Mol. My sentence is for war; that open too: 
Unskilled in stratagems, plain force I know: 
Treaties are vain to losers; nor would we,
Should heaven grant peace, submit to sovereignty. 
We can no caution give we will adore;
And he above is warned to trust no more. 
What then remains but battle?

Satan. I agree
With this brave vote; and if in hell there be
Ten more such spirits, heaven is our own again: 
We venture nothing, and may all obtain. 
Yet who can hope but well, since even success
Makes foes secure, and makes our danger less? 
Seraph and cherub, careless of their charge,
And wanton, in full ease now live at large;
Unguarded leave the passes of the sky,
And all dissolved in hallelujahs lie.

Mol. Grant that our hazardous attempt prove vain;
We feel the worst, secured from greater pain: 
Perhaps we may provoke the conquering foe
To make us nothing; yet, even then, we know,
That not to be, is not to be in woe.

Belial. That knowledge which, as spirits, we obtain,
Is to be valued in the midst of pain: 
Annihilation were to lose heaven more;
We are not quite exiled where thought can soar. 
Then cease from arms;
Tempt him not farther to pursue his blow,
And be content to bear those pains we know. 
If what we had, we could not keep, much less
Can we regain what those above possess.

Beelzebub. Heaven sleeps not; from one wink a breach would be
In the full circle of eternity. 
Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased;
Heaven, unprovoked, at length may be appeased. 
By war we cannot scape our wretched lot;
And may, perhaps, not warring, be forgot.

Asm. Could we repent, or did not heaven well know
Rebellion, once forgiven, would greater grow,
I should, with Belial, chuse ignoble ease;
But neither will the conqueror give peace,
Nor yet so lost in this low state we are,
As to despair of a well-managed war. 
Nor need we tempt those heights which angels keep,
Who fear no force, or ambush, from the deep. 
What if we find some easier enterprise? 
There is a place,—­if ancient prophecies
And fame in heaven not err,—­the blest abode
Of some new race, called Man, a demi-god,
Whom, near this time, the Almighty must create;
He swore it, shook the heavens, and made it fate.

Lucif. I heard it; through all heaven the rumour ran,
And much the talk of this intended Man: 
Of form divine; but less in excellence
Than we; endued with reason lodged in sense: 
The soul pure fire, like ours, of equal force;
But, pent in flesh, must issue by discourse: 
We see what is; to Man truth must be brought
By sense, and drawn by a long chain of thought: 
By that faint light, to will and understand;
For made less knowing, he’s at more command.