[Lucifer:]
"I will ascend into Heaven
I, the son of the dawn
I will exalt my throne
Above the stars of God
I will sit also upon the mount of congregation
In the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds:
I will be like the Most High
[Gabriel:]
How are you fallen from Heaven
Lucifer, son of dawn?"
[Isaiah 14: 12-22]
[Michael:]
How come most sudden venom runs wildly in the blood?
With hollow heart would you spill...
[Lucifer:]
Blood which is my own?
Speak no more of blood to me, whose blood-money is thicker
This heavy heart's anatomy...
[Michael:] What can be got from a stone?
[The Angelic Choir:]
The morningstar rivals the mounting sun but
Ere the zenith's touched, searing spears sweep away his cries
[Beliar:]
Marshal, don't pause. Can't you hear how your ambition
Churns their blood and fuels their sputtering hearts
Can't you hear how your winged words take off
Rocketing from their raucous gullets
The new poltergeist of Time has wound up your tin soldiers
And now they wait for your adept command
With no added water, but the salt of tears
Distil our grief into a charge of gunpowder
Zero in, keen marksman, the missile of our grievance
And sure the warhead will speak the truth
[Lucifer:]
March - with me beyond the marches
Fall - into line - rank on rank
Forwards - to uncharted ground
Justice - is on the march
[Chorus:] March!
[Lucifer:] Charge!
[Beliar:]
Projected on your bloodshot eyes
A screen burning with eyestrain
A lurid nightmare reels inside
The camera obscura
[Lucifer:]
It is not to hide I'm in a smokescreen
But to record over doubts made flesh as ghosts
Stung by smoke and tears, the occipital lobe
Registers the actual frontline
[Beliar:]
Your worst doubt to date is here in the flesh
Itself without doubt and callous
Kill it off and triumph, or else embrace
Your sorry defeat
[Lucifer:] Your bribe will yield but innocence
[Michael:]
While you have been found wanting
With heavy heart I'm here to spill...
[Lucifer:]
Blood which is your own?
Speak no more of blood to me, whose blood-money is thicker
[Michael:] This heavy heart's anatomy...
[Lucifer:] What can be got from a stone?
[The Crown Court]
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] ...the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
[Lucifer:] As Heaven is my witness, for truth it is we rise
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] On the indictments, how does the defendant plead?
[Lucifer:] Not guilty of rising, but proud to have risen above guilt
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] You can refute the wealth of incriminating evidence?
[Lucifer:]
Elsewhere our busy minds were forging our alibis
Justice is blind or squints through your specs
Wearing truth's stiff wig and coif
But when truth wears my face
Please frame its mug-shot for me
[Prosecution:]
Like when your conceit blared out afar
Your voice ebbs as echoes in deep mines of space;
Your mockery whirls on the brink of brash perjury
Please no more gibes or we'll add contempt of court
[Pathologist:] A body's unearthed, its face maimed beyond recognition
[Lucifer:] Don't fear, since I can identify the body. It's truth
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] Forensic research established the corpus delicti
[Lucifer:]
How humble the fingerprints signed to the work
Of him who set free the phoenix from its cage
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] Truth is not safe in amorphous, free chaos
[Beliar:]
Objection, your honour. I ask for reprieve
Not his rising but his doubts gave rise to his sorry defeat
With strings tweaked on two sides by sensory forceps
The wavering nerve centre burnt
He's privy to your minds and truth, but knowledge is not power
[Michael (Chief Witness for the Crown):]
Then why didn't his defeat give rise to doubts?
I saw none, when I met his dry eyes
And with the blade of truth overcame untruth
[Gabriel & Prosecution:] Objection overruled. Is there anything left to be said in your defence?
[Lucifer:]
"Hoe magh het Godt van 't hart, dat hy zoo laegh, zoo diep
Vernedert dien hy tot den grootsten scepter schiep?
Een edelmoedigheit, geheilight tot regeeren
Voor eenen minder zich zoo zwaerlyck kan verneêren
Van heerlyckheid ontkleên, en opstaen uit haer' staat
En stoel, dat zy vervloeckt den glans en dageraet
Van haren opgangk, ja veel liever had gebleven
Een schaduw, zonder verf, een niet, en zonder leven
Want niet zyn, overtreft verkleening duizentwerf"
[Joost van den Vondel's Lucifer, Act 4]
[Gabriel:]
On the counts of dissension, public violence
And contempt pending the court procedure
We, the jury, find the accused party guilty
As they have forfeit their civil rights
Their profiles shall be deleted from the celestial registers
In lieu of disciplined rehabilitation
We sentence them to a state of eternal expulsion
