Paradise Lost

by John Milton

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.

Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb, Counseled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, Not peace.

What if we find [345] Some easier enterprise? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven Err not), another world, the happy seat Of some new race called man, about this time To be created like to us, though less [350] In power and excellence but favored more Of him who rules above; so was his will Pronounced among the gods and by an oath,

28. thunderer’s aim: recalls Ovid’s repeated attribution of the thunderbolt to Jove as his emblem (Metamorphoses 1.154, 170, and 197). Satan uses the symbol of power to suggest that God is a tyrant, who rules by force rather than right.