   Revolting Peasants - From the film 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.

   ARTHUR and PATSY riding.  They stop and look.  We see a castle in the
   distance, and before it a PEASANT is working away on his knees trying
   to dig up the earth with his bare hands and a twig.  ARTHUR and
   PATSY ride up, and stop before the PEASANT

                               ARTHUR
       Old woman!

                               DENNIS
       Man!

                               ARTHUR
       Man.  I'm sorry.  Old man, What knight live in that castle
       over there?

                               DENNIS
       I'm thirty-seven.

                               ARTHUR
       What?

                               DENNIS:
       I'm thirty-seven ... I'm not old.

                               ARTHUR:
       Well - I can't just say:  "Hey, Man!'

                               DENNIS
       Well you could say: "Dennis"

                               ARTHUR
       I didn't know you were called Dennis.

                               DENNIS
       You didn't bother to find out, did you?

                               ARTHUR
       I've said I'm sorry about the old woman, but from the behind
       you looked ...

                               DENNIS
       What I object to is that you automatically treat me like
       an inferior ...

                               ARTHUR
       Well ... I AM king.

                               DENNIS
       Oh, very nice. King, eh!  I expect you've got a palace and fine
       clothes and courtiers and plenty of food.  And how d'you get that?
       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 By hanging on to outdated imperialist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 going to be any progress ...

   An OLD WOMAN appears.

                               OLD WOMAN
       Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here ...  Oh!
       how d'you do?

                               ARTHUR
       How d'you do, good lady ... I am Arthur, King of the Britons ...
       can you tell me who lives in that castle?

                               OLD WOMAN
       King of the WHO?

                               ARTHUR
       The Britons.

                              OLD WOMAN
       Who are the Britons?

                               ARTHUR
       All of us are ... we are all Britons.

   DENNIS winks at the OLD WOMAN.

       ... and I am your king ....

                               OLD WOMAN
       Ooooh!  I didn't know we had a king.  I thought we were
       an autonomous collective ...

                               DENNIS
       You're fooling yourself.  We're living in a dictatorship,
       A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes ...

                               OLD WOMAN
       There you are, bringing class into it again ...

                               DENNIS
       That's what it's all about ...  If only -

                               ARTHUR
       Please, please good people.  I am in haste.  What knight lives in
       that castle?

                               OLD WOMAN
       No one live there.

                               ARTHUR
       Well, who is your lord?

                               OLD WOMAN
       We don't have a lord.

                               ARTHUR
       What?
                               DENNIS
       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.

                               ARTHUR
       Yes.

                               DENNIS
       ... But all the decision of that officer ...

                               ARTHUR
       Yes, I see.

                               DENNIS
       ... must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority
       in the case of purely internal affairs.

                               ARTHUR
       Be quiet!

                               DENNIS
       ... but a two-thirds majority ...

                               ARTHUR
       Be quiet!  I order you to shut up.

                               OLD WOMAN
       Order, eh -- who does he think he is?

                               ARTHUR
       I am your king!

                               OLD WOMAN
       Well, I didn't vote for you.

                               ARTHUR
       You don't vote for kings.

                               OLD WOMAN
       Well, how did you become king, then?

                               ARTHUR
       The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite,
       held Excalibur aloft from the bosom of the water to signify by
       Divine Providence ...  that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur ...
       That is why I am your king!

                               DENNIS
       Look,  strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out
       swords ... that's no basis for a system of government.  Supreme
       executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from
       some farcical aquatic ceremony.

                               ARTHUR
       Be quiet!

                               DENNIS
       You can't expect to wield supreme executive power
       just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

                               ARTHUR
       Shut up!

                               DENNIS
       I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some
       moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would
       put me away!

                               ARTHUR
           (Grabbing him by the collar)
       Shut up, will you. Shut up!

                               DENNIS
       Ah! NOW ... we see the violence inherent in the system.

                               ARTHUR
       Shut up!

   PEOPLE (i.e. other PEASANTS) are appearing and watching.

                               DENNIS
           (calling)
       Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
       Help, help, I'm being repressed!

                               ARTHUR
           (aware that people are now coming out and watching)
       Bloody peasant!
           (pushes DENNIS over into mud and prepares to ride off)

                               DENNIS
       Oh, Did you hear that!  What a give-away.

                               ARTHUR
       Come on, patsy.

   They ride off.

                               DENNIS
           (in the background as we PULL OUT)
       did you see him repressing me, then?  That's what I've
       been on about ...


