Toki Pona Forums

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

i would say:

jan soweli li pilin ala e ike pilin jan.

jan li soweli e sama la ona li weka e ike jan.

anu ike pilin? anu pilin ike? mi la ike pilin li sama pilin ike li ike kin.
wan la mi pilin e nimi "jan li kama soweli...". taso ken la ona li sama ala lon toki Inli.

"If a person makes himself a beast, he gets rid of human pain" Pretty clear and accurate (haven't ever seen transitive 'soweli' before I think).
prob 'ni' (the whole sentence) rather than 'ona' in the last sentence.
'jan li kama soweli' means that he just became a beast, with no comment about how that happened (maybe Maria Ouspenskaya read his palm), whereas 'soweli e sama' says he did it himself to himself.
I am notriously not a fan of 'pilin ike' for pain, etc., but acknowledge that it is the msot common expression in the community. 'ike pilin' makes more sense.

'jan soweli' doesn't say that he is a beast, let alone that he made himself one; he might be an animal tame or even just a farmer. The rest works, though.

thank you.