The Seventh Seal (1957) · 16 quotes
2nd most-quoted character in The Seventh Seal (1957): in 7 of its 16 quotes
Most scenes with: Block (4)
Did he show you the way?
Jöns Not exactly.
What did he say?
Jöns Nothing really.
Was he mute?
Jöns No, milord. He was most eloquent.
Indeed.
Jöns Yes, eloquent. But the speech he held was gloomy. One has to say that.
Jöns Why all this daubing?
To remind people of death.
Jöns That won't make them any happier.
Why make them happy? Why not scare them?
Jöns Then they won't look at your picture.
Yes, they will. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.
Jöns If you scare them—
They think—
Jöns Then they think.
And are still more scared.
Jöns And fall into the arms of the priests.
. . .
Jöns What's that rubbish there?
People think the plague is a punishment from God. Crowds wander the land lashing each other to please the Lord.
Jöns Lashing each other?
Yes, it's a horrible sight. You feel like hiding when they pass.
Jöns Give me a gin. I've had nothing but water. I feel as thirsty as a desert camel.
Scared after all?
Jöns For ten years we sat in the Holy Land, bitten by snakes, mosquitoes, and wild beasts, slaughtered by the heathens, poisoned by the wine, given crabs by the women, bled by the crabs, rotted by fevers, all for the glory of God!
Jöns and the Painter For the glory of God!
Jöns I tell you, our crusade was so stupid that only a true idealist could have thought it up.
I've written a song about the spring! Would you like to hear it?
Jöns Oh, yes. I write songs myself.
You see!
Jöns There's one about an enormous fish which you haven't heard.
Jöns And you're not going to hear it, either.
. . .
It's better to be two.
. . .
To believe is to suffer. It is like loving someone in the dark who never answers.
. . .
I shall remember this hour of peace: the strawberries, the bowl of milk, your faces in the dusk. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lute. I shall remember our words, and shall bear this memory between my hands as carefully as a bowl of fresh milk.
Jöns Love is the blackest of all plagues, but you don't even die of it, and usually it passes.
. . .
Jöns If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.
You're lucky. You believe in your own twaddle.
Jöns Who says I believe it? But I like giving advice.
Jöns Who will look after that child? The angels? God? Satan? Emptiness? No, emptiness, milord!
It cannot be!
Jöns Look at her eyes. Her poor mind is making a discovery. Emptiness!
No!
Jöns We are helpless. We see what she sees, and her terror is ours.
Out of the darkness we call to thee, O Lord! Oh, God, have mercy on us! For we are small and afraid and without knowledge!
Jöns In the darkness where you claim to be, where we all probably are, in that darkness you shall find no one to listen to your laments or to be moved by your suffering. Wipe your tears and regard yourself reflected in your own insignificance.
God, you who are somewhere, who must be somewhere, have mercy on us!
Jöns I could have given you a herb to purge your worries about eternity, but it seems to be too late. But in any case, feel, to the last instant, the immense triumph in rolling your eyes and wriggling your toes!
Quiet! Quiet!
Jöns I will be quiet, but under protest.
It is finished.
