Mock Trial

[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.