King Arthur Quotes

Lancelot: You look frightened. There's a large number of lonely men out there.

Guinevere: Don't worry, I won't let them rape you.

Arthur: Knights... Brothers and arms... Your courage has been testet beyond all limits.

Bors: Yes

Arthur: But I must ask you now for one further trial.

Bors: Drink.

Arthur: We must leave on a final mission for Rome before our freedom can be granted. Above the wall, far north, there is a Roman family in need of rescue. They are trapped by Saxons. Our orders is to secure their safety.

Bors: Let the Romans take care of their own.

Gawain: Above the wall is Woad territory.

Galahad: Our duty to Rome, if it ever was a duty, is done. Our pact with Rome is done.

Bors: Every knight here has laid his life on the line for you. For you. And instead of freedom you want more blood? Our blood? You think more of Roman blood than you do of ours?

Arthur: Bors! These are our orders. We leave at first light, and when we return your freedom will be waiting for you. A freedom we can embrace with honour.

Bors: I'm a free man! I will choose my own fate!

Tristan: Yeah, yeah, we're all going to die someday. If it's a death from a Saxons hand that frightens you, stay home.

Galahad: Listen, if you're so eager to die, you can die right now! I've got something to live for!

Lancelot: Enough. Enough!

Dagonet: The Romans have broken their word. We have the word of Arthur. That is good enough. I'll prepare.

Lancelot: Arthur! This is not Rome's fight. It is not your fight. All these long years we've been together, the trials we've faced, the blood we've shed... what was it all for if not for the reward of freedom! And now when we are so close, when it's finally within our grasp... Look at me! Does it all count for nothing?

Arthur: You ask me that? You who know me the best of all?

Lancelot: Then do not do this. Only certain death awaits you here. Arthur, I beg you! For our friendship's sake, I beg you!

Arthur: You be my friend now and do not dissuade me. Seize the freedom you have earned and live it for the both of us. I cannot follow you, Lancelot. I know now that all the blood I have shed, all the lives I have taken have led me to this moment.

Arthur: Pelagius told me once: "There is no worse death than the end of hope."

Guinevere: You and I are not the polite people that live in poems. We are blessed and cursed by our times.

Cerdic: You come to beg a truce, you should be on your knees.

Arthur: I came to see your face so that I alone may find you on the battlefield. And you would do well to mark my face, Saxon, for the next time you see it, it will be the last thing you see on this earth.

Cerdic: Ahhh, finally, a man worth killing

Guinevere: My father told me great tales of you.

Arthur: Really? And what did you hear?

Guinevere: Fairy tales. The kind you hear about people so brave, so selfless, that they can't be real.

Guinevere: Arthur and his knights. A leader both Briton and Roman. And yet, you chose your allegiance to Rome, to those who take what does not belong to them. That same Rome that took your men from their homeland.

Arthur: Listen, lady, do not pretend you know anything about me or my men.

Guinevere: How many Britons have you killed?

Arthur: As many as tried to kill me. It's the natural state of any man to want to live.

Guinevere: Animals live! It's the natural state of any man to want to live free... in their own country. I belong to this land. Where do you belong, Arthur?

Galahad: I don't like him - the Roman. If he's here to dispatch us, then why doesn't he just give us our papers?

Gawain: Is this your happy face? Galahad, do you still not know the Romans? They can't scratch their asses without holding a ceremony.

[Arthur has re-set Guinevere's broken fingers]

Arthur: How's your hand?

Guinevere: I'll live, I promise you.

[while Marius and his men are preparing to attack Dagonet, an arrow flies out of nowhere and kills Marius; his men look and see Guinevere aiming a bow at them]

Lancelot: Your hands seem to be better.

[Lancelot finds Arthur praying in the stable]

Lancelot: Why do you always talk to God and not to me? Pray to whomever you pray that we don't cross the Saxons.

Arthur: My faith is what protects me, Lancelot. Why do you challenge this?

Lancelot: I don't like anything that puts a man on his knees.

Arthur: No man fears to kneel before the God he trusts. Without faith, without belief in something, what are we?

Lancelot: To try and get past the Woads in the north is insanity.

Arthur: Them, we've fought before.

Lancelot: Not north of the Wall! How many Saxons? Hmm? How many? Tell me. Do you believe in this mission?

Arthur: These people need our help. It is out duty to bring...

Lancelot: I don't care about your charge. And I don't give a damn about Romans, Britain, or this island. If you desire to spend eternity in this place, Arthur, then so be it. But suicide cannot be chosen for another!

Arthur: And yet you choose death for this family!

Lancelot: No, I choose life! And freedom! For myself and the men!

[Cerdic stops a Saxon soldier raping a captive woman]

Saxon: By our laws, no man may deny me the spoils of our conquest!

Cynric: He speaks the truth, Father.

[Cerdic draws his sword and cuts the raping soldier almost in half]

Scottish Village Girl: Oh, my lord! God's blessings, my lord!

Cerdic: [pushes her away] Kill her.

[the woman screams as the Saxons drag her away. Cerdic approaches Cynric]

Cerdic: Are you challenging me? If you're challenging me, you have to have a sword in your hand. While my heart beats, I rule and you hold your tongue... or I'll cut it out.

[after Cynric's defeat by Arthur's knights]

Cerdic: We've lost the respect of the enemy.

Cynric: Father... I offer my life as payment for my disgrace.

[he offers his knife; Cerdic takes it, and holds Cynric's head tightly]

Cerdic: No...

[he makes a deep cut down Cynric's face, but does not kill him and throws the knife away]

Cerdic: Raewald. You're second-in-charge now.

[Raewald glows]

Cerdic: Yeah, you're like a son to me.

[Cynric stabs his knife into a nearby soldier; he falls, dead. Cynric stalks away. Cerdic laughs]

[the Saxons stop in front of Hadrian's Wall; the gate swings open, inviting them in]

Cerdic: He's got a plan, this Roman.

[motions to Cynric]

Cerdic: Send what's left of your infantry.

Cynric: [whispering] You want to kill my men?

Cerdic: [shouts] They're *my* men!

[after the battle, Bors finds Horton cowering under the carriage, praying fervently]

Bors: Does this really work?

[he puts his hands together, closes his eyes, and mutters gibberish]

Bors: Hmm... nothing. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

Guinevere: This is heaven for me.

Lancelot: I don't believe in Heaven, I've been living in this Hell. But if you represent what Heaven is, then take me there.

[it starts raining and snowing]

Lancelot: Rain and snow at once... a bad omen.

[last lines]

Lancelot: [voiceover] And as for the knights who gave their lives, their deaths were cause for neither mourning nor sadness. For they will live forever, their names and deeds handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, in the legends of King Arthur and his knights.

[first title card]

Title card: Historians agree that the classical 15th century tale of King Arthur and his Knights rose from a real hero who lived a thousand years earlier in a period often called the Dark Ages. Recently discovered archeological evidence sheds light on his true identity.

[first lines]

Lancelot: [voiceover] By 300 AD, the Roman Empire extended from Arabia to Britain. But they wanted more. More land. More peoples loyal and subservient to Rome. But no people so important as the powerful Sarmatians to the east. Thousands died on that field. And when the smoke cleared on the fourth day, the only Sarmatian soldiers left alive were members of the decimated but legendary cavalry. The Romans, impressed by their bravery and horsemanship, spared their lives. In exchange, these warriors were incorporated into the Roman military. Better they had died that day.

Young Lancelot: Father. They are here.

Lancelot: For the second part of the bargain they struck indebted not only themselves...

Lancelot's Father: The day has come.

Lancelot: ...but also their sons, and their sons, and so on, to serve the empire as knights. I was such a son.

Tristan: Yeah, we're all going to die some day. If it's death from a Saxon hand that frightens you, stay home.

Galahad: If you're so eager to die you can die right now!

Gawain: [after Tristan lands his dagger in the butt of Galahad's dagger] Tristan, how do you do that?

Tristan: I aim for the middle.

Bors: I like the little bastards. They mean something to me. Especially Number Three! He's a good fighter!

Lancelot: That's because he's mine.

Gawain: I can't wait to leave this island. If it's not raining, it's snowing, and if it's not snowing, it's foggy.

Lancelot: And that's summer.

Lancelot: When are you going to leave Bors and come home with me?

Vanora: My lover is watching you.

[Bors is looking at his baby, then looks at Lancelot, who has a smirk on his face]

Bors: You look nothing like him!

Galahad: I don't kill for pleasure.

Tristan: You should try it some day. You might get a taste for it.

Bors: It's in your blood boy.

Galahad: Oh no. No. After tomorrow, this was all just a bad memory.

Bors: [speaking to his baby] Now I'm really gonna have to marry your mother.

Vanora: Who said I'd have you?

[about Arthur's father]

Guinevere: He died in battle?

Arthur: It's a family tradition.

Bors: Have you been fighting?

Gilly (Bors' son): Yes.

Bors: You been winning?

Gilly (Bors' son): Yes.

Bors: That's my boy. Come on, all my other bastards!

Bors' Children: YAY!

[Tristan has been scouting the Saxons]

Bors: How many did you kill?

Tristan: Four.

Bors: Not a bad start to the day.

[Lancelot's plans for the future]

Lancelot: Well, if this woman of Gawain's is as beautiful as he claims, I expect to be spending a lot of time at Gawain's house. His wife will welcome the company.

Gawain: I see. And what will I be doing?

Lancelot: Wondering at your good fortune that all your children look like me.

Gawain: Is that before or after I hit you with my axe?

Dagonet: Bors, you coming?

Bors: Of course I'm coming! Can't let you go on your own, you're gonna get killed.

[looks around]

Bors: I'm just saying what you're all thinking.

Horton: God help us. What are they?

Bors: Blue demons that eat Christians alive. You're not a Christian, are you?

Lancelot: Hey Bors. You intend to take Vanora and all your little bastards back home?

Bors: Oh I'm trying to avoid that decision... by getting killed.

Bors: Dagonet, she wants to get married and give the children names.

Tristan: Women! The children already have names, don't they?

Bors: Just Gilly. It's too much trouble so we gave the rest of them numbers.

Lancelot: That's interesting. I thought you couldn't count.

Arthur: [kneeling over Lancelot's body, looking up to the sky] It was my life to be taken! Not this! Never this!

[as Bors, Galahad, and Gawain approach, bearing Tristan's body]

Arthur: My brave knights, I have failed you. I neither took you off this island, nor shared your fate.

Merlin: [to Arthur] No fate is shared.

[to other knights, and more confident]

Merlin: No fate is shared.

Bors: They chose their own fate.

[turning to Galahad, he spoke more assuredly]

Bors: As did we all.

[quietly, facing Arthur]

Bors: As did we all.

[Arthur's eyes drift to the sword briefly, and back to Lucan who looks down sadly]

Arthur: One day you'll be strong enough. And you'll come back for it.

Bors: Well, now that we're free men, I'm gonna drink 'tll I can't piss straight.

Gawain: You do that every night.

Bors: I never could piss straight. Too much of myself to handle down there...

[looks at the Knights]

Bors: Well, it's a problem! No really, it is. It's a problem. It's like...

Bors, Gawain, Lancelot, Tristan, Galahad, Dagonet: ...a baby's arm holding an apple.

Arthur: I tell you now, Marius is not of god, and you, all of you,

[assertive]

Arthur: were free from your first breath!