Jean Marais: Orphée

Orpheus

Orphée

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Orphée: This is part of the same dream, the same nightmare. But, I'll wake up. Somebody wake me up!

Orphée: Forgive my bad temper. I've been resting on my laurels. I've got to wake up.

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.