Better to Reign in Hell, Than Serve in Heav’n “Is this the Region, this the Soil , the Clime”, Said then the lost Arch Angel , “this the seat That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best Whom reason had equalled, force had made supreme Above his equals. Farewell happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! hail horrors! Hail Infernal world; and thou profoundest hell A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heav’n. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be all but less than He Whom thunder had made greater? Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for His envy, will not drive us hence; Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell ; Better to reign in hell than to serve in Heav’n. But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, The associates and co-partners of our loss, Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool And call not to share with us their part In this unhappy mansion, or once more With rallied arms, to try what may be yet Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I ll. (242-272)
