bank of your pains and the longing for pleasure.

Yes, you would soon grow tired of pleasure if you had no means of getting away from it, if there wasn't a bridge in evidence across which your wisdom could lead you so that, newly strengthened by your recent pleasures, you could once more enter the kingdom of pain and grapple anew with the monster from which you must eventually flee.

But it is not for the 'monster of pain' to give you a warm welcome, you pleasurable men. For everything in its kingdom is negative, everything subordinated to pain, and it knows you for what you are, for the born enemies of pain that you are. It knows that you have only come back to use it as a means to your subsequent pleasures and, having no pleasure itself, it mortally loathes this fact. For it is secretly jealous of 'the guardian's' power over you and will do everything it possibly can to make this jealousy known, even though it knows itself to be forever chained to a secondary role, from which there is no escape.

And you won't hesitate to do battle with this loathsome monster, you pleasurable men, once you realize that your future pleasure depends on it. For you are shrewd and know where your advantage lies. And even while you are defending yourselves, you will still cast an occasional glance back over your shoulder towards the opposite bank, the bank of your pleasures, to see if 'the guardian' is sufficiently radiant with the positivity of his kingdom to warrant your return.

Oh yes, I know you, you pleasurable men, considering that I am also of your tribe and, likewise, only too willing to glance back to my advantage.

But beware the prophets of false wisdom, the dead-and-dying prophets of the all-pleasure-and-no-pain or the all-pain-and-no-pleasure schools! They will not help you to understand yourselves, since they are akin to one-sided creatures, and man is not, by nature, one-sided.

So beware all extremists and false prophets, you pleasurable men, and see to it that you do not give up the fight with pain too quickly, before the 'guardian of pleasure' has had sufficient time in which to rejuvenate himself!