By Ahmed Naveed
Ironically, one of, if not the most influential speakers in Paradise Lost is the leader of the fallen angels, Satan. If he were a motivational speaker in the 21st, he would command very high prices for his speeches.
Once one of God’s principal angels, Satan rebels against God because God has given precedence to Adam. Satan’s anger forms a rebellion in which he convinces many other angels to join him. Lucifer’s Latin name means “Light giver,” which places him perpetually in the perpetually ambiguous position of having an original name with the positive connotation of “knowledge giver”, but who is also known as Satan, the adversary, the devil.
Satan’s motivational skills are stunningly good, so good that Milton ultimately takes them away in Book X. Still, Satan is strong, proud, articulate, and intelligent at the beginning of the struggle between God and Satan.
“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 hath equall’d, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, 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 hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’Almighty hath not built
Her 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 serve in Heav’n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th’associates and co-partners of our loss
Live thus astonish on th’oblivious Pool,
And call then not to share with us their part
In this unhappy Mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain’d in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?”
