REFLECTIONS

On GOD.

The first book.

What is more desirable than to meet, in our reflections,
The eternally shining light, the origin of all things,
And to see Him face-to-face from the front, Vondel uses the phrase "van vore" (from the front), referring to the "Beatific Vision," the direct perception of God's essence which, in Christian theology, is the ultimate state of happiness in heaven.
To serve others, whether by tongue or signs,
The radiance that appears to us; if human tongue or sign
Can speak of this miraculous sight and wonder,
Or depict it in its full power before the eye!
But this is presumption: the Godhead sits too high:
We float much too low, on loose and waxy feathers, A reference to the myth of Icarus, who fell into the sea when the sun melted the wax holding his wings together; a metaphor for human intellectual pride.
Too weak in such a glow to know God perfectly.
More than a worm, more than a mortal man is required.
A glowing Seraphim, a great archangel recoils
Truly three times in his flight, when he shall approach
The upper roofs, the throne of the Godhead's heavenly palace,
With humility and awe. The Cherubim covers
His face with wings, so that he may bow purely,
Unblemished and worthily before the throne of the Godhead,
Where thousands upon thousands shout in witness
Of what honor and majesty—bounded by neither age nor circle original: "kreits." In 17th-century cosmology, this refers to the celestial spheres or orbits of the heavens.—
Radiates from God's perfections through the heavenly spheres.

One must then step backward, so as not to gallop too high.
Presumption once buried Lucifer himself,
Along with all his angels, in hellish darkness,
From where throughout eternity there is no returning.