Hephaistion Quotes in Alexander (2004)

[after reading a letter sent by his mother]

Alexander: It's a high ransom she charges for nine months lodging in the womb.

Hephaistion: Bring her to Babylon, Alexander. It'll give her such joy.

Alexander: Joy! I am the cracked mirror of her dreams... Stay with me tonight Hephaistion.

Hephaistion: What bothers you?

Alexander: I see in her everything I fear. Yet I have no idea what it is; this fear. She was always so sure I was born of Zeus. Why, Hephaistion?

Hephaistion: I think there are things beyond our imagining. Like the lightening. Tales of strange conceptions. I don't doubt it.

Alexander: What is being told me? What destiny do I have?

Hephaistion: Well, if I'm Patroclus, I die first. Then you, Achilles. The generals are upset. They question your obsession with Darius. They say it was never meant for you to be king of Asia.

Alexander: Naturally. They want only to return to their homes rich with gold, but I have seen the future, Hephaistion! I've seen it now a thousand times, on a thousand faces. These people want, need, change. Aristotle was wrong about them.

Hephaistion: How so?

Alexander: Look at those we've conquered. They leave their dead unburied, they smash their enemies skulls and drink them as dust, they mate in public! How can they think, or sing, or write when none can read? But as Alexander's army they could go where they never thought possible. They can soldier, or work in the cities. From the Alexandrias, from Egypt to the outer ocean. We could connect these lands, Hephaistion. And the people.

Hephaistion: Some say these Alexandrias have become extensions of Alexander himself. They draw people into the cities so as to make slaves.

Alexander: But we've freed them, Hephaistion, from the Persias, where everyone lived as slaves! To free the people of the world! Such would be beyond the glory of Achilles. Beyond Heracles! A feat to rival Prometheus, who was always a friend to man.

Hephaistion: Remember the fates of these heroes. They suffered, greatly.

Alexander: We all suffer. Your father, mine. They all came to the end of their time and in the end, when it's over, all that matters is what you've done.

Hephaistion: You once said the fear of death drives all men. Are there no other forces? Is there not love in your life, Alexander? What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world? I wonder sometimes, if it's not your mother you run from, so many years, so many miles between you, what is it you fear?

Alexander: Who knows these things? When I was a child my mother thought me divine; my father, weak. Which am I, Hephaistion? Weak or divine? All I know is I trust only you in this world. I've missed you. I need you. It is you I love, Hephaistion. No other.

Hephaistion: You still hold you head cocked like that.

Alexander: [laughing] I have to stop that.

Hephaistion: No, like a dear listening in the wind you strike me still, Alexander. You have eyes like no other. I sound as stupid as a school boy, but you're everything I care for. And by the sweet breath of Aphrodite I'm so jealous of losing you to this world you want so badly.

Alexander: You'll never lose me, Hephaistion. I'll be with you always. 'Til the end.

Alexander: I've come to believe the fear of death drives all men, Hephaistion. This we didn't learn as schoolboys.

Hephaistion: I've always believed, Alexander. But this seems so much bigger than us.

Alexander: Did Patroclus stare at Achilles when they stood side by side at the siege of troy?

Hephaistion: Patroclus died first.

Alexander: If you do... if you were to fall Hephaistion, I will avenge you, and follow you down to the house of death.

Hephaistion: I would do the same.

Alexander: On the eve of battle it's hardest to be alone.

Hephaistion: Then perhaps this is farewell, my Alexander.

Alexander: Fear not, Hephaistion. We are at the beginning.

Hephaistion: You know better than any great deeds are donned by men who took, and never regretted. You're Alexander! Pity and grief will only destroy you.

Alexander: Have I become so arrogant that I am blind?

Hephaistion: Sometimes to expect the best from everyone is arrogance.

Alexander: Then it's true. I have become a tyrant!

Hephaistion: No! But perhaps a stranger. We've come too far. They don't understand you anymore.

Alexander: They speak of Phillip now as if I were a passing cloud, soon to be forgotten. I've failed. Utterly.

Hephaistion: You're mortal. And they know it. And they forgive you because you make them proud of themselves.

Parmenion: I pray to Apollo you soon realize how far you've turned from your father's path.

Alexander: Damn you Parmenion, by the gods and your Apollo! War was in my father's guts! It wasn't over ripe and reason like yours.

Parmenion: He never lusted for war, Alexander, or enjoyed it so. He consulted his peers in council, among equals! The Macedonian way. He didn't make decisions based on his personal desires.

Alexander: I've taken us further than my father ever dreamed! Old man, we're in knew worlds.

Cassander: Alexander, be reasonable! Were they ever meant to be our equal? Share our rewards? You remember what Aristotle said. An Asian? What would a wedding vow ever mean to a race that has never kept their word to a Greek?

Alexander: [throws Cassander against the wall] Aristotle be damned!

Hephaistion: Alexander!

Alexander: By Zeus and all the gods, what makes you so much better than them, Cassander? Better than you really are! In you and those like you is this!

Hephaistion: [pleading] Alexander...

Alexander: What disturbs me most is not your lack of respect for my judgment, but your contempt for a world far older than ours!

[as the barbarians grovel in front of Alexander]

Cleitus: If I ever kneel down like that to any man, Crateros, kill me.

Hephaistion: Have another drink, Cleitus.

Cleitus: [mocking Hephaistion's love for Alexander] Shouldn't you be bowing to the king?

Hephaistion: [on his death bed] I'll feel better. Soon I'll be up.

Alexander: We leave for Arabia in the spring, I can't leave without you!

Hephaistion: Arabia... you used to dress me up like a sheik and wave your wooden scimitar...

Alexander: You were the only one who'd never let me win. The only one who's ever been honest with me. You saved me from myself. Please don't leave me, Hephaistion.

Hephaistion: ...I remember the young man who wanted to be Achilles, and then out did him.

Alexander: And then what happens? That was a myth only young men believe!

Hephaistion: But how beautiful a myth it was.

Alexander: How we reach, we fall! Oh, Hephaistion.

Hephaistion: I worry for you without me.

Alexander: I am nothing without you!

Cleitus: How can you, so young, compare yourself to Heracles?

Alexander: Why not? I've achieved more in my years. Traveled as far. Probably farther.

Cleitus: Heracles did it by himself! Did you conquer Asia by yourself, Alexander? I mean, who planned the Asian invasion when you were still being spanked on your bottom by my sister? Was it not your father? Or is his blood no longer good enough?

Alexander: You insult me, Cleitus. You mock my family, be careful.

Cleitus: Never would your father take barbarians as friends or ask us to fight with them as equals in war. Are we not good enough any longer? I remember a time when we could talk as men, strait to the eye, none of this scraping and groveling. I remember a time when we hunted, when we wrestled on the gymnasium floor. And now you kiss them? Take a barbarian, childless wife, and dare call her Queen?

Alexander: [deeply insulted] Go quickly, Cleitus, before you ruin your life.

Cleitus: Doesn't your great pride fear the gods any longer? This army's your blood, boy! Without it you're nothing!

Alexander: You no longer serve the purpose of this march! Get him from my sight!

Cleitus: What was I serving but to save your puppy life at Gaugamela? What if I left you to die in the dust?

Hephaistion: [holding Alexander back] Alexander... Alexander!

Alexander: Arrest him for treason! Who's with him? I call father Zeus to witness! I call you to trial before him! And we'll see how deep this conspiracy cuts!

Hephaistion: In the name of the gods, get him out of here!

Cleitus: Now look at you! Great Alexander! Hiding behind his guards! Are you too great to remember whose life was saved by me? I am more man than you'll ever be!

[Cleitus is dragged out of the room]

Hephaistion: He's gone. He's gone, Alexander, gone! Alexander!

[Cleitus fights his way back into the room]

Cleitus: What a tyrant you are! Evil tyrant you've become, Alexander. You speak about plots against you? What about poor Parmenion? He served you well! Look how you repaid him! Have you no shame?

Alexander: You ungrateful wretch! No one, not my finest enemy has spoken like you to me!

Hephaistion: Please, Alexander...

[Alexander stabs Cleitus]

Hephaistion: NO!

[the first time the army has come across monkeys]

Hephaistion: They're animals. Monkeys.

Alexander: Monkey... look at his hands!

Hephaistion: So much like ours.

Alexander: [to the monkey] Hello little man.

[to Hephaistion]

Alexander: Do they speak?

Hephaistion: No. But they do sing, and make noises from the roofs of forests.

Hephaistion: [refuses to let Roxane see Alexander after the murder of Cleitus]

Roxane: Let me pass. I am the Queen! I want to see him! I've waited three days!

Hephaistion: He says none. Not even you.

Roxane: He needs me!

Hephaistion: No. He doesn't.

Roxane: [mocking] And he needs you?

Hephaistion: [crying softly, he shows Alexander a ring] I found it in Egypt... the man who sold it to me said it came from a time when man worshiped sun, and stars. I'll always think of you as the sun, Alexander. And I pray your dream will shine on all men.

[puts the ring on Alexander's ring finger, then embraces him]

Hephaistion: I wish you a son. You're a great man. Many will love you, Alexander, but none so pure and deep...

Roxane: [Roxane enters]

Hephaistion: [Hephaistion exits guiltily]

Roxane: You... love him?

Alexander: He is Hephaistion. There are many different ways to love.

Hephaistion: The king lives! Alexander, son of Phillip! May the gods bless Alexander! Alexander is king!

[to Alexander]

Nearchus: Now you sound like Philip.

Hephaistion: Philip never saw Babylon.

Philotas: [during the battle of Gaugamela] Alexander! My father's lost! They've overrun the flanks, they're into the baggage trains!

Hephaistion: Parmenion's crumbling!

Ptolemy: Alexander, if you chase him you risk losing your army here!

Alexander: And if we capture him we gain an empire!

[yelling after Darius]

Alexander: You can run till the ends of the earth, you coward! But you'll never run far enough!

Hephaistion: He is your king! Respect your king!

Attalus: To Philip and Eurydice and to their legitimate sons! To Philip...

[Alexander throws a wine cup at him]

Hephaistion: Alexander, don't...

Alexander: And what am I? You son of a dog. Come then.

[Attalus throws his cup at Alexander and soon a fight breaks out]

Philip: Shut up! Shut up all of you! This is my wedding, not some public brawl!

[Looks at Alexander]

Philip: Apologize by Zeus, before you dishonor me.

Alexander: You defend the man that called my mother a whore and me a bastard? And I dishonor you?

Philip: Ah!You listen more like your mother. Attalus is my family now, the same as you.

Alexander: Then choose your relatives more carefully. Don't expect me to sit here and watch you shame yourself.

Philip: Shame?

Attalus: You insult me!

Alexander: I insult you? Am I not fit to lick the ground my mother walks on?

Philip: Shame?

Alexander: You dog, questioning your Queen.

Philip: Shame? I have nothing to be ashamed of you arrogant brat. I'll marry the girl if I want, and I'll have as many sons as I want, and there's nothing that you or your harpy mother can do about it!

Alexander: Why, drunken man, must you think everything I do and say comes from my mother?

Philip: Because I know her heart, by Hera. And I see her in your eyes. You covet this throne too much. Now we all know that she-wolf for a mother of yours wants me dead. Well, you can both dream boy.

[Grabs his genitalia in a mocking way]

Parmenion: Come Philip, it is the wine talking. Leave the boy, it can wait till the morning.

Philip: Now! I command you, apologize to your kinsman.

[Alexander stands in silence looking at Attalus]

Philip: Apologize.

Alexander: His no kinsman to me. Good night old man, and when my mother remarries, I'll invite you to her wedding.

[Walks away]

Philip: You bastard! You'll obey me. Come here.

[Alexander looks at Philip and continues to walk away, Philip grabs his sword and prepares to attack Alexander, but falls to the ground]

Alexander: [Alexander sees Philip fall] And this is the man who's going to take you from Greece to Persia? He can't even make it from one couch to the next.

Philip: Get out of my palace. Your exiled you bastard. Vanished from the land.You're not welcomed here. You're no son of mine

Hephaistion: The army grows restless, questioning. Alexander, they need your reassurance.

Alexander: Like an old lover they forgive, but they will never forget.

Hephaistion: He was an ageing drunk!

Alexander: He was my friend.