Ivanhoe Quotes

Rebecca: My heart is breaking, Father.

Isaac of York: My heart broke long ago. But it serves me still.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Rebecca, you must blame the fates that it was I who loved you, and not Ivanhoe - for you were always mine, and only mine - God keep you.

[dies]

Rebecca: My lady, in death he spoke the truth.

Lady Rowena: Do you still love Ivanhoe?

Rebecca: No, my lady. I stole a little happiness, perhaps - but not from you - or him - only from my dreams.

[last lines]

King Richard the Lionhearted: Before me kneels a nation divided - rise as one man, and that one, for England!

Sir Cedric: Delayed? How so?

Wamba: Well, when I heard Normans were approaching I ran to lock up my wife. But, she'd also heard they were approaching, and locked me up instead.

Ivanhoe: Hold my Lords!

Ivanhoe: I Wilfred of Ivanhoe, do challenge the judgment of this tribunal. In the name of the accused, I demand that her guilt or innocence be determined in the eyes of God by wager of battle.

Minor Role: Milord, there is a stranger at your gate who begs shelter. He is a Jew who calls himself Isaac of York.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: I share no roof with an infidel.

Wamba: Why not, sir knight? For every Jew you show me who's not a Christian, l'll show you a Christian who's not a Christian.

Isaac of York: I heard the jester call you "lvanhoe." But lvanhoe is Cedric's son, and Cedric called him dead. Who are you, then?

Ivanhoe: I am King Richard's envoy. Does that make us friends or foes?

Isaac of York: It does not make you my foe, sire, but then, I am allowed no king.

Ivanhoe: Why not?

Isaac of York: Because I am allowed no country. I am deeply in your debt, sire. Tell me how I can repay you.

Ivanhoe: I seek 150,000 marks of silver - the price of Richard's ransom from Leopold of Austria.

Isaac of York: Glance around you, sire. What you see is all we've saved from every home we tried to make. A toy or two from every land that cast us out. I am not a rich man, Sir lvanhoe.

Ivanhoe: No, but you are the patriarch of your tribe. Tell your people Richard must be ransomed. They will find the wealth.

Isaac of York: I see you love Richard, sire, but he was no friend to my people. Our synagogues were looted to send him on his crusades.

Ivanhoe: Do you prefer the persecution of his brother, John?

Isaac of York: There is little to choose between Black John and Richard, yea and nay, if you are a Jew.

Ivanhoe: Then I pledge you this, Isaac. You're a race without a home or a country. Deliver Richard, and he will deliver your people from persecution.

Isaac of York: My friend, you ask for more than we can give. - And you offer more than Richard can give.

Ivanhoe: Do you doubt my word? Write down whatever terms you want. I shall sign them in King Richard's name.

Isaac of York: We shall need no pledge on paper, you and I. Let Richard promise this instead. Let him promise justice to each man whether he be Saxon or Norman or Jew... for justice belongs to all men or it belongs to none.

Ivanhoe: But that is a Christian teaching.

Isaac of York: Strange as it may be, sire, we are taught it too.

[Locksley and his men are lying in ambush]

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Now, Locksley, now! While they're still in range.

Locksley: Peace, you hothead. Would you slay Sir. Ivanhoe?

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Sir Ivanhoe died in the Holy Land.

Locksley: The troubadour is Sir Ivanhoe. He takes those Normans to his father's keep.

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Ivanhoe defied his father when he went to the war and Cedric cast him out. He will never go there... unless he's turned traitor to the Saxons and his father with him.

Locksley: Put down your bows. I'll know why he rides with Normans and why he takes those Normans to his father before I'll believe ill of Sir Ivanhoe or Cedric. And so shall you, you rattle pit.

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Hmm?

[first lines]

Narrator: In the 12th century, at the close of the third crusade to free the Holy Land, the Saxon knight called Wilfred of Ivanhoe undertook a private crusade of his own. England's warrior king Richard the Lionhearted had disappeared during his homeward march, vanishing without trace. His disappearance dealt a cruel blow to his unhappy country, already in turmoil from the bitter conflict between Saxons and Normans. And in time, most of his subjects came to mourn him as dead. But Ivanhoe's faith that his king still lived took him on an endless quest from castle to castle to castle until at last he came to Austria.

[Ivanhoe, disguised in black armor, pays homage to Rebecca]

Sir Cedric: By St. Dunstan! Our champion pays homage to the Jews.

Lady Rowena: No, my lord. His homage was to beauty, not to faith, I fear.

Isaac of York: I think I know that knight, Rebecca, but how do you?

Rebecca: But did you not bring him to our house?

Isaac of York: How did he get his armor and his horse?

Rebecca: My mother's jewels were mine to give. Did I do wrong?

Isaac of York: Nay, I approve. But only of the gift.

Clerk of Copmanhurst: This knight is no stranger. Only one Saxon could ever fight like that.

Locksley: Sir Ivanhoe?

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Yeah.

Locksley: And you would have had me shoot him down, remember?

Clerk of Copmanhurst: Why, blast me assunder, it was me who stopped you.

Prince John: Your foe has bloodied you, sir knight. Will you concede defeat?

[Ivanhoe, disguised in black armor, shakes his head no]

Prince John: You fight too well to die so mean a death. Will you not throw in your lot with me instead?

Ivanhoe: That would be an even meaner death, your grace.

Prince John: To the confusion and confining of that cursed death's-head knight. Why could you fools not kill him on the field?

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Because he was no fool, my liege.

Prince John: How can a Norman hold the throne of England when the knights who are his strength go down like chaff beneath an unknown Saxon mountebank?

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Neither a mountebank, nor yet unknown. I road against that self-same knight at Acre in the war.

Prince John: Then tell us who he is.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: The favored henchman of your brother Richard, my liege, Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

Prince John: Ivanhoe here in England?

[turning to his advisor]

Prince John: You told me he was dead!

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: He should be and he shall be when he and I meet again. I carry his death warrant here against my breast.

Wamba: Sir Ivanhoe, I heard an old bear and a young bear growling. Which is the one who would leave the den?

Ivanhoe: The young bear Wamba

Wamba: Alone?

Ivanhoe: Alone

Wamba: No sire, I will go with you. My servant's collar and all.

Ivanhoe: Is your heart not here with the Lady Rowena?

Wamba: No sire. My heart is in there with yours

[touches Ivanhoe's chest]

Ivanhoe: Then henceforth you shall be my Squire, Wamba.

Wamba: Squire? Squire Wamba. Wamba the Squire. Why if it weren't this I'd be a gentleman

[feels his servant's collar]

Wamba: .

Ivanhoe: We'll have that collar off as soon as we're away from here.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: If you can tear your eyes from your light of love Guibert, this black knight's tricks bare watching

[noting Guilbert staring at Rebecca]

Sir Hugh De Bracy: .

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: I have been watching. He swings his shield low, levels at the head, but drops point before shot. I swear I've met these methods once before, but where?

Sir Hugh De Bracy: These glades go on forever. I hope we find shelter before nightfall, Boid-Guilbert.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: What do you fear De Bracy, Saxon hobgoblins?

Sir Hugh De Bracy: No, a Saxon arrow in the small of my back. I wager there's a cutthroat behind every tree.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Aye, and soon they'll be hanging from them.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Unless we are.

Ivanhoe: God save you, Knight.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: And God save you minstrel. We ride to Ashby, which crossroad do we take?

Ivanhoe: The right will take you to Ashby, sire

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Shall we get there by nightfall?

Ivanhoe: By nightfall tomorrow.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Tomorrow? Can you show us the way to a roof for the night?

Ivanhoe: I know of a roof nearby, but perhaps you would scorn it.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Why, is it humble?

Ivanhoe: No sire. It is Saxon.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: I'd sooner bivouac on the roadside.

Ivanhoe: 'Tis a warm, fine night.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: To be butchered in ones sleep.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: We could sooner walk into a Saxon trap.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: What is this house you speak of minstral?

Ivanhoe: Rotherwood, the keep of Cedric the Saxon.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: I believe I know this Cedric the Saxon. Has he a ward, a woman of great beauty?

Ivanhoe: The Saxon princess Lady Rowena is his ward.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: Aye, Rowena. 'Tis the same Cedric. He loves us not at all, but we would sleep safe beneath his roof.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: You know the way?

Ivanhoe: Well enough to lead you there.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Then lead us there, but mark you this. One false step and you'll sing a very different song my friend.

Ivanhoe: I have a song to fit every occasion, sire.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: He means he'll lop your head off, minstral.

Ivanhoe: Yes sire. I knew what he meant.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Are you for Richard, my lord, or John?

Wamba: Richard and John had the same mother. One was a Norman, so what was the other?

Sir Cedric: Both are Norman, true. But Richard, with all his faults, was for England.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: And John?

Sir Cedric: John is for John.

Sir Cedric: Squire Wamba! Squire Wamba! I'll Squire you, you renegade. I'll collar that neck again, or ring it!

Wamba: Touched mylord. Is that the tone for one gentlemen to use to another?

Sir Cedric: Get out of my sight before my wrath boils over and I squash you like a plum!

Front De Boeuf: I bid you right welcome to my keep Sir Cedric.

Sir Cedric: Your keep. Torquilstone was cursed forever when you put your Norman foot across it.

Front De Boeuf: Talk sweeter Saxon or I'll put my Norman foot across your neck!

Sir Cedric: Are you such a ninny that you let them catch you too?

Ivanhoe: I'm the only one they want. Bois-Guilbert has pledged that you can go free.

Sir Cedric: And leave you here to hang?

Ivanhoe: Be still and hear me. Locksley and his bowman are all around us, but you are the only leader skilled in siege to take this keep. He's waiting for you. Go to him.

Sir Cedric: Aye, right willingly. You went with Richard in defiance of my will, but all's forgotten boy. Perhaps you'll listen next time.

Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert: Then lead us there. But mark you this - one false step and you'll sing a very different song, my friend.

Ivanhoe: [not recognized as a minstrel] I have a song to sing to fit every occasion, sire.

Sir Hugh De Bracy: He means he'll lop your head off, minstrel.

Ivanhoe: Yes, sire, I know what he meant.

Isaac of York: Let Richard promise this instead. Let him promise justice to each man, whether he be Saxon or Norman or Jew, for justice belongs to all men or it belongs to none.

Ivanhoe: But that is a Christian teaching.

Isaac of York: Strange as it may be, so we are taught it too.

Ivanhoe: What you ask shall be done.

Ivanhoe: Do you love England so much?

Rebecca: Does a prisoner love his prison?

Waldemar Fitzurse: And the maid Rebecca in your hands. A sorceress! Taught by a witch who was burned at the stake.

Prince John: And you believe that nonsense?

Waldemar Fitzurse: No, but your people shall. I think you have the spade with which to bury Richard at last.

Isaac of York: My will is God's. Free the king.

Ivanhoe: Richard would not accept the throne at such a price.

Isaac of York: My daughter does not die to save Richard's throne, Sir Ivanhoe. She dies to save her people.