The Green Knight (2021)

Alicia Vikander: Essel, The Lady

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Lady : Red is the color of lust, but green is what lust leaves behind, in heart, in womb. Green is what is left when ardor fades, when passion dies, when we die, too.

• Essel : Are you really going to go?

  Gawain : Should I?

  Essel : I like your head better where it is.

  Gawain : I gave my word. I made a covenant.

  Essel : This is how silly men perish.

  Gawain : Or how brave men become great.

  Essel : Why greatness? Why is goodness not enough?

• The Lady : [to Gawain]  When you go, your footprints will fill with grass. Moss shall cover your tombstone, and as the sun rises, green shall spread over all, in all its shades and hues. This verdigris will overtake your swords and your coins and your battlements and, try as you might, all you hold dear will succumb to it. Your skin, your bones. Your virtue.

• The Lady : You are no knight.

• The Lady : Why is he Green, do you think?

  Gawain : The Knight?

  The Lady : Yes. Was he born that way?

  The Lord : Maybe it is the color of his blood when he blushes.

  The Lady : But why green? Why not blue? Or red?

  Gawain : Because he is not of this earth.

  The Lady : But green is the color of the earth. Of living things. Of life.

  Gawain : And of rot.

  The Lady : Yes. We deck our halls with it, dye our linens, but should it come creeping up the cobbles, we scrub it out, fast as we can. When it blooms beneath our skin, we bleed it out. And when we, together all, find that our reach has exceeded our grasp, we cut it down, we stamp it out, we spread ourselves atop it and smother it beneath our bellies. But it comes back. It does not dally; nor does it wait to plot or conspire. Pull it out by its roots one day, and the next there it is, creeping in around the edges. Whilst we're off looking for red, in comes green. Red is the color of lust, but green is what lust leaves behind--in heart, in womb. Green is what is left when ardor fades, when passion dies, when we die, too. When you go your footprints will fill with grass; moss will cover over your tombstone. And as the sun rises, green shall spread over all, in all its shades and hues. The verdigris will overtake your swords and your coins and your battlements, and, try as you might, all you hold dear will succumb to it. Your skin, your bones. Your virtue.