So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.

These lines are spoken by Satan in John Milton’s epic poem *Paradise Lost* (1667). They occur early in the poem after Satan and the rebel angels have been cast out of Heaven and lie in Hell following their defeat. In the wake of this fall, Satan steels himself for continued opposition to God, rejecting the moral and emotional framework associated with Heaven—hope, fear of punishment, and remorse. The declaration marks a decisive psychological turn: rather than repent, he embraces a new identity and purpose grounded in defiance, setting the tone for his subsequent plotting against God’s new creation, humankind.

Milton dramatizes the self-corrupting logic of rebellion: Satan’s renunciation of hope and remorse is not liberation but a hardening of the will against moral reality. By proclaiming “Evil, be thou my good,” he inverts the moral order, redefining “good” as whatever serves his pride and antagonism. The line captures a central theme of *Paradise Lost*: evil as a perverse imitation of good, sustained by willful misinterpretation and self-deception. It also underscores Satan’s tragic grandeur—his rhetorical power and resolve—while revealing the spiritual cost of choosing identity through negation and spite.