Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist Quotes

“...beneath the temple of Emesa there is a system of special sewers wherein the human blood rejoins the plasma of certain animals. Through these sewers, coiling into broiling corkscrews whose circles diminish the further they descend to the depths of the earth, the blood of those sacrificed according to the needful rites will find its way back to the geological seams, the congealed cracks of chaos. This pure blood, thinned and refined by the rituals, and rendered acceptable to the god of the underworld, splashes the groaning deities of Erebus, whose breath finally purifies it.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“A thing named is a dead thing, and it's dead because it is set apart…”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“heliogabalos'un bütün yaşamı, eylem halinde anarşidir. zira düşman kutuplar olan erkekle kadını, bir ile iki'yi, bir araya getiren birlikçi tanrı elegabalus çelişkilerin sonu, savaşın ve anarşinin -ama savaşla- ortadan kaldırılmasıdır; aynı zamanda bu çelişki ve düzensizlik ülkesinde anarşinin uygulamaya konmasıdır. ve anarşi de, heliogabalos'un vardığı noktada, gerçekleşmiş şiirdir.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“But the war only became relentless, only turned truly inexpiable and merciless the day it turned religious, and when men were conscious of the disorder of the principles that presided over their anarchy.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“The force that builds up tidal waves, that makes the sea lap at the moon, that has lava rising from the depths of volcanoes; the force that shakes buildings and creates deserts; the force red and unpredictable that sends thoughts like so many crimes seething through our heads, and crimes innumerable, like lice; the force that supports and aborts life — these are concrete manifestations of an energy whose heavier aspect is the Sun.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“To have a sense of the profound unity of things is to have a sense of anarchy, -and of the effort required to reduce things while restoring them to unity. Whoever has the sense of unity also has the sense of the multiplicity of things, of that dust of appearances through which one must pass in order to reduce and destroy them.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“Once arrived in Rome, Heliogabalus banishes men from the Senate and replaces them with women. To the Romans, this is anarchy, but for the religion of the menses, which originated the Tyrian Purple, and for Heliogabalus who administers it, it's only a simple restoration of balance.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“Heliogabalus enters Rome one morning in March 218, at dawn, to coincide almost exactly with the Ides of March. And he enters it backwards. In front of him is the [ten ton] Phallus, drawn by three hundred bare-breasted girls who precede three hundred bulls, torpid and tranquil after being given a very powerful soporific during the hours before dawn.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist

“All preferments (of the emperor) were dependent upon the outstanding size of member of those recommended. He appointed as collectors of the five per cent inheritance tax a muleteer, an athlete, a cook and a locksmith.”
― Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist