Safeguard The Helpless,
And Do No Wrong
It is almost 100 years since Christian armies from Europe seized Jerusalem.
Europe suffers in the grip of repression and poverty.
Peasant and lord alike flee to the Holy Land in search of fortune or salvation.
One Knight returns home in search of his son.
The German: Have you been at war?
Balian: On horse. And as an engineer also.
The German: Against whom and for whom did you fight?
Balian: For one lord against another, on a point which cannot be remembered.
The German: There's better game now, one god against another.
The pay is proportionate.
What man is a man who does not make the world better?
God has made us man. We must suffer all.
~Godfrey de Ibelin
Some say Jerusalem is the very center of the world for asking forgiveness.
For myself, I call it here. Now.
I knew your namesake.
I knew your mother.
To be courteous, I should say that it was against her objections.
But I was the lord's brother and she had no choice.
But I did not force her.
I have forgiveness to ask of you. [bow to Balian]
~Godfrey de Ibelin
Godfrey: I am Godfrey, the baron of Ibelin.
I have 100 men at arms in Jerusalem.
If you will come with me, you will have a living, and you will have my thanks, there it is.
Balian: Whoever you are, my lord, my place is here.
Godfrey: What made it your place is now dead.
You will never see me again.
If you want anything of me, take it now.
Balian: I want nothing.
[to Balian]
Jerusalem is easy to find.
You come to where the men speak Italian, then continue until they speak something else.
We go by Messina.
~Godfrey de Ibelin
Godfrey: Do you know what lies in the Holy Land? A new world.
A man who, in France, had not a house, is, in the Holy Land, the master of a city.
He who was the master of a city begs in the gutter.
There, at the end of the world, you are not what you were born,
but what you have it in yourself to be.
Balian: I hope to find forgiveness.
That's all I know.
Balian: What could a king ask of a man like me?
Godfrey: A better world than has ever been seen.
A kingdom of conscience. A kingdom of heaven.
There is peace between Christian and Muslim. We live together.
Or, between Saladin and the king, we try.
When the king is dead, Jerusalem will be no place for friends of Muslims or traitors to Christendom like your father.
I am Guy de Lusignan.
Remember that name. And me.
~Guy de Lusignan, to Balian
Be without fear in the face of your enemies.
Be brave and upright that God may love thee.
Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death.
Safeguards the helpless and do no wrong.
That is your oath.
[gave Balian the ring and slaps him]
And that's so you remember it.
[gave him his sword]
Arise a knight and baron of Ibelin.
Defend the king, if the king is no more protect the people.
~Godfrey de Ibelin
You sail now for Jerusalem, as your father wished. I'll follow within the week.
Now the voyage is perilous.
If God has purpose for you there, he'll keep you safe in his hands.
If not, God bless you.
~Hospitaler, to Balian
Imad: Very good horse.
Balian: Take the horse, and be about your business.
Imad: This is your prize of battle.
I am your prisoner, your slave, should you wish it.
Balian: I have been slave, or very near to one.
I will never keep one, nor suffer any to be kept.
Go.
Your quality will be known among your enemies before ever you meet them, my friend.
~Imad
How can you be in hell when you're in my heart?
~Balian de Ibelin
Hospitaler: So, how you find Jerusalem?
Balian: God does not speak to me.
Not even on the hill where Christ died.
I am outside God's grace.
Hospitaler: I have not heard that.
Balian: At any rate, it seems I have lost my religion.
Hospitaler: I put no stock in religion.
By the word "religion" I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God.
I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers.
Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.
And goodness, what God desires, is here [point to forehead] and here [point to Balian's heart]
By what you decide to do everyday, you will be a good man. Or not.
Hospitaler: The king had made a peace with Saladin these past 6 years.
He holds Jerusalem as a place for prayer for all faiths as the Muslims did before we came.
These men are Templars. They killed Arabs.
Balian: So they are dying for what the pope would command them to do.
Hospitaler: Yes. But not Christ, I think. Nor this king.
A woman in my place has 2 faces.
One for the world, and one which she wears in private.
With you I'll be only Sibylla.
~Sybilla
I'm glad to meet Godfrey's son. He was one of my greatest teachers.
He was there when, playing with the other boys, my arm was cut.
And if was he, not my father's physicians, who noticed that I felt no pain.
He wept when he gave my father the news that I am a leper.
The Saracens say that this disease is God's vengeance against the vanity of our kingdom.
As wretched as I am, these Arabs believe that the chastisement that awaits me in hell
is far more severe and lasting.
If that's true, I call it unfair.
~King Baldwin
King Baldwin: The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you.
Do anything except remain where you started and you can't be sure of your end.
Were you sure of your end once?
Balian: I was.
King Baldwin: What was it?
Balian: To be buried a hundred yards from where I was born.
King Baldwin: And now?
Balian: Now I sit in Jerusalem and look upon a king.
When I was 16 I won a great victory.
I felt, in that moment, I would live to be 100.
Now I know I shall not see 30.
None of us know our end, or what hand will guide us there.
A king may move a man.
A father may claim a son.
That man can also move himself.
And only then does that man truly begin his own game.
Remember, how so ever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone,
even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power.
When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus",
or that virtue was not convenient at the time.
This will not suffice.
Remember that.
~King Baldwin
You will go to your father's house at Ibelin, your house now,
and then from there you will protect the pilgrim road.
Safeguard in particular the Jews and the Muslims.
All are welcome in Jerusalem.
Not only because it's expedient, but because it is right.
Protect the helpless.
And then maybe one day, when I am helpless, you will come and protect me.
~King Baldwin
Sibylla: I could stay here forever.
Balian: This house is yours.
Sibylla: Why do you think I'm here?
Balian: I know that Ibelin is not on the way to Cana.
Sibylla: What else do you know, my lord?
Balian: I know that you are a princess, and I am no lord.
Sibylla: You're a knight.
Balian: Neither earned nor proved.
Sibylla: I'm not here with you because I'm... I'm bored or wicked.
I'm here because... because in the east, between one person and another, there is only light.
Sibylla: What become of us?
Balian: The world will decide. The world will always decide.
Mullah: Why did we retire? Why?
God did not favor him. God, alone, determines the results of battles.
Saladin: The results of battles are determined by God,
but also by preparation, numbers, the absence of disease and the availability of water.
One cannot maintain a siege with the enemy behind.
How many battles did God win for the Muslims before I came?
That is, before God determined that I should come.
Mullah: Few enough. That's because we were sinful.
Saladin: It is because you were unprepared.
Mullah: If you think that way, you shall not be king for long.
Saladin: When I am not king, I quake for Islam.
If I do not deliver war, I have no peace.
~Saladin
Sibylla: We can't meet in the city.
Balian: Then we will leave it.
Sibylla: And live how? Live where?
Balian, my brother's dying.
My son will be king and I his regent. I must rule for him.
And not just in Jerusalem, but Acre, Ashkelon, Beirut.
King Baldwin: So, my friend, the time has come to conclude my affairs.
If I leave the army with Guy,
he will take power through my sister and make war on the Muslims.
We have decided that you shall take command of the army of Jerusalem.
Will you defend my nephew when he's king?
Balian: Whatever you ask, I will serve.
King Baldwin: No, hear it all before you answer.
Would you marry my sister, Sibylla, were she free of Guy de Lusignan?
Balian: And Guy?
Tiberias: He will be executed along with his knights who do not swear your allegiance.
Balian: I cannot be the cause of that.
Tiberias: "Whatever you ask, I will serve".
Balian: "A king may move a man," you said, "but the soul belongs to the man."
King Baldwin: Yes, I did.
Balian: You have my love and my answer.
King Baldwin: Oh, so be it.
Tiberias: Fulfill the salvation of this kingdom.
Would it be so hard to marry Sibylla?
Jerusalem has no need of a perfect knight.
Balian: No. It is a kingdom of conscience or nothing.
Sibylla: Who are you to refuse a king?
I will have power, without Guy or with him.
Guy is indebted to your say-so and my brother's, but it's mine.
Balian: Do you have any idea of Jerusalem except that it is yours?
You will never hold it in peace as your brother did. It will be war.
Sibylla: My grandfather took Jerusalem in blood.
I'll keep it the same way or any way I can.
I am what I am.
I offer you that, and the world.
[try to kiss him, but Balian refuse]
You say no...
Balian: Do you think I'm like Guy, that I would sell my soul?
Sibylla: There'll be a day, when you will wish you had done a little evil to do a greater good.
Hospitaler: One may stare into the light until one becomes the light.
I've done it many times.
Balian, throw the stone to bushes and it light the fire: There's your religion.
One spark, a creosote bush.
There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.
Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God.
Jerusalem is dead, Tiberias.
No kingdom is worth my son alive in hell.
I will go to hell instead.
~Sibylla
The boy's dead. The boy was leprous like his uncle.
She gave him peace.
She let him go and Jerusalem along with him.
~Tiberias
Were you not close enough to a great king to learn by his example?
~Saladin, to Guy de Lusignan
It has fallen to us to defend Jerusalem
and we have made our preparations as well as they can be made.
None of us took this city from Muslims.
No Muslim, of the great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost.
We fight over an offense we did not give against those who were not alive to be offended.
What is Jerusalem?
Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down.
The Muslim places of worship lie over yours.
Which is more holy? The wall? The mosque? The sepulcher?
Who has claim? No one has claim. All have claim!
We defend this city not to protect these stones, but the people living within these walls.
~Balian de Ibelin
Saladin: Who defends?
Imad: Balian of Ibelin, the son of Godfrey.
Saladin: Godfrey.
Godfrey nearly killed me in the Lebanon.
Truly, I did not know he had a son.
Imad: It was his son at Kerak.
Saladin: The one you let live.
Imad: Yes.
Saladin: Perhaps you should not have.
Imad: Perhaps I should have had a different teacher.
Priest: When a body is burnt, it cannot be resurrected until Judgement Day.
Balian: If we do not burn these bodies, we will all be dead if disease in 3 days.
God will understand, my lord.
And if he doesn't, then he is not God, and we need not worry.
Balian: What is Jerusalem worth?
Saladin: Nothing.
Everything.
If this is Kingdom of Heaven, let God do with it as he wills.
~Balian de Ibelin
Your brother's kingdom are here [point to his head] and here. [point to his heart]
That kingdom can never be surrendered.
~Balian, to Sibylla
Sibylla: What should I do?
I'm still the queen of Acre, Ashkelon, Tripoli.
Balian: Decide not to be a queen and I will come to you.
If God does not love you,
how could you have done all the things that you have done?
~Imad, to Balian
Richard Coeur de Lion: We've come by this road to find Balian who was defender of Jerusalem.
Balian: I am the blacksmith.
Richard Coeur de Lion: And I am the king of England.
Balian: I am the blacksmith.
The King, Richard the Lionheart,
went on to the Holy Land and crusaded for 3 years.
His struggle to regain Jerusalem ended in an uneasy truce with Saladin.
Nearly a thousand years later, peace in the Kingdom of Heaven remains elusive.
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment