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davidgoldfarbLike many geeks, I have as one of my favorite movies Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you've seen it, you remember Dennis the Peasant holding forth about class struggle. (If you don't, watch it on YouTube here.) I recently wrote an essay trying to analyze as much as I could about what's going on in his speech, in accordance with my theory of humor. I originally sent it to my brother-in-law, who has earned money as a comedy writer, but I thought I'd also post it here. Read it if you like.
It begins with Arthur waxing poetic about receiving Excalibur: "The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held aloft the sword Excalibur from the bosom of the water, thus signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur..." And here we have our first reversal, as this florid narration (backed by choral vocals, no less) is juxtaposed with a rather sharp and peevish, "*That* is why I'm your king!"
(That last line is a small lesson in tone and comic timing all by itself: "That is" could not be contracted to "that's", nor could
"I'm" be unpacked to "I am". Graham Chapman did a very nice job delivering the line. Also props to the Pythons for not conflating Excalibur with the Sword in the Stone.)
"Strange women, lying in ponds, distributing swords..." Here we have immediately a few small puzzles. First: what's the peasant Dennis talking about? It's not too hard to see that he's echoing Arthur's narration, but through a distorting lens. This gives us an appeal to recognition and repetition along with the puzzle. The tone is much lower: the Lady of the Lake (who in the original is associated with rich silk cloth and with the divine) is described as "strange", the lake is reduced to a pond, Excalibur becomes simply a "sword", its bestowing by Divine Providence an act of "distribution". Dennis is not displaying the proper awe in the face of the choral vocals, he is attacking and belittling Arthur. We might wonder about the use of the plural, too: of course, Dennis is implying that the bestowal of Excalibur is not something miraculous and unique but something which in principle could happen many times, something mundane. This lowered tone and suggestion of mundanity contrasts with Arthur's previous
floridness.
The next bit is frankly a little boring. "...is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony! You can't expect to wield supreme executive power..." This continues the framing joke of Dennis the medieval peasant having ultra-modern views on government
and class, but we've already had that, it's nothing new. We do get another repetition-and-distortion of Arthur's narration ("farcical aquatic ceremony") but it's too abstracted to have much force. What this two sentences' worth of speech is, is setup -- we spend it rising into a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land of abstract concepts expressed in Latinate
language...
...and then with "just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!" we crash back down to the hard earth of a concrete image spoken in short Anglo-Saxon words. For my money, that juxtaposition of tone is the beating heart of the whole speech. We do also get another appeal to recognition and repetition, as Dennis echoes Arthur's original narration yet again, with the tone lowered still further: the Lady is referred to with a slang term for a prostitute, the lake becomes a mere adjective "watery", and the action changes from a Divine anointing to a failed attack.
The Rule of Three applies, however; to end the speech there would feel incomplete. We've had two of the repetition-and-distortion ("farcical aquatic ceremony" is too abstract to count) and we need a third. Here, I feel the Pythons made a misstep or two -- forgivable because they take place in the dénouement rather than the climax. "If I went round saying I was an emperor, just 'cause some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!" Parts of this continue the
progression: "tart" becomes "bint" (I don't actually know what "bint" means, but it just *feels* like it means "tart" but is worse), the lake has evaporated into mere moisture, and what was a vigorous attack is degraded to a pathetic "lobbing". But "emperor" is actually a step up from "king"; we should take a step down and say something like "duke". And "scimitar" is just a kind of sword, it's not a belittlement. It feels like they didn't want to say "sword" two sentences running and just picked a word at random to substitute. I think it would have worked better to say "knife" or "dagger", things like a sword but smaller. The way the rhythm of the sentence goes, I think "dagger" would fit in better: "If I went round saying I was a duke, just 'cause some moistened bint lobbed a dagger at me, they'd put me away!"
I don't feel as strongly about "emperor" vs. "duke"; "emperor" could be viewed as trying to put the sentence's hypothetical-Dennis one up on real-Arthur. But I do think that "scimitar" is very much a weak point. I've always felt that way, and this whole analysis ultimately stems from trying to put my finger on just why.
It begins with Arthur waxing poetic about receiving Excalibur: "The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held aloft the sword Excalibur from the bosom of the water, thus signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur..." And here we have our first reversal, as this florid narration (backed by choral vocals, no less) is juxtaposed with a rather sharp and peevish, "*That* is why I'm your king!"
(That last line is a small lesson in tone and comic timing all by itself: "That is" could not be contracted to "that's", nor could
"I'm" be unpacked to "I am". Graham Chapman did a very nice job delivering the line. Also props to the Pythons for not conflating Excalibur with the Sword in the Stone.)
"Strange women, lying in ponds, distributing swords..." Here we have immediately a few small puzzles. First: what's the peasant Dennis talking about? It's not too hard to see that he's echoing Arthur's narration, but through a distorting lens. This gives us an appeal to recognition and repetition along with the puzzle. The tone is much lower: the Lady of the Lake (who in the original is associated with rich silk cloth and with the divine) is described as "strange", the lake is reduced to a pond, Excalibur becomes simply a "sword", its bestowing by Divine Providence an act of "distribution". Dennis is not displaying the proper awe in the face of the choral vocals, he is attacking and belittling Arthur. We might wonder about the use of the plural, too: of course, Dennis is implying that the bestowal of Excalibur is not something miraculous and unique but something which in principle could happen many times, something mundane. This lowered tone and suggestion of mundanity contrasts with Arthur's previous
floridness.
The next bit is frankly a little boring. "...is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony! You can't expect to wield supreme executive power..." This continues the framing joke of Dennis the medieval peasant having ultra-modern views on government
and class, but we've already had that, it's nothing new. We do get another repetition-and-distortion of Arthur's narration ("farcical aquatic ceremony") but it's too abstracted to have much force. What this two sentences' worth of speech is, is setup -- we spend it rising into a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land of abstract concepts expressed in Latinate
language...
...and then with "just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!" we crash back down to the hard earth of a concrete image spoken in short Anglo-Saxon words. For my money, that juxtaposition of tone is the beating heart of the whole speech. We do also get another appeal to recognition and repetition, as Dennis echoes Arthur's original narration yet again, with the tone lowered still further: the Lady is referred to with a slang term for a prostitute, the lake becomes a mere adjective "watery", and the action changes from a Divine anointing to a failed attack.
The Rule of Three applies, however; to end the speech there would feel incomplete. We've had two of the repetition-and-distortion ("farcical aquatic ceremony" is too abstract to count) and we need a third. Here, I feel the Pythons made a misstep or two -- forgivable because they take place in the dénouement rather than the climax. "If I went round saying I was an emperor, just 'cause some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!" Parts of this continue the
progression: "tart" becomes "bint" (I don't actually know what "bint" means, but it just *feels* like it means "tart" but is worse), the lake has evaporated into mere moisture, and what was a vigorous attack is degraded to a pathetic "lobbing". But "emperor" is actually a step up from "king"; we should take a step down and say something like "duke". And "scimitar" is just a kind of sword, it's not a belittlement. It feels like they didn't want to say "sword" two sentences running and just picked a word at random to substitute. I think it would have worked better to say "knife" or "dagger", things like a sword but smaller. The way the rhythm of the sentence goes, I think "dagger" would fit in better: "If I went round saying I was a duke, just 'cause some moistened bint lobbed a dagger at me, they'd put me away!"
I don't feel as strongly about "emperor" vs. "duke"; "emperor" could be viewed as trying to put the sentence's hypothetical-Dennis one up on real-Arthur. But I do think that "scimitar" is very much a weak point. I've always felt that way, and this whole analysis ultimately stems from trying to put my finger on just why.
