If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell.

The line is a well-known English rendering of Juno’s vow in Virgil’s epic the Aeneid. In Book 7, as the Trojans’ arrival in Latium threatens to fulfill fate and found the Roman line, Juno—long hostile to Aeneas—decides to escalate her opposition. Unable to overturn Jupiter’s decrees (“Heaven”), she turns instead to the powers below, summoning infernal forces (notably the Fury Allecto) to inflame war between Trojans and Latins. The phrase captures the poem’s central tension between destiny and divine resistance, and Juno’s role as the chief agent of disruption.

The quote expresses defiant determination in the face of an unchangeable higher order: if the speaker cannot sway the supreme, lawful realm (“Heaven”), she will resort to darker, disruptive means (“Hell”) to achieve her ends. In the Aeneid it underscores Juno’s refusal to accept fate and her willingness to unleash chaos when persuasion and legitimate power fail. More broadly, it has become a proverb for ruthless resolve—escalating tactics when conventional avenues are blocked—while also implying a moral descent: the inability to control outcomes can tempt one to embrace destructive forces rather than yield.

“If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.”
“Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.”
“If I cannot bend the gods above, I will stir up Acheron.”