Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Scene 1 : ‘A Swallow Carrying a Coconut?’
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[opening music]
[wind]
[clop clop clop]
KING ARTHUR: Whoa there!
[clop clop clop]
SOLDIER #1: Halt! Who goes there?
ARTHUR: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
SOLDIER #1: Pull the other one!
ARTHUR: I am,… and this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.
SOLDIER #1: What? Ridden on a horse?
ARTHUR: Yes!
SOLDIER #1: You’re using coconuts!
ARTHUR: What?
SOLDIER #1: You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re bangin’ ’em together.
ARTHUR: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through–
SOLDIER #1: Where’d you get the coconuts?
ARTHUR: We found them.
SOLDIER #1: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut’s tropical!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
SOLDIER #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
SOLDIER #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
ARTHUR: Not at all. They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the husk!
SOLDIER #1: It’s not a question of where he grips it! It’s a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn’t matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
SOLDIER #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I’m not interested!
SOLDIER #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
SOLDIER #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That’s my point.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
SOLDIER #1: But then of course a– African swallows are non-migratory.
SOLDIER #2: Oh, yeah.
SOLDIER #1: So, they couldn’t bring a coconut back anyway.
[clop clop clop]
SOLDIER #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?
SOLDIER #1: No, they’d have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2: Well, simple! They’d just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2: Well, why not?