The Old Woman/Madame Semele Quotes in Stardust
“I am on my way to find a star,” said the witch-queen, “which fell in the great woods on the other side of Mount Belly. And when I find her, I shall take my great knife and cut out her heart, while she lives, and while her heart is her own. For the heart of a living star is a sovereign remedy against all the snares of age and time. [...]”
Madame Semele hooted and hugged herself, swaying back and forth, bony fingers clutching her sides. “The heart of a star, is it? Hee! Hee! Such a prize it will make for me. I shall taste enough of it that my youth will come back, and my hair turn from grey to golden, and my dugs swell and soften and become firm and high. Then I shall take all the heart that’s left to the Great Market at Wall. Hee!”
The exotic bird hopped up beside her and it chirruped, once, curiously.
“Of course I have kept my word—to the letter,” said the old woman, as if in reply. “He shall be transformed back at the market meadow, so shall regain his own form before he comes to Wall. [...] And I do believe that bumpkin’s flower was even finer than the one you lost to me, all those years ago.”
“What have you done?” Spittle flecked the old woman’s lips.
“I have done nothing; nothing I did not do eighteen years ago. I was bound to you to be your slave until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together. And my time with you is almost done.”
“And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold.”
And Tristran found this quite reassuring. Yvaine was less impressed, for she knew that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes; but she also knew that it would not be wise to begin her life with Tristran by arguing with his mother.
The Old Woman/Madame Semele Quotes in Stardust
“I am on my way to find a star,” said the witch-queen, “which fell in the great woods on the other side of Mount Belly. And when I find her, I shall take my great knife and cut out her heart, while she lives, and while her heart is her own. For the heart of a living star is a sovereign remedy against all the snares of age and time. [...]”
Madame Semele hooted and hugged herself, swaying back and forth, bony fingers clutching her sides. “The heart of a star, is it? Hee! Hee! Such a prize it will make for me. I shall taste enough of it that my youth will come back, and my hair turn from grey to golden, and my dugs swell and soften and become firm and high. Then I shall take all the heart that’s left to the Great Market at Wall. Hee!”
The exotic bird hopped up beside her and it chirruped, once, curiously.
“Of course I have kept my word—to the letter,” said the old woman, as if in reply. “He shall be transformed back at the market meadow, so shall regain his own form before he comes to Wall. [...] And I do believe that bumpkin’s flower was even finer than the one you lost to me, all those years ago.”
“What have you done?” Spittle flecked the old woman’s lips.
“I have done nothing; nothing I did not do eighteen years ago. I was bound to you to be your slave until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together. And my time with you is almost done.”
“And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold.”
And Tristran found this quite reassuring. Yvaine was less impressed, for she knew that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes; but she also knew that it would not be wise to begin her life with Tristran by arguing with his mother.