The power to struggle, and the thirst to know,
Awakes a bitter principle to sin,
Breeding intestine war and conflict fierce,
Till powers are marshalled in the mind itself
That with itself chaotic warfare wage.
Henceforth man’s life is conflict, and his doom
By conflict to grow stronger, to contend
From the rude cross within some Alpine gorge
To the proud blazon of ancestral tombs.
In eastern myths and Christian chronicles,