The Name of the Rose Monologues

An intellectually nonconformist friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey.

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".

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.

How many more rooms? Ah! How many more books? No one should be forbidden to consult these books freely.

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.

And there's nothing in the Scriptures to say that he did not. Why, even the saints have been known to employ comedy, to ridicule the enemies of the Faith. For example, when the pagans plunged St. Maurice into the boiling water, he complained that his bath was too cold. The Sultan put his hand in... scalded himself.

The only evidence I see of the antichrist here is everyones desire to see him at work.

My dear Adso, we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by irrational rumors of the Antichrist, hmm? Let us instead exercise our brains and try to solve this tantalizing conundrum.

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.

We are very fortunate to have such snowy ground here. It is often the parchment on which the criminal unwittingly writes his autograph. Now, what do you read from these footprints here?

Yes, but a unique smudge of blue... blended by your finest illuminator, brother Adelmo, who possessed this parchment before Venantius. How do we know that? Because those notes overrun... Adelmo's blue smudge, and not vice-versa.

The only left-handed member of your community is… or rather was… brother Berengar, the assistant librarian. Now, what kind of secret knowledge would he have been privy to?

Books. Restricted books. Spiritually dangerous books. Everyone here knew of the assistant's passion… for handsome boys.

Adelmo submitted to Berengar's lustful advances. But afterwards, wracked by remorse, he wandered desperate in the graveyard, where he met the Greek translator.

Who saw Adelmo giving this parchment to Venantius, and running towards the small tower, and hurling himself out of the window. The night of my arrival, while Berengar punished his sinful flesh...

Venantius, following the instructions on the parchment, entered the forbidden library and found the book. He took it back to his desk and began to read it. After scribbling down those mysterious quotations, he died with a black stain on his finger. The assistant discovered the body, and dragged it down to the pigpen to avert suspicion falling on him. But he left his "autograph" behind.

The book remained on the translator's desk. Berengar returned there last night and read it. Soon after, overcome by some agonizing pain, he tried to take a soothing bath with lime leaves, and drowned. He too had a blackened finger.

All three died because of a book which kills... or for which men will kill.

I therefore urge you to grant me access to the library.

I have never regretted my decision, for I learned from my master much that was wise and good and true. When at last we parted company, he presented me with his eyeglasses. I was still young - he said - but someday they would serve me well. And in fact, I'm wearing them now on my nose as I write these lines. Then he embraced me fondly - like a father - and sent me on my way. I never saw him again, and know not what became of him, but I pray always that God received his soul, and forgave the many little vanities to which he was driven by his intellectual pride. And yet, now that I am an old, old man, I must confess that of all the faces that appear to me out of the past, the one I see most clearly is that of the girl of whom I've never ceased to dream these many long years. She was the only earthly love in my life, yet

I never knew, nor ever learned, her name.

Who was she? Who was this creature that rose like the dawn, as bewitching as the moon, radiant as the sun, terrible as an army poised for battle?

Having reached the end of my poor sinner's life, my hair now white, I prepare to leave on this parchment my testimony as to the wondrous and terrible events that I witnessed in my youth, towards the end of the year of our Lord 1327. May God grant me the wisdom and grace to be the faithful chronicler of the happenings that took place in a remote abbey in the dark north of Italy. An abbey whose name it seems, even now, pious and prudent to omit.