In the second act, the protagonist first comes on the scene, like a god,
"With thunder shod,
Crowned with the stars, and with the morning stoled."
He has until now been artfully kept in the background. Drawn by fire-winged cherubim, he sweeps into view, and voices, in no uncertain tone, his dissatisfaction with the divine decree.
Gabriel, the angel of revelation, is with admirable art now placed over against the Stadtholder. Lucifer would argue—would know the exact nature of Heaven's last decree. Gabriel, however, merely replies to his eager questioning with a dignified affirmation of God's command, and departs, leaving the divine injunction behind.
Belzebub, with untiring malignity, now prods the wounded pride of the fiery Stadtholder, and Lucifer again and again blazes into the most intense and bitter defiance. Listen to this speech, seething with the soul of rebellion:
"Now swear I by my crown upon this chance
To venture all, to raise my seat amid
The firmament, the spheres, the splendor of
The stars above. The Heaven of Heavens shall then
My palace be; the rainbow be my throne;
The starry vast, my court; while down beneath,
The Earth shall be my foot-stool and support;
I shall, then swiftly drawn through air and light,
High-seated on a chariot of cloud,
With lightning-stroke and thunder grind to dust
Whate'er above, around, below doth us
Oppose, were it God's Marshal grand himself;
Yea, e'er we yield, these empyrean vaults,
Proud in their towering masonry, shall burst,
With all their airy arches, and dissolve
Before our eyes; this huge and joint-racked earth
Like a misshapen monster lifeless lie;
This wondrous universe to chaos fall,
And to its primal desolation change.
Who dares, who dares defy great Lucifer?"
Surely the spirit of revolt never found fiercer and more poetical expression! Surely more eloquent and stupendous daring was never uttered than the blasting fulminations of this celestial rebel, who now stands, like a colossus of evil in the realm of good!
The leaders of the conspiracy then meet together and hatch their deep, nefarious plot. Lucifer towers magnificent, the controlling spirit in every plan, full of impelling thought and of tremendous action. Apollion, that "master wit with craftiness the spirits to seduce," and Belial, whose "countenance, smooth-varnished with dissimulation's hue," knows no superior in deception, at Lucifer's command now sow the seeds of dissension broadcast throughout the Heavens. The dialogue between these two celestial rogues shows great dramatic skill, and abounds in subtleties worthy of the chief himself. Their whole plan seems to be:
"Through something specious, 'neath some seeming guised,"
to win first the various chiefs and then the bravest warriors to the standard of the Morning-star; and then with these