I have not slept that well this week. So I thought I would write as I burned the midnight oil. I was watching the news and seeing the terrible situation in Ukraine and they interviewed a guy who said he would stand til the end and never cower to the oppressor. That act of defiance reminded me of a scene in my favourite movie. ‘The Lion in winter’
If you have not watched it I highly recommend you do. In the film Katharine Hepburn plays Eleanor of Aquitaine, Peter O’Toole is Henry II, and Anthony Hopkins plays Richard the Lion heart.
There is a scene near the end of the film which means so much to me and strikes a chord in my chivalric loving soul. The young princes have temporarily banded together, under Eleanor’s direction, in an effort to rebel against their father. Henry outwits them, and has them imprisoned in the wine cellar.
Awaiting execution they huddle in the cellar, they hear footsteps, and fear that their father is approaching to kill them. Richard refuses to be cowed. “He’s here,” he says. “He’ll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn’t going to see me beg.”
Geoffery scornfully answers him, “you chivalric fool… as if the way one fell down mattered.” then Richard replies one of my favourite lines in a film ever, “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
That is why I thought of this movie when I watched that news clip. When a person has only their pride and dignity left, to stand up and fall with courage is the last fall measure of devotion. When the fall’s all that’s left, it does indeed matter a great deal.
With love and compassion for all those suffering right now, I say hearty handshakes from me to you.
Sea's The Day 