The Seventh Seal - A Conversation on Death and Knowledge
Death:
When next we meet, the hour will strike for you and your friends.
Block:
And you will reveal your secrets?
Death:
I have no secrets.
Block:
So you know nothing?
Death:
I am unknowing.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Seventh Seal - Confrontation Between Life and Mortality
Death:
Have you lost interest?
Block:
Lost interest? On the contrary!
Death:
You look worried. Are you hiding something?
Block:
Nothing escapes you!
Death:
Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Seventh Seal - Seeking an Encounter with the Devil
Block:
They say you've had commerce with the devil.
Witch:
Why do you ask?
Block:
Not out of curiosity, but for very personal reasons. I, too, want to meet him.
Witch:
Why?
Block:
I want to ask him about God. He must know, he if anyone.
Witch:
You can see him any time you want.
Block:
How?
Witch:
You must do as I say. Look into my eyes.
Witch:
Well, what do you see? Do you see him?
Block:
I see a stiff terror in your eyes. Nothing else.
Witch:
No one? Nothing? No one?
Block:
No.
Witch:
Is he not standing behind your back either?
Block:
No. There is nothing there.
Witch:
But he is with me everywhere. If I stretch out my hand, I feel him. He is with me even now. The fire won't hurt me.
Block:
Has he said so?
Witch:
I know it.
Block:
Has he said so?!
Witch:
I know it! I know it! You must see him somewhere, you must! The priests had no difficulty seeing him, nor the soldiers either. They are so afraid of him that they dare not even touch me.
Block:
Why have you broken her hands?
Soldier:
It is not us.
Block:
Who?
Soldier:
Ask the monk there.
Block:
What have you done to the girl?
Death:
Will you never stop asking questions?
Block:
No. I will never stop.
Death:
But you get no answer.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Seventh Seal - A Conversation About Life and Death
Skat:
Hey, you scurvy knave, what are you up to?
Skat:
You might at least answer. Who are you?
Death:
I'm felling your tree. Your time is up.
Skat:
You can't. I haven't time.
Death:
Huh. You haven't time?
Skat:
No. I have my performance!
Death:
Cancelled, owing to Death.
Skat:
My contract?
Death:
Annulled.
Skat:
My family…
Death:
For shame, Skat!
Skat: [''pauses'']
Yes, I'm ashamed, I'm ashamed. Is there no exemption for actors?
Death:
Not in your case.
Skat:
No loopholes?
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Seventh Seal - Confronting Emptiness and the Desire for Death
Block:
I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is empty, and the emptiness a mirror facing me. I see myself and am filled with loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out from their company. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner of my dreams and fantasies.
Priest:
Yet you do not want to die.
Block:
Yes, I do.
Priest/Death:
What are you waiting for?
Block:
I want knowledge.
Priest/Death:
You want guarantees.
Block:
Call it what you will.
Block:
Is it so awfully unthinkable to conceive of God with one's senses? Why should He conceal Himself in a fog of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles? How are we to believe the believers when we don't believe ourselves? What will become of us who want to believe but cannot? And what of those who neither will nor can believe? Why can I not kill God within me? Why does He go on living within me in a painful, humiliating way, though I curse Him and want to tear Him out of my heart? Why does He remain a treacherous reality of which I cannot rid myself? Do you hear me?
Priest/Death:
I hear you.
Block:
I want knowledge. Not belief. Not supposition. But knowledge. I want God to reach out to me, unveil His face, speak to me.
Priest/Death:
But He is silent.
Block:
I cry to Him in the darkness, but sometimes it is as if there is no one there.
Priest/Death:
Perhaps there is no one there.
Block:
Then life is a senseless horror. No man can live with Death before his eyes and the knowledge that all is nothing.
Priest/Death:
Most people reflect neither upon Death nor nothingness.
Block:
Yet they must one day stand at the last shore of life and look into the Darkness.
Priest/Death:
Yes, that day.
Block: [laughs bitterly]
I see what you mean. We must make an idol of our fear, and that idol we shall call God.
Priest/Death:
You are uneasy.
Block:
Death visited me this morning. We are playing chess. This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.
Priest/Death:
What errand?
Block:
My whole life has been coming and going and talking without point or consequence. It has been nothing. I say it without bitterness or self-reproach, for I know that almost all men's lives are made up just like that. But I want to use my respite for one meaningful deed.
Priest/Death:
Ah. So this is why you play chess with Death.
Block: [smiling]
He is a dangerous and skillful tactician, but I have not yet lost one piece.
Priest/Death:
How will you outwit Death?
Block: [''smiling'']
I am playing a a combination of bishop and knight that he has not yet detected. On my next move, I'll shatter his flank.
Death:
I shall remember that.
Block:
You are a traitor and you have tricked me! But we shall meet again, and I'll find a way out.
Death:
We shall meet at the inn and continue our game.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Seventh Seal - Confrontation with Death and the Unknown
Narrator:
And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour... And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
Block:
Who are you?
Death:
I am Death.
Block:
Have you come for me?
Death:
I have walked at your side for a long time now.
Block:
That I know.
Death:
Are you prepared?
Block:
My body is afraid, but I am not.
Block:
Wait a moment.
Death:
You all say that. But I give no respite.
Block:
You play chess, do you not?
Death:
How do you know that?
Block:
I've seen it in paintings, heard it in the songs.
Death:
I really am a rather skilful chess player.
Block:
Even so, you can't be more skilful than me.
Death:
Why do you want to play chess with me?
Block:
That is my business.
Death:
You are right about that.
Block:
My condition is that I may live as long as I resist you. If I checkmate you, you set me free.
Block:
Black for you!
Death:
It becomes me well.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.