Fallen Angels

Two more angels, equally literary, but this time of a more fallen variety.  In the first, you may recognise Satan's words from Book 1 of Paradise Lost, debriefing and regrouping his fallen angels with the mission statement to end all mission statements:

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That Glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deifie his power,
Who from the terrour of this Arm so late
Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since by Fate the strength of Gods
And this Empyreal substance cannot fail,
Since through experience of this great event
In Arms not worse, in foresight much advanc't,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal Warr
Irreconcileable, to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n.

In the second, you may equally recognise the famous opening tercet of Dante's Inferno:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

(In the middle of our life's journey I found myself in a dark wood, where the straight path was lost)

I knew it would be worth holding on to that rubber bat...