Quotes

Dialogue

Queen Christina: [at age 6, after her father has died] 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: [whispering] ...to wage it with courage. Christina: We promise to win it! I bless you all.

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Archbishop: [arguing for war] 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?

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

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... [She looks out the window] Snow again, eternal snow. Chancellor: Your Majesty, it is for Sweden. It is your duty. Christina: Why is it

Dialogue

Christina: [about Charles] 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.

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Don Antonio: [mistaking her for a man] 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 e

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Elsa: [To Christina] 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?

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

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 Antoni

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

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! [She pulls a coin from her bodice] 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.

Dialogue

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, yo

Dialogue

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.