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  • 3 months ago
Jim Henson's The Storyteller S02E03 Orpheus and Eurydice
Transcript
01:00Yes.
01:11Orpheus.
01:15Orpheus, don't go!
01:18Eurydice.
01:19What did it say?
01:21Eurydice.
01:23The woman Orpheus loved.
01:26Orpheus and Eurydice.
01:29Two names that will always belong together.
01:32Two people who loved each other even beyond the shadow of death itself.
01:36Orpheus was the son of Calliope, one of the nine muses who sang to the gods on Mount Olympus.
01:58She was the muse of poetry and music, and her son became the greatest musician the world had ever known.
02:06For the sake of his music, Jason took Orpheus on the quest for the Golden Fleece.
02:11His lyre could soothe the waves themselves.
02:14His lyre?
02:14This is a lyre.
02:16The lyre of Orpheus.
02:18Huh.
02:19Orpheus had a kingdom in Thrace, in the far north of Greece, where the olive trees are bent by the wind.
02:26And when he came home from his travels, and was once again among his people, he sat upon the stones at the edge of the forest and played.
02:33It was the beginning of spring, but there had been no rain for two months.
03:03His people danced, and as their bare feet hit the stones, he would have said the stones were moving as they danced.
03:18Not just the stones.
03:19As the king played on, his music seemed to weave into the sounds of the hillside,
03:24as if the birdsong and the riverfall, the goats' bells and the wind in the grasses had been brought into being by his playing.
03:31It makes you want to move.
03:34When Orpheus played, the whole world wanted to move.
03:37It seemed that the roots of the trees would haul themselves up from the earth and dance to his rhythm.
03:48His music gave them new life, for as he played, the rain started to fall.
03:55Children tugged at their mother's arms and whispered,
03:58Persephone, Persephone, Persephone, Persephone.
04:02For while they danced, the goddess who dances in the spring came among them.
04:11His music stirred the natural world, and the earth's sound spoke to him.
04:16One day, he was walking in the wilderness beyond the farms, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees.
04:27And then there was one sound that drew him.
04:43It came from an older tree.
04:45One day,
05:03It was the wood nymph Eurydice.
05:33And his music had brought her into the world of men.
05:43I'm Orpheus.
05:48Orpheus.
05:56I have sung storms to sleep.
05:59I have made the clashing rocks move away from our ship.
06:06I have been to the end of the world and seen things more terrible, more beautiful than I thought could be.
06:19But you, listen to the silence.
06:27Is that what you hear?
06:29Say your name.
06:41Say your name to me.
06:43And I'll pick it out of the air and I'll make a tune of it and I'll give it back to you, more beautiful than you.
06:48Eurydice.
06:50Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice.
06:55Eurydice.
06:56That was how he led her back to his people.
06:58Eurydice.
06:59Walking before her in the wilderness, playing as he went, like a child with a new gift to show his parents.
07:06And as he looked back at her, she smiled for happiness.
07:10Ah, what a beautiful story.
07:12I'm afraid it isn't over yet.
07:14Sometimes the story doesn't end with two people falling in love.
07:18It starts there.
07:19So she went back into the tree?
07:21No, no, no.
07:22They were married.
07:24They lived together all that spring and summer.
07:26Eurydice loved Orpheus and he loved her as if there never had been love before they met and never would be love afterwards.
07:39Why are you looking over there?
07:43You missed the forest.
07:45No.
07:49I'm, I'm looking towards the trees.
07:53Sometimes the wind moves them and, and I hear noises that call me.
08:00The way you did once.
08:04Orpheus wanted to keep her away from the untrimmed trees and the ragged depths of the forest because he knew who was there.
08:10Who was?
08:12Centaurs, fawns, satyrs.
08:15Creatures given up to pleasure.
08:17Hairy and unpredictable.
08:19Like me.
08:22Hairy, anyway.
08:24And out there in the forest of Thrace was Aristaios himself, who lopes in and out of the deepest woods.
08:31The corn was ripe, the branches were heavy with fruit.
08:36And the men and women of that country gathered in the harvest and danced a grateful dance to the goddess Demeter.
08:42But Eurydice was drawn to the wilderness.
08:49Who's there?
08:53Who's there?
08:55Aristaios.
08:58I can see you.
09:06Hello.
09:08Oh, what a mess of unscratchable itch.
09:13Oh, shake a leg.
09:14Oh, if there was a wall I could get up against.
09:17If there was a rough place I could rub up against and have a really good itch.
09:21Oh, I'm all itch.
09:22Can you scratch my itch?
09:23Just give me...
09:24Oh, yeah, that's great.
09:26Up a little, yeah.
09:26Let go.
09:27Nice job.
09:27Go on.
09:28Oh.
09:30Who are you?
09:32I'm a goat.
09:33I'm a man.
09:35I'm the brother of Penn.
09:36Oh, no.
09:38I'm a brother.
09:38Oh, I'm good.
09:40Oh, I'm good.
09:42I'm a goat.
09:45I'm a man.
09:45Aristaios meant her no harm.
09:47But as she ran through the forest, the snake bit her head.
09:53Eurydice.
09:57Eurydice?
09:58Satyrs understand only pleasure.
10:00Eurydice.
10:00In the face of pain, they are like children alone in the dark.
10:04I'm a goat.
10:04I'm a man.
10:06It wasn't me.
10:07It wasn't me.
10:07Just a snake.
10:08Just a snake.
10:10Eurydice.
10:10Eurydice.
10:12Speak to me.
10:14Eurydice.
10:18Don't leave me.
10:20But her eyes just stared past him and her mouth gaped as wide as it made.
10:26He took his wife in his arms and carried her out of the forest to where his people were
10:31still dancing.
10:32And his words chilled their hearts.
10:37Eurydice is dead.
10:38We will give her body to the woods laid out for harvest fires.
10:45And when we have done with our lament, I will break my lyre.
10:50For since she is dead, there will be no more music.
10:53Bring her back.
10:58Don't let her die.
11:00Help me.
11:01Please help me.
11:02You.
11:03You can do it.
11:04Your music can do anything, can't it?
11:06Make it bring her back.
11:08Use this to bring her back.
11:10Please.
11:10Please.
11:11You must.
11:11You must help me.
11:12Zeus and the immortals.
11:16Hear me.
11:18I, who have calmed the seas and made rocks move with my music.
11:24I will charm death himself.
11:29I will go down to Hades and bring her back.
11:32Do you hear me?
11:34I will bring her back from the arms of death himself.
11:38And so armed only with his music, Orpheus went down into the underworld.
11:43The land from which no one has ever returned.
11:51There is almost no sound in Hades.
11:54They have a dog there, don't they?
11:56They have a three-headed dog, Cerberus, if you must know.
11:59But this isn't a story about dogs.
12:02This is the story of Orpheus, who went down into Hades itself to bring back his loved one.
12:09He picked his way down towards the river Styx.
12:11The river you must cross to reach the underworld.
12:14And there below he saw his wife, walking towards Charon, the ferryman of Hades.
12:23One oboe.
12:32Drink.
12:33Eurydice!
12:34Don't drink!
12:36This is the water of Lethe.
12:39The water that makes you forget.
12:41Everyone must drink it.
12:44It's sweet.
12:45Eurydice!
12:47Can't you feel all those painful things?
12:51Glowing.
12:54Glowing.
12:56Eurydice didn't turn as the boat drifted off through the mists.
13:01Orpheus could only wait for the ferry to return, knowing there was no other way across.
13:06One oboe.
13:07The crossing is one oboe.
13:12No oboe, no crossing.
13:15Charon.
13:18Charon.
13:20The boat, it moved.
13:21I know.
13:22The souls of the dead have no weight.
13:24You hands, they're warm.
13:29I'm alive.
13:30Yes.
13:32Your lips, your skin.
13:36Charon.
13:39Charon.
13:40I haven't heard music.
13:45Oh, I don't know.
13:47So long.
13:51Didn't it soothe you, eh, sir?
13:54Huh?
13:54Reaching the far side of the river, Orpheus stumbled on through the cold marshes, with
14:00Eurydice gliding ahead of him, always just out of reach.
14:04He called to her, but as he did so, the mists rolled back before his eyes.
14:10And there in front of him was Hades, the king of the underworld, with Persephone his queen
14:17by his side.
14:21Who comes uninvited to my kingdom?
14:25I am Orpheus, king of Thrace, son of Calypene.
14:30And what does king Orpheus seek from Hades?
14:35A soul now before you in judgment.
14:38Eurydice, my wife.
14:40No soul returns from my kingdom.
14:44Love is stronger than death.
14:45Nothing is stronger than death, little musician.
14:52No soul.
15:17Fear me.
15:26I am the bold audience at the theater.
15:30The knock at the door when you least expect it.
15:34I am the one whose name must not be spoken for fear.
15:38I hear it and sit next to you.
15:42I am the pain in your arm at four in the morning.
15:45The headache that will not shift.
15:50The sour taste in your mouth of everything you ever did.
15:57I am waiting, little musician.
16:01And one day I shall come for you also.
16:05Then you will see your wife once more.
16:08But Orpheus would not give up Eurydice.
16:17He played again, this time to the queen.
16:21He will not listen.
16:33Or if he pretends to listen, he is lying.
16:38Oh, death cheats too.
16:39Each year mankind endures the winter while I stay here.
16:45Because he tricked me long ago.
16:48Even Zeus was powerless to change it.
16:51He'll trick you too, musician.
16:54Still Orpheus played on.
16:57But the king of the underworld was deaf to the beauty of his music.
17:00Persephone was moved by an unbearable sadness.
17:07Everything must die, Orpheus.
17:10The people we love most have to die.
17:14Even the rocks.
17:15The earth itself is eaten away by time.
17:22Everything must die, Orpheus.
17:24To live again.
17:28People think of death like absence.
17:31But absence isn't forever.
17:33Not while there is any life left at all in the world.
17:38It is only cold on the earth for six months.
17:42Death is unimpressed.
17:54Husband, I pray to you.
17:57I am begging you.
17:59Give up this soul to Orpheus.
18:07Very well, little musician.
18:12Take your bride.
18:14Take her to the upper world.
18:16But always walk ahead of her.
18:19And do not once look back to see if she is following.
18:26For if you turn to look at her, she will be mine once more.
18:34You hear me?
18:40Imagine the love of his life behind him, and yet he must not look at her.
18:44With every step that he took, he listened.
18:47But the shades of the dead make no sound.
18:49And he could not hear her tread behind him.
18:52He walked, grim as death itself, on and on through the wastes of the underworld,
18:57towards the nine-looped river Styx.
19:00By the time he reached Charon's boat, he had started to doubt that Eurydice was behind him.
19:05Don't ask me questions.
19:07Don't see.
19:09Don't remind me of the world.
19:12I have my duty.
19:13That's enough.
19:14Oh.
19:19Eurydice, give me a sign.
19:25Just breathe.
19:27I can't hear you.
19:31Don't look round.
19:32Oh, how he longed to.
19:35How he longed to.
19:36As he started up the steep track that leads back to the world's light, he kept his eyes
19:41on the ground.
19:42He clenched his fists hard and willed himself not to think of her.
19:46It wasn't far.
19:48Ahead of him, he could see the daylight.
19:50If only he could believe that she was behind him.
19:53The silence of her death was not a real silence, but had been redeemed by music.
19:57He was almost at the entrance of the cave that leads to Hades, and he could hear the birds
20:03singing outside.
20:04And they walked out into the sunlight and were happy ever after.
20:07They didn't.
20:08They didn't.
20:09They didn't.
20:11It's always just when you think you have things in your grasp that you close your fingers
20:16and find they've gone.
20:18Because when we're in love, it's our hearts that guide us and betray us all the time.
20:24Orpheus could bear it no longer.
20:25However, he turned, and her soul fled back to Hades.
20:33He had lost Eurydice forever.
20:40Orpheus went out alone.
20:42He went back to the land of his people and sat like a man who was dead already.
20:48And the women gathered round him.
20:52They felt his pain, but they begged him to play.
20:56For his music brought rain, made crops grow.
21:02No more music ever.
21:09What happened?
21:19If you could have heard that sound, that hateful, ugly sound, a sound that could make women barren,
21:26stop love before it started, on and on and on, day after day.
21:32And the women came to him from the fields, knowing they must end this deathly noise.
21:42They circled round him and beat their tools upon the ground.
21:47They're really wild, those women.
21:49What did they do?
21:50They tore his body limb from limb.
22:12They cast its fragments onto the river, and his head floated out to sea, to the island of Lesbos.
22:21And his head still sang her name, will always sing her name, Eurydice.
22:28And some people say that the wild women were turned into trees, where they stood.
22:34That that was the last time that trees had souls.
22:36And that from that day, there was nothing in oaks, or limes, or silver birch, but woody silence.
22:45But Orpheus' head spoke prophecies.
22:47And the love that he had had for Eurydice he was never forgotten.
22:51Never will be forgotten, as long as there is life.
22:55So maybe love is stronger than death.
22:58And we've got his lyre.
23:00It's here.
23:00My lyre must always play.
23:05For without music, we are nothing.
23:08We need the shapes out of nothing.
23:11Tunes out of silence.
23:13Love out of hate.
23:15Music that lasts forever.
23:30Music that lasts forever.
23:53Music that lasts forever.
23:53Music that lasts forever.
24:00Music that lasts forever.
24:01Music that lasts forever.
24:02Music that lasts forever.
24:03Music that lasts forever.
24:04Music that lasts forever.
24:05Music that lasts forever.
24:06Music that lasts forever.
24:07Music that lasts forever.
24:08Music that lasts forever.
24:09Music that lasts forever.
24:10Music that lasts forever.
24:11Music that lasts forever.
24:12Music that lasts forever.
24:13Music that lasts forever.
24:14Music that lasts forever.
24:15Music that lasts forever.
24:16Music that lasts forever.
24:17Music that lasts forever.
24:18Music that lasts forever.
24:19Music that lasts forever.
24:20Music that lasts forever.
24:21Music that lasts forever.
24:22Music that lasts forever.
24:23Music that lasts forever.
24:24Music that lasts forever.
24:25Music that lasts forever.
24:26Music that lasts forever.
24:27Music that lasts forever.
24:28Music that lasts forever.