Queen Christina Quotes

Christina I'll give up my room to you gladly.

Don Antonio Give up? I wouldn't hear of it.

Christina Well, the truth is, uh, please forgive me sir, but since I was little, since I was a child, I've always disliked sharing my room with anyone. So you take the room and I'll go elsewhere.

Don Antonio I wouldn't hear of it. There isn't another free bed in the inn.

Christina Well, I'll sleep before the fire.

Don Antonio Am I so unpresentable? Do my manners disgust you? Does my speech bore you? If you find me so unbearable, forgive me for having imposed myself on you for so long. Good night, sir.

Christina Please, I...

Don Antonio Say no more about it. I shall sit before the fire all night.

Christina Oh no, no, I-you couldn't. I wouldn't, uh... You shall share my room with me.

Don Antonio Oh, thank you very much. I'll be delighted. If you're ever in Spain, I'll return the hospitality.

Christina Antonio, I feel just the same.

Don Antonio I don't. I feel unlucky being the thirteenth.

Christina Oh, but I was lying, terribly. And now you don't love me anymore?

Don Antonio Don't despair, your Majesty. My master, the King of Spain, has the honor of asking your hand in marriage. It isn't pleasant to betray one's King, to dishonor him in a far country.

Queen Christina My business is governing and I have the knack of it as you have yours for your trade by inheritance. My father was a king, and his father before him. My father died for Sweden and I live for her. Now my good people, go home to your work and leave me to mine. My blessing on all of you.

Christina I have imagined happiness but happiness you cannot imagine. Happiness you must feel, joy you must feel. Oh, and this great joy I feel now. Antonio.

Don Antonio What?

Christina This is how the Lord must have felt when he first beheld the finished world with all his creatures breathing, living.

Don Antonio And to think a few snowdrifts might have separated us forever.

Christina We might have been born in different centuries.

Don Antonio No, I never would have permitted that. We're inevitable, don't you feel it?

Christina I feel it. But you, how can you be so sure? You know me so little.

Don Antonio That's true. There's a mystery in you.

Christina Is there not in every human being?

Don Antonio Yes. Tell me, you said you would, why did you come to this inn dressed as a man?

Christina In my home, I'm very constrained. Everything is arranged very formally.

Don Antonio A conventional household.

Christina Very. I like to get away from it sometimes, to be free.

Don Antonio I can understand that.

Christina You're going to court. What if the Queen keeps you there?

Don Antonio Let her try.

Christina If half of the Queen's reputation is well-founded...

Don Antonio After you, she'll be tiresome. Ah, to have found anyone in this wilderness would have been miracle enough but to have found you - ah, this is too improbable. I don't believe in you. You're an illusion. You'll vanish before my eyes.

Don Antonio What are you doing?

Christina I have been memorizing the room. In the future, in my memory, I shall live a great deal in this room.

Don Antonio You wait. I'll show you the whole living world.

Don Antonio Have you ever traveled? Have you ever been far from home? Have you ever been homesick?

Christina I've never been out of Sweden.

Don Antonio Then you don't know what it is to be homesick. You don't know what it means to feel that sense of loss, the pain of nostalgia.

Christina One can feel nostalgia for places one has never seen.

Don Antonio Yes, that's quite true. Young man, that's the second time I've underestimated you...Imagine in this ice-cap finding someone who knows Spain. You understand I admire your country. It's rugged and strong and impressive. It has all the virile qualities...At home, our people are less hearty. They're a bit more graceful. It's all a question of climate. You can't serenade a woman in a snowstorm. All the graces and the arts of love - the elaborate approaches that go to make the game of love amusing - can only be practiced in those countries that quiver in the heat of the sun, in the still languorous nights where every breeze caresses with amour. Love, as we understand it, is a technique that must be developed in hot countries.

Christina Sounds glamorous and yet...somewhat mechanical. Evidently, you Spaniards make too much fuss about a simple, elemental thing like love. We Swedes are more direct.

Don Antonio Well, that's civilization. To disguise the elemental with the glamorous. A great love has to be nourished, has to be...

Christina A great love...

Don Antonio Don't you believe in its possibility?

Christina In its possibility, yes, but not in its existence. A great love, a perfect love is an illusion. It is the golden fable of which we all dream. In an ordinary life, it doesn't happen. In ordinary life, one must be content with less.

Don Antonio So young, and yet so disillusioned. Young man, you're cynical.

Christina Not at all, merely realistic.

Christina This eternal talk about Charles. I cannot tell you how it wears me. I do not see eye-to-eye with Charles about anything...There are varieties of heroes. He's a hero with fighting and fighting bores me. His only gift is with a sword.

Chancellor The sword has made Sweden great, your Majesty.

Christina Yes, do we not exalt that gift too much, Chancellor?

Chancellor Ah, you cannot remake the world, your Majesty.

Christina Why not? Look, Chancellor, the philosophers remake it, the artists remake it, the scientists remake it now, why not we, we the power. The people follow blindly the generals who lead them to destruction. Will they not follow us? We'll lead them beyond themselves where there's grace and beauty, gaiety and freedom.

Chancellor Europe is an armed camp, your Majesty, not utopia peopled with shepherds.

Christina But Chancellor... Snow again, eternal snow.

Chancellor Your Majesty, it is for Sweden. It is your duty.

Christina Why is it my duty? My days and nights are given up to the service of the state. I'm so cramped with duty that to be able to read a book, I have to rise in the middle of the night. I serve the people with all my thoughts, with all my energy, with all my dreams, waking and sleeping. I do not wish to marry and you cannot force me.

Chancellor You must give Sweden an heir.

Christina Not by Charles, Chancellor.

Chancellor You are Sweden's Queen. You are your father's daughter.

Christina Must we live for the dead?

Chancellor For the great dead, yes your Majesty.

Christina Snow is like a wide sea. One could go out and be lost in it and forget the world and oneself.

Chancellor There are rumors that your Majesty is planning a foreign marriage.

Christina They are baseless.

Chancellor But your Majesty, you cannot die an old maid.

Christina I have no intention to, Chancellor. I shall die a bachelor!

Christina He at least is no opportunist...I look at you and I look at a stranger, a stranger whom I do not altogether like.

Magnus I grant you your preferences if you love me.

Christina Love you? I wonder now, Magnus, if I have ever loved you.

Magnus I am your destiny, Christina.

Christina Are you? I long to escape my destiny.

Magnus You will long to return to it.

Jacob The Queen is selfish. It is simple for her. She orders and you obey. How long are you going on this way? Every time we meet, you promise to tell her you love me and that you want to marry me and you never do.

Ebba The trouble is the Queen is so dominating. She's interested only in her own concerns. She never asks me.

Christina It is you I cannot forgive, Ebba. You needn't fear my domination any longer.

Ebba Your Majesty, please.

Christina You pretended to be interested in me and my problems. Your sympathy, your concern - all pretense, underneath which you resent me.

Ebba Oh, you do not understand, your Majesty.

Christina The difficulty, Ebba, is that I do.

Elsa Shall I help you off with your boots, sir?

Christina No thank you...

Don Antonio You're very pretty, Elsa. Are you also good?

Elsa When I do not like a man, yes.

Christina That's true virtue.

Don Antonio The basis of all morality in a sentence.

Elsa Can I get you anything, sir?

Christina No, thank you.

Elsa The master says you're to have everything you need.

Christina Hmmm.

Elsa If you should need anything, my room is at the end of the passage.

Don Antonio She prefers you. You have the better chance.

Christina I'd give her up gladly if you're interested.

Don Antonio No, I'm not interested. Well, don't you think since we're going to share the same bed we should be introduced?

Lord Chancellor They clamor for a Swedish marriage for your majesty. They clamor for an heir of Swedish blood.

Christina In short, Chancellor, they clamor.

Queen Christina There are other things to live for than wars. I have had enough of them. We have been fighting since I was in the cradle and many years before. It is enough. I shall ask the powers to meet for a speedy and honorable peace. There must be an end!...Spoils! Glory! Flags and trumpets! What is behind these high-sounding words? Death and destruction! Triumphals of crippled men! Sweden victorious in a ravaged Europe. An island in a dead sea. I tell you, I want no more of it. I want for my people security and happiness. I want to cultivate the arts of peace. The arts of life! I want peace and peace I will have.

Queen Christina The question of the succession has long been the subject of my earnest consideration. I am come here today to tell you my decision. There is one among us who has served the state faithfully in war and peace, one who is also related to me by blood. I speak of the Prince Palatine Charles Gustavus. I believe I shall be in agreement with you in saying that above all others, he is the man best fitted for the government of this kingdom. The Prince has done me the honor of asking my hand in marriage. The Prince has my answer. I have given him the reasons why I cannot accept this offer. In the absence of an heir of my blood, our Constitution gives me the right to nominate for your approval my successor. I believe no one would gratify your wishes better than Prince Charles Gustavus. I am resolved, therefore, here and now, to place in your hands my abdication from the throne of Sweden. And now, farewell. I thank Almighty God who caused me to be born of a royal stock and raised me to be a Queen over so large and mighty a kingdom. I thank too those nobles who defended the state when I was a child and all of you for the fidelity and attachment you've shown. Let me look at you once more. And so, let me remember you with love and loyalty until memory is no more. God bless you. Farewell.

Archbishop It is for our faith and for our God.

Christina God is being invoked in many lands these days, Your Grace. What about the enemy's God?

Christina But we'll go afterward, Ebba.

Ebba Oh, you always say that, but at the end of the day, you're never free to go anywhere. You're surrounded by musty old papers and musty old men and I can't get near you.

Christina Today, I'll dispose of them by sundown, I promise you, and we'll go away for two or three days in the country. Wouldn't you like that?

Ebba Oh, I'd love it.

Christina There is too great a burden you put on me. I have grown up in a great man's shadow. All my life I've been a symbol, a symbol of eternal changelessness, an abstraction. A human being is mortal and changeable with desires and impurities, hopes and despairs. I'm tired of being a symbol, Chancellor. I long to be a human being, this longing I cannot suppress.

Chancellor And yet you must, you will. His hand is upon you, the King's.

Christina I have always listened to you with awe, Oxenstierna...Yet something in me cries out that this cannot be true, that one must live for oneself. After all Chancellor, one's own life is all one has.

Chancellor Yes, your Majesty, that is all one has. Therefore, you must give it up to your duty. Greatness demands all.

Christina Am I great, Chancellor? I feel so little and helpless and futile.

Chancellor Yes, your Majesty, when you are alone. But tomorrow when this great hall is filled with the pride of your realm, you will meet the occasion, you will do your duty, you will marry Prince Charles.

Christina Duty. Duty.

Chancellor My heritage, your Majesty, and yours.

Queen Christina Stop fighting. I'll tell you the truth. Well gentlemen, I have the painful duty of telling you that you're both wrong. Sixes and the nines. The truth is that the queen has had twelve lovers this past year, a round dozen. Any lie will find believers as long as you tell it with force enough.

Queen Christina Why? Do I peer into the lives of my subjects and dictate to them whom they shall love? Will I serve them less if I'm happy? What strangely-foolish title is it that calls me ruler. Even what concerns me most dearly, I am to have no voice. It is intolerable! There is a freedom which is mine and which the state cannot take away for the unreasonable tyranny of the mob, and to the malicious tyranny of palace intrigue. I shall not submit! Know this, all of you.

Don Antonio Why did you go out of your way to make me ridiculous? All that idiotic talk of love and beauty that made my heart beat, and made me dream like a fool and talk like one.

Christina I thought you would understand when you saw me again what had happened. That it had been so enchanting to be a woman, not a Queen, just a woman in a man's arms.

Don Antonio Yes, if you'd left my heart alone.

Christina But I fell in love with you. I love you Antonio. Look! The coin you gave me for helping you. I've slept with it in my hand each night. Forgive me for being a Queen.

Don Antonio What do you want of me?

Christina What do I want? What? I want back that room in the inn, the snow that fell, the warm fire and the sweet hours, beloved one.

Don Antonio Christina.

Queen Christina Good lords and Swedish men. We Christina, by grace of God, Queen of the Swedes, the Goths and Vandals, promises you to be a good and just king, to protect you all, and to guard the kingdom as our father did, to wisely and with God's help, to keep the standard as we've received it from our fathers. Concerning this war which we are bitterly waging, we promise...we promise...

Lord Chancellor ...to wage it with courage.

Christina We promise to win it! I bless you all.

Don Antonio Have you said goodbye to your country?

Christina Yes, to everything but you.

Don Antonio How sweet your eyes are.

Christina Shhh, you mustn't talk.

Don Antonio When the wind is with us, we sail.

Christina Yes.

Don Antonio Spain - my home is on a white cliff overlooking the sea. You'll never leave me, will you...?

Christina No, never.

Don Antonio Your Majesty.

Christina Shhh, you must rest. Rest.