: Marty has seen the video, and seems to have given it his approval. I always
: thought that Mendicant Bias was a bad fit, since what we know from Halo 3
: and Contact Harvest indicates that he was wandering around for a lot
: longer than three thousand years.

: The idea that the voice speaking was the role of the Arbiter is never
: something I would have guessed, even though it fits. I guess I'm just too
: literal-minded to think that way.

If the chanting is a reference to the Doors song "Unhappy Girl", perhaps that's the mistake in the transcript of the lyrics that Marty mentioned 18(!) years ago.

I reheard all of it, and I don't know if this is an accurate transcript -

I have walked among men and angels for three thousand years
Time has no end, no beginning, no purpose
I wander the earth seeking forgiveness for my horrible crimes
Against God and Men
I live to seek death, destruction, over the light
But the light cannot be extinguished
I live in a prison of my own device
I am lost in time

Unlike the first instance where it's quite clearly men, I'm still not sure about whether the second instance is man or men, but it sounds like the latter. The Mary-marry-merry merger across much of North American English complicates things a bit.

The Doors lines in "Unhappy Girl" include "In a prison of your own device" and listening closely it's a V instead of an M, meaning that the Doors line has been referenced verbatim. The Doors song repeats three different variations of this, "You are locked in a prison of your own device", "You are caught in a prison of your own device" and finally "You are dying in a prison of your own device". "I live in a prison of my own device" seems to most closely match the last of the three instances, paralleling living with dying.

Putting aside the entire question of who or what this is supposed to be for the moment, is this finally the correct set of lyrics?