YouTube Transcriptions #46 Monty Python

This is from Monty Python’s film The Holy Grail.
 

King Arthur: Old woman…
Man: Man!
A: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
M: I’m 37.
A: What?
M: I’m 37; I’m not old.
A: Well, I can’t just call you ‘man’.
M: Well you could say Dennis.
A: I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
M: Well you didn’t bother to find out, did you?
A: I did say sorry about the ‘old woman’, but from behind you looked…
M: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior.
A:Well I am king!
M: Oh, king, eh? Very nice! And how’d you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society. If there’s ever gonna be any progress…
Woman: Dennis, there’s some lovely filth down here. Oh! How do you do?
A: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Whose castle is that?
W: King of the who?
A: The Britons.
W: Who are the Britons?
A: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
W: I didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
M: You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship; a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes…
W: Oh, there you go, bringing class into it again.
M: That’s what it’s all about! If only people would realise…
A: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste! Who lives in that castle?
W: No-one lives there.
A: Then who is your lord?
W: We don’t have a lord.
A: What?
M: I told you. We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week…
A: Yes.
M: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting…
A: Yes, I see!
M: …by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs…
A: Be quiet!
M: …but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major…
A: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
W: ‘Order’, eh? Who does he think he is?
A: I am your king!
W: Well I didn’t vote for you.
A: You don’t vote for kings!
W: Well how do you become king, then?
A: The lady of the lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
M: Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
A: Be quiet!
M: But you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!
A: Shut up!
M: I mean, if I went round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they’d put me away!
A: Shut up! Will you shut up!
M: Ah! Now we see the violence inherited in the system.
A: Shut up!
M: Come and see the violence inherited in the system. Help, help, I’m being repressed!
A: Bloody peasant!
M: Oh, what a give-away! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn’t you?

Expressions used:
There is no need to understand all of the special vocabulary. it is intended to be complex, and not easily understood by the average native speaker. It is the irony that anyone, especially a peasant, in the 8th Century would have constitutional interests and an understanding of democracy and human rights.
“You didn’t bother” means you didn’t take the time or effort to do something; it seems unimportant to you.
To “put someone away” means either to send someone to prison or a mental hospital.
A “give-away” is when we can see or understand something that a person is trying to hide.
“On about” means “talking about”