Chorus monologue (Act 2) — Vondel's Lucifer

Companions dear in our high happiness. Oh! brothers, why? Oh! sons of the glad Light, Why thus depressed at heart? Who gave you cause Thus to complain and thus to mourn? Ye had 60 Begun to lift your heads aloft to Heaven, To bloom amid the day, whose lustre streams From God's deep glow. The Heavens brought you forth To mount in rapid flight from firmament To firmament beyond, from court to court; To flit amid the shadeless light content, In one delightful life, an endless feast; And e'er to taste the heavenly manna sweet Of God's eternity, among your friends In peaceful joys. Oh! why? This is not meet 70 For dwellers of the Spirit world. Oh! nay. Nor meet for Dominations, Powers, and Thrones, Nor for the ruling Heavens. Ye gorge your grief, And sit perplexed and dumb. Give voice to your Necessity: reveal it to your friends. Reveal your heart-sore, that we may relieve.