The Name of the Rose (1986)

Christian Slater: Adso of Melk

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Quotes 

• Adso of Melk : Master? Have you ever been in love?

  William of Baskerville : In love? Yeah, many times.

  Adso of Melk : You were?

  William of Baskerville : Yes, of course. Aristotle, Ovid, Vergil...

  Adso of Melk : No, no, no. I meant with a...

  William of Baskerville : Oh. Ah. Are you not confusing love with lust?

  Adso of Melk : Am I? I don't know. I want only her own good. I want her to be happy. I want to save her from her poverty.

  William of Baskerville : Oh, dear.

  Adso of Melk : Why "oh dear"?

  William of Baskerville : You *are* in love.

  Adso of Melk : Is that bad?

  William of Baskerville : For a monk, it does present certain problems.

  Adso of Melk : But doesn't St. Thomas Aquinas praise love above all other virtues?

  William of Baskerville : Yes, the love of God, Adso. The love of God.

  Adso of Melk : Oh... And the love of woman?

  William of Baskerville : Of woman? Thomas Aquinas knew precious little, but the scriptures are very clear. Proverbs warns us, "Woman takes possession of a man's precious soul", while Ecclesiastes tells us, "More bitter than death is woman".

  Adso of Melk : Yes, but what do you think, Master?

  William of Baskerville : Well, of course I don't have the benefit of your experience, but I find it difficult to convince myself that God would have introduced such a foul being into creation without endowing her with *some* virtures. Hmm? How peaceful life would be without love, Adso, how safe, how tranquil, and how dull.

• Adso of Melk : Do you think that this is a place abandoned by God?

  William of Baskerville : Have you ever known a place where God WOULD have felt at home?

• William of Baskerville : [after finding the secret room of books in the tower]  How many more rooms? Ah! How many more books? No one should be forbidden to consult these books freely.

  Adso of Melk : Perhaps they are thought to be too precious, too fragile.

  William of Baskerville : No, it's not that, Adso. It's because they often contain a wisdom that is different from ours and ideas that could encourage us to doubt the infallability of the word of God... And doubt, Adso, is the enemy of faith.

• William of Baskerville : [William and Adso witnessed a girl running away after payed service to a monk]  He must have been a very ugly monk.

  Adso of Melk : Why ugly?

  William of Baskerville : If he'd been young and beautiful, she'd have blessed him with her carnal favors for nothing.

• William of Baskerville : She is already burnt flesh, Adso. Bernardo Gui has spoken: she is a witch.

  Adso of Melk : But that's not true, and you know it!

  William of Baskerville : I know. I also know that anyone who disputes the verdict of an Inquisitor is guilty of heresy.

• Adso of Melk : And what was the word you both kept mentioning?

  William of Baskerville : Penitenziagite.

  Adso of Melk : What does it mean?

  William of Baskerville : It means that the hunchback undoubtedly was once a heretic. Penitenziagite was a rallying cry of the dolcinites.

  Adso of Melk : Dolcinites? Who were they, master?

  William of Baskerville : Those who believed in the poverty of Christ.

  Adso of Melk : So do we Franciscans.

  William of Baskerville : But they also declared that everyone must be poor, so they slaughtered the rich. Ha! You see, Adso, the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.

  Adso of Melk : [looking at the Hunchback]  Well, then, could he not have killed the translator?

  William of Baskerville : No. No, fat bishops and wealthy priests were more to the taste of the dolcinites, hardly a specialist of Aristotle.

• William of Baskerville : I too was an Inquisitor, but in the early days, when the Inquisition strove to guide, not to punish. And once I had to preside at a trial of a man whose only crime was to have translated a Greek book that conflicted with the Holy Scriptures. Bernardo Gui wanted him condemned as a heretic; I - acquitted the man. Then Bernardo Gui accused *me* of heresy, for having defended him. I appealed to the Pope. I - I was put in prison, tortured, and... and I recanted.

  Adso of Melk : What happened then?

  William of Baskerville : The man was burned at the stake and I am still alive.