Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/210

Against unequal arms to fight in pain,
Against unpained, impassive; from which evil
Ruin must needs ensue. For what avails
Valor or strength, though matchless, quelled with pain
Which all subdues, and makes remiss the hands
Of mightiest? Sense of pleasure we may well
Spare out of life perhaps, and not repine,460
But live content, which is the calmest life;
But pain is perfect misery, the worst
Of evils, and excessive overturns
All patience. He who therefore can invent
With what more forcible we may offend
Our yet unwounded enemies, or arm
Ourselves with like defence, to me deserves
No less than for deliverance what we owe.'
"Whereto with look composed Satan replied:
'Not uninvented that, which thou aright470
Believest so main to our success, I bring.—
Which of us who beholds the bright surface
Of this ethereous mould whereon we stand,
This continent of spacious Heaven, adorned
With plant, fruit, flower ambrosial, gems and gold;
Whose eye so superficially surveys
These things as not to mind from whence they grow,
Deep underground, materials dark and crude