The Curse may refer to:
"The Curse" is a postapocalyptic short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1953.
The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a global nuclear war that has wiped out mankind and describes in great detail the devastation it has caused to a small town. In the end, the town is revealed as Stratford-upon-Avon, with the epitaph on the grave of William Shakespeare providing both the location and the title of the story.
Employing a third-person objective narrator and a very matter-of-fact style, the story achieves a chilling effect despite completely omitting descriptions of human tragedy and suffering. Instead, it merely shows the bleakness of the completely depopulated ruins of the town and surrounding landscape, interspersed with sparse hints of how its destruction fit into the global events. Concepts like mutual assured destruction, nuclear overkill and (insufficient) missile defense systems are also hinted at.
The Curse (German:Der Fluch) is a 1924 Austrian drama film directed by Robert Land and starring Lilian Harvey, Oscar Beregi and Albert Heine.
The film marked the screen debut of Lilian Harvey who would go on to become one of the top stars at the German box office during the late Weimar and early Nazi eras. Harvey was in Vienna at the time because she was appearing in a stage revue show,
A young Jewish woman in an Eastern European shtetl struggles to reconcile her aspirations with her duty to her family. As her lifestyle grows wilder, her mother is shocked by her immoral behaviour and commits suicide by drowning - repeating "the curse" which has haunted the family for centuries.
It darkens our sayings
Curses our wills
Forces our needs
Lessens our skills
The untold
Rottens our actions
Bites our soul
Peels our heart
Digs our grave
Punishes disclosure
And never gets rattled
It's the untold
The untold
Running up here
Hanging about
Running up here
Seeding the doubt
The untold
Raises our greed
Glides on the air
Circles around
The dive in the shelter
The paper one crinkles
It's the untold, the untold
Rottens our actions
Leaks our failures