Camelot

King Arthur:
Merlin, make me a hawk! Let me fly away from here!

King Arthur:
Merlin told me once, "Never be too disturbed if you don't understand what a woman is thinking. They don't do it very often".

Guinevere:
Must we talk about Mordred? This is the first time in a month that he's not coming to dinner and not having him makes it seem like a party!

King Arthur:
All we've been through, for nothing but an idea! Something that you cannot taste, smell, or feel; without substance, life, reality, memory.

King Arthur:
I love them and they answer me with pain and torment. Be it sin or not sin, they betray me in their hearts and that's far sin enough. I can feel it in their eyes, I can feel it when they speak, and they must pay for it and be punished. I shall not be wounded and not return it in kind! I'm through with feeble hoping! I demand a man's vengeance!

King Arthur:
Proposition: I'm a king, not a man. And a very civilized king. Could it possibly be civilized to destroy the thing I love? Did they ask for this calamity? Can passion be selected?

Lancelot Du Lac:
Dap, you are older than I. You know this Earth better than I. I only fell upon it a few hours ago.

Dap:
What are you talking about?

Lancelot Du Lac:
Guenevere!

King Arthur:
Wrong or right, they have the might, so wrong or right, they're always right, and that's wrong... right?

Guinevere:
Absolutely.

King Arthur:
But even the thought, “I'm not thinking a thought” is thinking, isn't it?

Merlyn:
Yes, and thinking is the sort of thing you should get into the habit of doing as often as possible.

King Arthur:
Arise, Sir Lancelot.

Lancelot Du Lac:
If the king grants you clemency, you shall be banished. If not, you hang.

King Arthur:
Clemency is granted.

Lancelot Du Lac:
Jenny, I - I love you. God forgive me, but I do.

Guinevere:
Then God forgive us both, Lance.

My days are longer. My nights are shorter and my horse is higher!

Arthur:
A thousand pardons, Milady. Wait! Don't run. [She stops and looks at him coweringly] Please! I won't harm you.

Guenevere:
You lie! You'll leap at me and throw me to the ground.

Arthur:
I won't do any such thing. [He takes a step toward her. She takes a step backwards. He stops]

Guenevere:
Then you'll twist my arm and tie me to a tree.

Arthur:
But I won't.

Guinevere:
Then you'll sling me over your shoulder and carry me off.

Arthur:
No, no, no! I swear it! By the Sword Excalibur! I swear I won't touch you.

Guinevere:
[Hurt] Why not? [Sudden rage] How dare you insult me in this fashion. Do my looks repel you?

Arthur:
No. You're beautiful.

Guinevere:
Well, then? We're alone. I'm completely defenseless. What kind of a cad are you? Apologize at once.

Lancelot:
The next time you traffic with me, remember... you challenge the right hand of King Arthur!

Arthur:
I am King Arthur!

Lancelot:
What? You... are the king?

Arthur:
Almost the late king...

Arthur:
But for what purpose? Might isn't always right, Jenny.

Guinevere:
Nonsense, dear, of course it is. To be right and lose couldn't possibly be right.

Arthur:
We must arrange for your knighthood.

Lancelot:
No, sire! Invest me because of deeds, not words! Give me an order!

Arthur:
Now?

Lancelot:
This moment! Is there some wrong I can right, some peril I can face, some quest I can undertake?

Arthur:
Well... actually... there's not much going on today. The Queen and some of her court have gone a-maying.

Lancelot:
Gone... a-maying?

Arthur:
Well, it's a sort of... um... picnic? They pick flowers and chase young...

Lancelot:
Picnic?

Arthur:
It's a custom we have here. This is England, you know. And this is the season for gathering flowers.

Lancelot:
Knights? Gathering FLOWERS?

Arthur:
Well, SOMEONE has to do it!

Arthur:
Let us say you are accused of burning down a farm.

Pellinore:
Whose?

Arthur:
Er...let us say, a farmer named...William?

Pellinore:
Well, can't see it happening, but get along.

Arthur:
Now, Pelly, you claim you haven't. What does he do then?

Pellinore:
Well, he keeps his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him!

Arthur:
No, Pellinore. He takes you to court.

Pellinore:
Ah! And we fight there!

Arthur:
No, Pellinore. Look, in the court, there is a prosecutor for Farmer William and a defendant for you.

Pellinore:
Oh, I see! I see! And they fight!

Arthur:
No. In the court there is also a jury, who decides whether you are guilty or not guilty.

Pellinore:
Well, what's the jury got to do with it? None of their damn business in the first place! Any jury finds me guilty, I'll have a whack at every last one of 'em!

Arthur:
Then you'd be charged with murder, Pelly!

Pellinore:
Well, the ruddy thing's endless! Another jury finds me guilty, and I'll have to have a whack at them! And so on and so on, and whacking and whacking--

Arthur:
Oh, Pellinore, forget it! You will never burn down a barn, you will never know a farmer named William and you will never, ever, be found in a court!

Pellinore:
Not without my ruddy sword I won't!

Pellinore:
Who is that, Arthur?

Arthur:
One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle! Run, boy!

King Arthur:
Merlyn, why have you never taught me love and marriage?

King Arthur:
Proposition: It's far better to be alive than to be dead.

King Arthur: [singing] And -what of teaching me by turning me to animal and bird, From beaver to the smallest bobolink! I should have had a -whirl At changing to a girl, To learn the way the creatures think!

King Arthur:
I dreamed ... I dreamed.

King Arthur: [singing] Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story; And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot!

King Arthur:
[to Mordred] Far more seasoned rascals than you have polished their souls, I advise you, get out the wax. Better to be rubbed clean than rubbed out.

King Arthur:
[angrily] Mordred, I must remind you that I am a civilized man. With occasional lapses.

Guinevere:
Just when I reach the golden age of eligibility and wooability. Is my fate determined by love and courtship? Oh, no. [Bitterly] Clause one: fix the border; Clause two: establish trade; Clause three: deliver me; Clause four: stop the war; five, six: pick up sticks. How cruel! How unjust! Am I never to know the joys of maidenhood? The conventional, ordinary, garden variety joys of maidenhood?

Guinevere:
[about Mordred] The one thing I can say for him is that he's bound to marry well. Everybody is above him.

Lancelot:
C'est moi!

Lancelot:
I am irritating. I always will be. All fanatics are bores, Pellinore, and I'm a fanatic. Even when I was a child I irritated the other children. I wanted to play their games, but I knew I could not. Even then I was filled with a sense of divine purpose. I'm not saying I enjoy it. All my life I've locked the world out. And, you know, when you lock the world out, you're locked in.

Pellinore:
Forgive the interruption. Anyone here seen a beast with the head of a serpent, the body of a boar and the tail of a lion, baying like forty hounds?

Mordred:
[to Arthur about Guenevere] What a magnificent dilemma! Let her die, your life is over; let her live, your life's a fraud. Which will it be, Arthur? Do you kill the Queen or kill the law?

Company: [singing] Guinevere, Guinevere. In that dim, mournful year Saw the men she held so dear Go to war for Guinevere.

Company: [singing] Guinevere, Guinevere Oh, they found Guinevere In the dying candle's gleam Came the sundown of a dream.