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Heurtebise: I am letting you into the secret of all secrets, mirrors are gates through which death comes and goes. Moreover if you see your whole life in a mirror you will see death at work as you see bees behind the glass in a hive.
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The Princess - Death: Not drinking doesn't suit you.
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Orphée: What does marble think when it's being sculpted? It thinks, "I am struck, insulted, ruined, lost." Life is sculpting me. Let it finish its work.
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[first lines]
Narrator: The legend of Orpheus is well-known. In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a troubadour from Thrace. He charmed even the animals. His songs diverted his attention from his wife Eurydice. Death took her away from him. He descended to the netherworld and used his charm to win permission to return with Eurydice to the world of the living on the condition that he never look at her. But he looked at her and was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes. Where does our story take place and when? A legend is entitled to be beyond time and place. Interpret as you wish.
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L'éditeur: I'm no longer in the battle. I gave up writing at 20. I had nothing new to say.
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L'éditeur: The princess is very beautiful and very elegant. She's not from here, but she needs to be among us. Here is her review.
Orphée: Every page is blank?
L'éditeur: It's called "Nudism".
Orphée: It's absurd.
L'éditeur: Less absurd than if it were full of absurd writing. No excess is absurd.
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L'éditeur: Orphée, your gravest fault is knowing just how far to go too far.
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Orphée: Your café amuses me. It thinks it's the center of the universe.
L'éditeur: It is.
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The Princess - Death: Are you sleepwalking?
Orphée: I must be.
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The Princess - Death: Everyone is dawdling. I don't like this dawdling.
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The Princess - Death: Sleeping or dreaming, the dreamer must accept his dreams.
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The Princess - Death: Do you know who I am?
Jacques Cégeste: I do.
The Princess - Death: Say it.
Jacques Cégeste: You are my Death.
The Princess - Death: Good. From now on you will serve me.
Jacques Cégeste: I will serve you.
The Princess - Death: You will obey my orders.
Jacques Cégeste: I will obey your orders.
The Princess - Death: Excellent.
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Eurydice: He'll never come back.
Aglaonice: There, there, calm down. Men always come back. They're so absurd!
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Le commissaire: Yours is a perfect marriage, but sometimes men lose their heads.
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Eurydice: Orphée. you can't spend your life in a talking car.
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Orphée: My life had begun to pass its peak. It was rotting, stinking of success and of death. The least of these phrases is much more than any of my poems. I'd given all that I've written for even one of those little phrases. I'm on the trail of the unknown.
Eurydice: Orphée, little phrases won't feed our child.
Orphée: There's a woman for you, Heurtebise. You discover a world and she speaks to you of baby clothes and bills.
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Heurtebise: I admire you, Orphée. I could have listened a thousand times and not paid the slightest attention.
Orphée: Where could they be coming from, Heurtebise? They're on no other station. I'm certain they're meant for me.
Eurydice: Orphée, nothing matters but this car. I could die and you wouldn't even notice.
Orphée: We were dead and we didn't notice.
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Heurtebise: Beware of the Sirens!
Orphée: It is *I* who charm *them*.
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Orphée: Who can say what's poetry and what isn't?
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Eurydice: Orphée was horrible.
Heurtebise: No, he's a genius and every genius has his moods.
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Eurydice: It's not that talking car that I fear. It's what he's looking for.
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Orphée: Forgive my bad temper. I've been resting on my laurels. I've got to wake up.
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Le commissaire: You were saying, sir, that this phrase is a poem. No one should know better than you.
L'éditeur: Orphée sent me the texts yesterday morning. I found them quite astonishing. I showed them to my friends.
The Poet: I noticed that one of them - quite an astonishing one - reminded me of something.
Le commissaire: I believe this is the text: "The bird sings with its fingers". I quote without prejudice.
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The Princess - Death: I demand absolute discipline.
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Heurtebise: Do you have orders?
The Princess - Death: What did you say?
Heurtebise: I asked you if you had orders.
The Princess - Death: When I carry out my orders, I expect mine to be carried out.
Heurtebise: That's exactly why I ask if you have orders.
The Princess - Death: You dare to ask?
Heurtebise: If you had orders, your butchers would have completed their task.
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The Princess - Death: Are you in love with this idiot?
Heurtebise: What if I am?
The Princess - Death: You have no right to love in *any* world.
Heurtebise: Nor do you.
The Princess - Death: What?
Heurtebise: You can't escape the rules.
The Princess - Death: I order you to be quiet!
Heurtebise: You're in love with Orphée and you don't know how to handle it.
The Princess - Death: Shut up!
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The Princess - Death: Transmit.
Jacques Cégeste: Jupiter gives wisdom to those he would lose. I repeat. Jupiter gives wisdom to those he would lose.
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Orphée: This is part of the same dream, the same nightmare. But, I'll wake up. Somebody wake me up!
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Heurtebise: Orphée, you know Death.
Orphée: I've spoken to her. I've dreamt of her. I've sung about her. I thought I knew her. But, I didn't know her.
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Heurtebise: I am proud to no longer be alive.
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Heurtebise: You don't have to understand. You just have to believe.
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Heurtebise: There's nothing more habit-forming than habit.
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The Princess - Death: Perhaps I overstepped my authority without realizing it.
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Judge: What do you mean by "poet"?
Orphée: To write, without being a writer.
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The Princess - Death: My love.
Orphée: I loved you even before we met.
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The Princess - Death: I don't have the right to love anyone - and yet I love.
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Orphée: You are all-powerful.
The Princess - Death: In your eyes. Here Death takes on innumerable forms. Young and old, they receive orders.
Orphée: And if you disobeyed those orders? They can't kill you. It is you who kill.
The Princess - Death: What they do is worse.
Orphée: Where do the orders come from?
The Princess - Death: They are sent back and forth by so many sentinels - like the tom-toms of your African tribes, the echoes of your mountains, the wind whispering through your trees.
Orphée: I will go to he who gives those orders.
The Princess - Death: My poor love, he exists nowhere. Some say he thinks of us. Others, that we are his thoughts. Others say he sleeps and that we are his dream - his bad dream.
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Orphée: A miracle will happen.
The Princess - Death: Miracles only happen in your world.
Orphée: All worlds are moved by lovers.
The Princess - Death: In our world no one is moved.
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Heurtebise: You think she doesn't suffer?
Orphée: You're wrong. Women adore complications.
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The Princess - Death: This is the first time I have almost understood the notion of time. Waiting must be frightful for men.
Jacques Cégeste: I no longer remember.
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The Princess - Death: Will you obey me?
Orphée: I will obey you.
The Princess - Death: Whatever I ask?
Orphée: Whatever you ask.
The Princess - Death: Even if I condemned you? If I tortured you?
Orphée: I belong to you and I will never leave you.
The Princess - Death: Never again.
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The Princess - Death: Without willpower we are cripples.
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The Princess - Death: What has been must no longer be.
Orpheus Quotes
Extended Reading
