Original subtitles

- [Narrator] Mysteries of an unknown time.

Within the three walls where men did not penetrate,

we were born, Astarte, mother of the world,

fountainhead of all the gods.

I will reveal it, but not that which I may not.

Circling the phallic shrine,

one hundred twenty women run crying at they know not what.

The novices in the clothes of men,

the rest in tunics already rent in two.

Fumes of fragrant essences,

fumes of blazing torches floated over us.

Naked, I cried burning tears.

Every one of us at the feet of her bier

were bent on our backs.

And finally when the act religious was consummated,

and after we had plunged the colored phallus into the

eternal triangle, then the mystery began.

But I will speak of it no longer.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] Wherever rain falls throughout the world,

the land turns green with vegetation,

and rivers sparkle with clean transparency

reflecting the skies.

But in every large city of the world,

there lies a devastated corner

where the rain falls on the people and they become grayer.

(dramatic music)

In New York, the largest city,

the corner becomes a mile-long street of devastated humans.

The wandering souls who live here

desire nothing but the waters of forgetfulness

so that they can proceed on thinking to the grave.

(suspenseful music)

In the rain, a man not quite an empty shell,

the rain still bothers him a bit.

The thought of the approaching winter's cold

still worries him.

The loneliness of this self-isolation still empties him,

and he feels an occasional desire

for another human being

to share a part of his perverted life.

Hunger to him is nothing,

but the hunger for others still remains.

Still remains.

(suspenseful music continues)

For him, the world is made of manmade trash.

He seeks his own existence

in the discards of others,

rarely finding anything.

Someone passed and lost his soul.

It oozes in the gutter.

(dramatic music)

A life in which nothing is profound, nothing is trite,

or nothing is finally nothing.

(suspenseful music)

Another derelict.

His mind festers with things unresolved.

On the spinning world he sits

and sees an emptiness go round and round.

He is surrounded by his books,

and very little else seeps past

the alcoholic filter,

a filter of truth, he says, a filter of escape.

Forgetfulness another way,

forget the failure, the dead.

The living, smiles and touching glances.

Forget to touch at all.

Just read and look and look and fear

and hate and sicken and sicken,

until the beautiful becomes ugly

and the ugly unspeakable.

There they are, outside his windows.

Normal or not, there they are.

And every night he sees a girl,

a girl who enters her own dim cell,

and all he sees is a solitary glimpse of her in her window.

This girl who has no lover, who has no friends,

she is he after all and is alone,

alone to do whatever she wants.

And he imagines it in all its ugliness.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music continues)

- [Narrator] She has no lover,

and she says no man shall ever have her.

(suspenseful music)

Her skin is made of man's disillusionment.

Her heart beats down by desires, a body without heat,

a life without breath.

And my soul's eye, I see her acts.

She too is drunk, encircled by an alcoholic lust.

I am drunk on wine, on virtue, on poetry.

I am drunk on anything.

(dramatic music)

Nothing else, real or unreal matters,

thoughts fly, and she is mine.

(suspenseful music)

(suspenseful music continues)

(suspenseful music continues)

I go lone as she writhes.

A thing ecstatic in and of itself,

a thing possessed of narcissistic,

in-winding, keen intensity

looking inward to the void.

Pleasure finding nothing.

Feeling something, knowing nothing.

Twisting into discontent.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(gentle music continues)

I am still in pain.

What can she wash away?

The grime and dirt of centuries.

Woman personifies my torments.

She cannot erase the pain that flesh has caused me.

(suspenseful music)

She is a living tomb of flesh.

In her, nothing will grow,

for she is dead.

(suspenseful music continues)

I will place lilacs in her hair,

and they will wither in the dank perfume of her skin.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music continues)

Abomination. The curse of all men.

Vicious harbinger of sorrow. All your torments remain.

(gentle music)

Time heals nothing.

Only dreams remain to bridge the chasm of mountainous ruin.

A liquor sweeter than any alcohol

pervades my subconscious.

And I sleep, dreaming of mystic veils and cushions,

covering and uncovering the glorious female flesh.

In my sleep, in my dreams,

my dreams,

dreams of poetry.

I rise and seek the Father, son of eternal love in poetry.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] The love of a woman is the

most beautiful love that mortals can feel.

And you would think this true, Cleon.

If you possessed a truly voluptuous spirit,

but you think only of yourself.

(suspenseful music)

You wasted your nights loving the men who belittle us.

Look at them now, they are ugly.

Compare their heads clipped oval with

our boundless heads of hair.

Do you see our white breasts on their chest?

Alongside their narrow flanks,

consider our luxurious haunches,

a bed deep and hollow for a lover.

And tell me, do they even wish

to have lips supremely voluptuous as ours?

(dramatic music)

You are sick, Cleon,

but you are a woman who can still fight.

Go to the house of young Styra.

Her cleft is as pink sun,

and she will not refuse you the pleasure

that she herself delights in.

I threw myself into her arms weeping,

and for a long time

she felt my warm tears flow on her shoulder,

until my sadness let me speak.

(gentle music)

"Ah, I am only a child. The young men will not look at me.

But when will I, like you,

have the breasts of a young woman

swelling my dress and inviting kisses.

No eyes are interested

if my tunic hangs so straight against my body,

no one picks up a flower that falls from my hair.

No one says it will kill him

if my mouth were given to another."

(gentle music continues)

She replied tenderly, "Bilitis, dear virgin,

you wail like a cat at the moon

and upset yourself without any reason.

The most impatient girls are never chosen first."

She has gone out.

She is far from me, but I see her.

For all things in the room

all tain to her, and I like all the rest.

(dramatic music)

This bed still warm over which I let my lips wander,

is disordered with the imprint of her form.

Upon this soft cushion is laying her little head

enveloped in its wealth of hair.

This basin is that in which she had bathed.

This comb has penetrated the knots of her tangled locks.

These slippers beg for her naked feet.

These pockets of gauze contained her breasts.

(suspenseful music)

But what I dared not touch

is the mirror in which she gazed upon her poses,

and where perhaps remains still

the reflection of her moist lips.

(gentle music)

Why should I paint my lips?

Why should I polish my nails?

Why should I perfume my hair?

Why redden my breasts if they will never entice her?

Why bathe my arms in milk?

They will never embrace her.

(dramatic music)

How will I sleep? How will I lie in my bed?

This evening my hand does not find her warm hand.

I do not dare anymore to return to my house

and into my empty dreadful room.

I do not dare now to reopen my door.

I no longer dare even to open my eyes.

I am beautiful now a long time,

but the day will come when I will no longer be a woman.

Then I will know torn memories, burning solitary desires

and tears falling on my hands.

(dramatic music continues)

If life is a long dream, what good to resist it?

Now four or five times in a night,

I demand the delights of a lover.

And when my flanks are satisfied,

I go to sleep wherever my body falls.

(gentle music)

In the morning, I open my eyelids and I shiver in my hair.

There is a dove on my windowsill.

I ask her what month it is.

She says, "It is the month of women in love."

(gentle music continues)

And so this is the month the dove speaks truth.

So I throw up my two arms around my lover,

and trembling wildly,

I stretch my still numb legs toward the foot of the bed.

(gentle music)

Believe not that I have ever loved thee.

I have eaten thee as I would a ripe fig.

I have drank thee as I would drink hot water.

I have carried thee about me like a belt of skin.

I have amused myself with thy body

because thou has short hair and breasts upon my chest

and nipples like two little dates.

(gentle music continues)

Just as one must have water and fruit,

a woman is also necessary,

but already I have forgotten my name.

Thou has passed between my arms

like the shadow of another adored one.

Between thy flesh and mine,

a burning dream has possessed me.

I press thee upon me as though upon a wound,

and I cry, "Masadika,

Masadika, Masadika."

(dramatic music)

(spirited music)

Fresh like flowers on my breasts.

How rich you are in voluptuousness.

My breasts in my hands, what lack you of softness,

of mellow warmth and of youthful perfume.

Already you are polished like the breasts of a statue

and hard like the insensible marble.

In order that you may submit,

I will cherish you the more, you that were already loved.

Your sleek and rounder form is the honor of my brown body.

Whether I imprison you under a necklace of gold

or leave you free and naked,

you proceed me with your splendor.

(dramatic music)

Be then happy this night.

My fingers toy with you in caresses.

You alone will know them until tomorrow morning.

For this night Bilitis has paid Bilitis.

(somber music)

(dramatic music)

And I resisted.

I said "No, no." I turned my face away.

The kiss did not cross my lips

and passion did not enter my crossed legs.

Now I am alone.

I look at the deserted place.

I clench my fists until they bleed,

and I stifle my sobs in a pillow.

(dramatic music continues)

Thou thinks thou lovest me no more, Taleo.

And since a month has passed by nights at table,

as if the fruits, the wines, the honey

could make thee forget my lips.

Thou thinkest that thou lovest me no more.

Poor fool.

Saying that, I untied my moist towel

and rolled it about his head.

It was still all warm with the heat of my body,

the perfume of my skin poured out of its fine meshes.

He breathed with long breath, his eyes closed.

Then I felt that he had returned to me.

And even so clearly his desires reawakened,

and he hid them not.

But as a ruse, I knew how to resist.

"No, my friend.

This night, Lysispus possesses me."

Adding as I fled, oh gourmand of fruits and wines,

"The little garden of Bilitis has but one fig,

but it is good."

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] A hand reaches across the void

and lifts me bodily

from the endless fields of vibrant perfumes

to bring me back to him.

An angel from hell,

a twisted mental hunchback.

He hopes to lead me into his world of sunless days

and down beneath black slimy rivers.

I see his face, the face of the ancient tribes.

The face I hate.

In the gutter lies dirt caked by sewerage.

In the sewerage, his face is reflected,

beneath decaying trash, he and his bedfellows lie.

(suspenseful music)

He is a friend after all.

His eyes, his face a vulgar, decayed with mud and desire,

but his bottle holds riches, fragrant and odorless,

sweet and eternally bitter.

I shall drink.

(suspenseful music continues)

Neither brain nor senses shall grow soft.

My body's welfare have reserved for Aphrodite's altar.

My body has been consecrated,

and this defilement must now be avenged.

(fist thuds) (man grunts)

(dramatic music)

(foot thudding)

(man grunting)

Thy alabaster skin, the phallic mace shall kill.

(mace thudding)

I destroy all that threatens to separate us, Aphrodite.

I come to thee again and sleep

to things real and beautiful,

to things soft and flowing, to dreams of a goddess's love.

To dreams of a goddess's love.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Antheius, young girl of Lydia

has seven veils upon her.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music continues)

She loosens the first and her black hair spreads around her.

The second she slides across her mouth,

the third reveals her naked arm.

She separates the fourth veil from her breasts,

and she is nude.

The fifth veil disappears.

The sixth is drawn across her shoulders.

But the last gossamer wisp

she leaves pressed tightly in her female warmth.

(dramatic music continues)

Saying, "Where my roses?

Where are my perfume violets?

Where are my tufts of parsley?

Here are my roses, here are my perfume violets.

Here are my beautiful parsley tufts."

"Why am I become lesbian?" Oh, Bilitus, thou asked me,

But what player of the flute is not a lesbian

in some degree.

I am poor.

I have no bed and I lie with her wishes me,

and I thank her with that which I have.

When we are small, we already dance naked.

And what dances? Thou knowest, my dear one.

The twelve desires of Aphrodite.

We look upon each other,

we compare the beauty of our nakedness,

and we find it beautiful.

During the long night,

we are warmed by the pleasure of the lookers-on,

but our ardor is not feigned.

And so strongly do we feel it,

that sometimes behind the doors,

one of us may embrace a companion who can sense.

How do we make love with a man who was rude to us?

He takes us as he would take a woman,

and leaves us before the orgasm.

Thou that art a woman knows what I mean.

Thou canst take it as for thyself.

My hair is black.

The length of my back, and my buttocks small and round.

My tunic is of white wool,

my brown hips enclose the sun.

If I were to live in the city, I would have golden jewels

and tunics of gold and sandals of silver.

I look at my naked feet in their dusty shoes.

Sapphos, come to me, poor darling.

Draw me back to your source.

Wash my feet in your hands, and press olive over violets,

perfuming them with the flowers,

I will perfume all my skin that I may attract lovers.

Upon my beautiful legs in a basin of silver,

I will pour the spikenard of Tarsus,

and metatopian of Egypt.

Under my arms, crushed mint.

Upon my eyebrows and upon my eyes, marjolaine of Kuus.

Slave, take down my hair

and fill it with the smoke of incense.

Behold the old mass of the mountains of Cyprus,

I will let it run between my breasts.

The liquor of roses, which comes from Vacelis

shall embalm my neck and my cheeks,

and come, pour out upon my loins,

the irresistible baccarus.

It's better for a courtesan

that she should know the perfumes of Lydia

than the customs of Peloponneses.

(gentle music)

Close softly thine arms around me like a girdle.

Oh touch, touch my skin thus.

Neither water nor the breath of the south wind

are softer than my hand.

Today, you dear me, little sister, it is thy turn.

Remember thou the endearments that I taught thee last night,

and kneel thou near me.

When fatigued kneel thou in silence.

(dramatic music)

Thy lips descend upon my lips.

All thine undone hair follows them,

as a caress follows a kiss.

Thy locks glide upon my left breast.

They hide thine eyes.

Give me thy hand,

it is hot.

Press mine and leave it not.

Hands better than lips unite,

and their passion is equaled by nothing.

Now untie the ribbons, and the hooks of your tunic.

Cast aside your sandals, the laces up your legs,

and the bindings from your breasts.

Wash the black from your eyes and the red from your lips.

Remove the powder from your shoulders

and uncurl your hair into the water.

For I want you completely pure.

Naked as when you were born.

At the feet of your fertile mother

lying before your virile father.

So chaste that my mere hand on yours

will bring color to your lips.

And that a single word from me whispered under your ears

will cause your upturned eyes to move.

(dramatic music)

Ah, if I think of her, my throat becomes dry,

my head swims, my breasts harden,

and I'm ill.

I tremble and cry.

If I see her my heart stops, hands tremble, feet freeze.

Pale fire climbs my cheeks. Pain beats in my temples.

If I touch her I am mad, arms stiff and knees weaken.

I faint in front of her

and I lay myself in bed as if I were about to die.

For everything she says to me, I am blessed.

The love of her is torture.

And the passer-byers can hear my cries.

(suspenseful music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music continues)

(dramatic music continues)

One woman may robe herself in a tunic of white wool,

another dress in a garment of silk and gold.

Another covers herself with flowers, with leaves and grapes.

As for me, I take no joy of life except for naked.

My lover takes me just as I am

without robes or jewels or sandals.

Behold me, Bilitis. Naked, alone.

My hair is black with its own blackness.

My lips are red with their own color.

My locks float about me free and round like feathers.

Take me as my mother made me in a night of love long past.

And if I please you thus, forget not to tell me.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(gentle music continues)

My up-wandering hand upon her tunic

sought to divine the naked body

which is softly bent like waves.

Or arching, stiffened itself with shiverings of the skin,

with her eyes in delirium, she signs toward the bed.

We have not the right to indulge our love

before the ceremony of a wedding.

(dramatic music)

Delicately with one hand, she opened her blouse,

then held up to me her warm sweet breasts

as one would offer to the gods a pair of living turtledoves.

"Love them well," she said to me, "I love them dearly.

They are my cherished ones, my tiny darlings.

I amuse myself with them when I'm alone.

I play with them and I get pleasure from them.

I splash them with milk. I sprinkle them with flowers.

My delicate hair drawing them is kind to their small tips.

I caress them in shivers. I put them to bed in soft wool.

Since I shall never have children,

you must nourish them, my love.

And since they are so far from my own mouth,

give them kisses for me.

I would kiss the whole length of the rich black locks

that grace thy neck like wings.

Oh, sweet bird. Oh, captured dove.

Whose passion-filled heart beats under my hand.

I would take thy lips between mine own

as a babe takes the breast of its mother.

Sweet one, my kisses reach far and should satisfy thy love.

Lightly will I touch thy breasts and arms

with my tongue and lips,

and behind thine ears and upon thy cheek,

I will leave the marks of my kisses.

And while I kiss thee, my hands shall stray in mad delight

over the ivory nakedness of my sensitive body

trembling under the touch of my nails.

Listen, Masadika,

hear the murmurings of my love in thine ear,

like the wild humming of the sea.

Masadika, thy looks drive me mad.

I will close thy burning eyes with a kiss."

(dramatic music)

I gasp, and seizing your hands, I twisted them fiercely

into the moist skin beneath my left breast.

I rolled her head back and forth

and her lips moved without speaking.

(dramatic music continues)

My excited heart, strong and violent,

beat and beat against my breast

like a satyr caught in brambles, writhing.

She said to me, "Your heart will make you ill."

"Oh Masadika," I replied. "That is not a heart of a girl.

This is a poor bird, a dove that waves his feeble wings.

The heart of a woman is more terrible,

like a patch of myrtle.

It burns in flames beneath the flower foam.

It is there that I am seized by voracious Aphrodite."

(dramatic music continues)

Beneath the gossamer sheet of wool we slipped.

She and I, our heads bent together as though we were one.

And the flame illuminated the sheet beneath us.

And I saw her desirable body in mysterious light.

We were as close as possible to one another, most free,

most intimate, and most naked.

We had loosened our hair to be even more unfettered.

And in the confinement of the bed,

our two female odors mingled, two natural perfumes.

No one in the world, not even the lamp,

saw us that night.

Which of us was loved?

She and I alone can tell, and the men will never know.

(dramatic music)

Love me not with smiles or with lutes

or with plaited flowers,

but with thy heart and with thy tears.

Even as I love thee with my sorrowing breast and my moans.

When thy breasts alternate with my breasts,

when I feel thy life touch my life.

When thy knees stand up behind me

and my panting mouth knows not more

how to join itself to thine.

(gentle music)

See, the lamp has died down,

and the darkness is upon us.

But I press thy moving body,

and I hear thy perpetual plaint.

(gentle music continues)

As we are lying, our eyes closed,

great silence surrounds our bed.

Unforgettable night of the summer.

She begins to speak, "Since you do not hear me.

Oh how I love you."

And she repeats my name,

"Bilitis, Bilitis."

And she touches my skin

with the tips of her trembling fingers.

"This mouth is mine and mine alone.

Is there one more beautiful in the world?

Oh my dear one, my dear one,

these naked arms are mine.

This neck and this hair.

(gentle music continues)

- [Narrator] Patterns of reality have disappeared.

Thoughts of others are twisted.

But his soul is cooled by virgin snows.

He sees himself as a lover, bearing flowers to his love.

A girl he has watched so often through his window,

but he has changed her in his mind.

He sees her smiling at himself. A gentle man.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] Now I come to you my love.

I come across the labyrinth of time.

I come to bring you flowers for your hair.

(suspenseful music continues)

I dream of Venus and of your vision.

And it becomes a reality,

our flesh becomes one.

(suspenseful music continues)

- [Narrator] His twisted mind sees his loved one,

sees her smile, and erases out the horror of reality.

(dramatic music)

(grunting)

(screaming)

(grunting)

(screams)

(suspenseful music continues)

(suspenseful music continues)

(dramatic music)

(grunting)

(whimpering) (slapping)

(dramatic music continues)

(grunts)

(dramatic music continues)

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

(panting)

(dramatic music continues)

(dramatic music continues)

(screams)

(dramatic music continues)

- [Narrator] Your kisses and the way you curl,

delicious and distracting girl.

Into one's arms and roundabout,

inextricably in and out,

turning luxuriously as twine

the clasping tangles of the vine.

So loving to be loved, so gay and greedy for our holiday,

strong to embrace and long to kiss

and strenuous for the sharper bliss.

A little tossing sea of sighs

to the slow calm seals up your eyes.

And then how prettily you sleep.

You nestle close and let me keep my strained fingers

in the nest of your most comfortable breast.

And as I dream, lying awake,

of sleep well wasted for your sake,

I feel the very pulse and heat of your young lifeblood,

beat and beat with mine.

And you are mine, my sweet.

(dramatic music continues)