The Borgias

Cesare Borgia:
[to his assassins] Trust me. My name is Borgia.

Giuliano Della Rovere:
I was poisoned with cantarella, and I am the stronger for it.

Girolamo Savonarola:
[Turning down a bribe from Sforza] No man can put a price on sainthood.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Jokingly] Poisoning would brighten the procedings in an otherwise gloom-laden day.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Who can we trust in this charnal house called Rome?

Giovanni Sforza:
[to Lucrezia on granting the French army free passage] I would save my arms for battles I can win.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
There is genius afoot here, Cardinal. Is it yours?

Giuliano Della Rovere:
Have you ever witnessed carnage, Ambassador?

Niccolo Machiavelli:
Let's drink to The Great God Carnage.

Sancia:
[Looking outside at Gioffri] My husband plays with feathers. Ahh.

Juan Borgia:
Is he to your liking? Aah.

Sancia:
He is sweetness itself, but he lacks your vigor.

Juan Borgia:
[Kissing her] You must call me then if you have need of me.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Referring to his portrait being painted] Do you think he's caught us?

Mattai the Hebrew:
He has caught the office. Catching the man is more elusive.

Pascal:
Where does all this affection go?

Micheletto:
Affection leads to weakness.

Giuliano Della Rovere:
[to Machiavelli and De Medici] Alexander's great game is the investiture of Naples. He knows France has claims upon it. He knows that Spain has claims upon it. He will play them both against each other like a spider with two flies.

Cesare Borgia:
[Seeing an ornately chained Native American for the first time] What Eden have they torn you from?

Giulia Farnese:
You look ill, Lucrezia.

Lucrezia Borgia:
Yes, I have been ill. [Referring to the assassinated Djem] My dusky friend inhabits my dreams.

Giulia Farnese:
Do not think so much of Djem, my dear.

Lucrezia Borgia:
He has a secret that he can't speak of. His beautiful dark mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

Giulia Farnese:
In your dreams?

Lucrezia Borgia:
And I have to kiss those lips to comfort them.

Giulia Farnese:
Oh, dear!

Lucrezia Borgia:
Is it permissible, Donna Guilia, to kiss a dead Moor in my dreams?

Giulia Farnese:
[She smiles] All things are permissible in our dreams.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
And what do you want of Florence?

Giuliano Della Rovere:
Nothing.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
Oh, then, we will charge you nothing.

Giuliano Della Rovere:
You misunderstand. I ask that Florence... do... nothing.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
Ah, we let those French barbarians march through our principality and do... nothing. That's a different kind of nothing that will cost you something.

Gioffre Borgia:
It's a big responsibility.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Mmm, it is. Sometimes it even stops me sleeping at night.

Gioffre Borgia:
I will marry anyone you like that helps you to sleep.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
We did love our children, did we not, my dear?

Rodrigo Borgia:
To a fault.

King Charles VIII:
[Entering the gates of the city] Where are the cheering crowds, the welcoming populace?

Giovanni Sforza:
[as he is being released from a gunny sack after being kidnapped] Where am I?

Cesare Borgia:
Where all roads lead to - Rome.

King Charles VIII:
[Taken aback when he meets the Pope dressed in only a friar's robe in the Vatican] It is not as we expected.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Does the Pope of Rome disappoint your highness? Had you hoped for gold and silver vestments? Display has its purpose, but simplicity must rule our hearts. We are all of us naked before God... even the Pope of Rome... even the King of France.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[With his new grandson and his family] We should thank God for all the blessings he has visited on this, our family.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Stepping over some of the poor sleeping in filth] How can people live like this?

Vittoria:
Because they have no alternative.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Watching a falcon attack a pigeon] Tou must get me a battalion of those birds.

Micheletto:
[after killing two men who threaten Ursula] Forgive me, sister. Sometimes goodness needs the help of a little badness.

Cesare Borgia:
Give me joy of my marriage, Father. I am an honest man at last.

Cesare Borgia:
I've brought you an army, Father. Would you have me send it back?

Lucrezia Borgia:
[to Cesare] If I married a thousand times, it would always be the wrong choice.

Mattai the Hebrew:
[Negotiating with Pope Alexander] We poor Jews have little in the way of coin, but we are rich in history.

Cesare Borgia:
[to Lucrezia] A father may forget that one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.

Cesare Borgia:
Take a breath, Roberto. Have some more wine. My wine. Take a dance in the garden. My garden. The pretty young noblewomen of Rome, I'm sure, would delight to have you paw at them.

Roberto:
I care nothing for your pretty young noblewomen.

Cesare Borgia:
Then, I will introduce you to some pretty young noblemen instead.

Neapolitan Guard:
[Surprising Micheletto and believing him to be a thief] Put that down! No more f***in' thievin'. Do you hear me?

Micheletto:
[after a pause] You're telling me hat people would wish to steal such sh*t?

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Referring to the King of France's desire to divorce his ugly queen] Forgive my curiosity. Am I to understand she is so uncomely she is unbedable?

The French Ambassador:
In all honesty then...

Rodrigo Borgia:
Yeah, honesty is always good.

The French Ambassador:
She is what we must call a two sack woman.

Rodrigo Borgia:
What?

The French Ambassador:
There are women one might take to bed only if they were to wear a sack over their heads, and then there are others where you too must wear a sack lest theirs falls off.

Lucrezia Borgia:
What rules this family, Mother?

Vanozza Cattaneo:
[With uncertainty] Love.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[She laughs derisively] Ambition... Ambition rules this family - my father's, my brother's, and I would have to add to it my own if I don't want to live in a garden of weeds.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[about to commit incest with Cesare] Oznly a Borgia it seems can truly love a Borgia.

Rodrigo Borgia:
So deception has a place in warfare?

Cesare Borgia:
As in life.

Lucrezia Borgia:
It would be fun to outwit a brace of cardinals.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Do you pledge your arms to the service of God and his vicar on Earth?

Francesco Gonzaga:
I do, Your Holiness.

Rodrigo Borgia:
And do you promise to fight in his name and his name alone?

Francesco Gonzaga:
I do, Your Holiness.

Rodrigo Borgia:
And do you pledge the spoils of battle in its entirety to his holy mother church?

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Gonzago's eyes move from side to side as he realizes what the Pope has said] God's blessing comes with a price.

Micheletto:
[after both he and Cesare narrowly escape from the catacombs alive after an explosion] Jesus must love you, Cesare Borgia.

Cesare Borgia:
[Referring to the Shroud of Turin] Yes, he wept. He wept bloody tears. He does... he does... He loves me!

Cesare Borgia:
[shouting joyously] Jesus loves me!

Micheletto:
[having realized Pascal's betrayal, Micheletto angrily recites Catallus' poem back at him] "I hate, and I love. Why, you may ask? I do not know. But it happen, and I... and..." How does it go?

Pascal:
"I burn."

Micheletto, Pascal:
No, in the Latin, please.

Pascal:
[he hesitates, and Micheletto rushes at him and pins him against the wall] "Excrucior"! "Excrucior"!

Micheletto:
It is a big word for "burn"! [shouts furiously] Why? Why did you become my lover? Why?

Micheletto:
Because I was made an offer!

Micheletto:
From whom? [Pascal doesn't answer] You enjoyed the thrill? The danger, yes?

Pascal:
Yes! Yes! I admit, I did.

Micheletto:
I should flay you alive! But I will be merciful.

Pascal:
You will?

[Micheletto releases him and collapses to the floor, weeping]

Micheletto:
[devastated] You tell me how you wish to die, Pascal.

Pascal:
I die? [they nod at one another; he replies after a pause] In your arms.

Cesare Borgia:
I disapprove of lechery, debauchery, drunkenness.

Juan Borgia:
Which is why our father made you the cardinal.

Cesare Borgia:
Why then did he make you a duke?

Juan Borgia:
Because lechery and debauchery are the very marks of nobility.

Cesare Borgia:
[Observing the retreating Papal army] Will the Good Lord see the justice in our cause, Micheletto?

Micheletto:
Where war is concerned, your eminence, our Good Lord will take a holiday.

Cesare Borgia:
Rome is like an old whore waiting once more for ravishment.

Cesare Borgia:
[Looking at the dead bodies around Micheletto] You planned this massacre thoroughly.

Micheletto:
If I had planned it, believe me, my lord, we would not be having this conversation.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[after Orsini's death] So we are one less cardinal this morning!

Cesare Borgia:
You are aware, Holy Father, of the plots against us?

Rodrigo Borgia:
Oh, what would Rome be without a good plot?

Abbess:
[after Versucci has returned a deed to the abbey] You're a strange messenger to bring such good tidings. You look like a man in a hurry. What is it you're hurrying from, Father?

Cardinal Versucci:
Oh, at first I thought I was hurrying from, but now I rather think I'm hurrying towards...

Abbess:
Towards God?

Cardinal Versucci:
[Soberly] Towards whatever destiny I have wrought for myself.

Venetian Envoy:
[to the Pope] If trade suffers, all suffer - Rome as well.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Clearly angry and humiliated that she has to consummate her marriage in front of witnesses] The act may be done in the night, but I will have blood for this!

Vanozza Cattaneo:
[about Paolo's meeting with Lucrezia] You of all people should understand, Rodrigo, the need to see one's child.

Rodrigo Borgia:
It was beyond foolish.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
But you can forgive her surely.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Question is... can she forgive herself?

Lucrezia Borgia:
Permit my Paolo a Christian burial.

Rodrigo Borgia:
He is a suicide. It is impossible.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Handing it to her father] This note was pinned to his sleeve.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Examining it] Yes, a suicide note.

Lucrezia Borgia:
But he could not read or write, Father. My Paolo could not even pen his own name.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[after considerable thought] So it was murder! Where is the murderer?

Lucrezia Borgia:
Too close for comfort.

King Charles VIII:
[Reclining in his tent] Your Spanish Pope has more appetite for war than you imagined, Lady Caterina.

King Charles VIII:
[He gets up but it is obviouslty an effort] So we must will ourselves to battle once more.

Caterina Sforza:
[as Charles is washing his face in a water pan] You think the blood of the Borgia Pope could cure us, Caterina Sforza?

Caterina Sforza:
We could bathe in it together, Your Majesty. [Charles laughs ironically]

Cesare Borgia:
[to Cardinal Della Rovere, who has survived a poisoning] Don't worry. If you're not dead by now, you will live. Your tongue will be swollen for days... no talking. I'm afraid all your prayers must be silent ones.

Cesare Borgia:
[to a severely ill Della Rovere] The French army is ensnared in Naples. The French king is ill with the Neapolitan disease. God is in his Heaven, and the Pope on his seat in Rome... and my plea to you, Cardinal, is still the same. Work with us, not against us.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[to his quarreling sons] We are family, we are one, and we will only triumph as one.

Giulia Farnese:
[Looking at pornographic Roman frescoes] Mmm... those Romans knew not monogamy.

Giulia Farnese:
[to Vittorio/Vittoria] You are more Eve than Adam.

Cardinal Ascanio Sforza:
The French ambassador waits, Holiness.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Sarcastically] Isn't he dead yet?

Cardinal Ascanio Sforza:
He isn't even sick.

Bianca:
[as the Pope sensually bathes her] Will we meet again, Holy Father?

Rodrigo Borgia:
Perhaps.

Bianca:
Am I to be your mistress then?

Rodrigo Borgia:
Alas, no. That position is taken.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
You are far too clever for a cardinal.

Cesare Borgia:
The times make me so.

Giulia Farnese:
[Hearing that Rodrigo plans to arrange a marriage for 13 year old son Gioffri] Are you ever going to stop?

Rodrigo Borgia:
Never!

Giulia Farnese:
You are going to ensnare the whole of Europe... in your progeny.

Rodrigo Borgia:
What else are families for?

Vanozza Cattaneo:
You could leave the church and displease your father if you dare.

Cesare Borgia:
I fear nothing, Mother.

Rodrigo Borgia:
We have merged our fortunes with the Sforza name... the consequence of that trust being betrayed would be most severe.

Cardinal Ascanio Sforza:
Do you speak to me as Vice Chancellor, Your Holiness?

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Soberly] No, as a Sforza!

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Shocked to see Ursula on the other side of the confessional] My eyes... !

Rodrigo Borgia:
You can believe them, Cardinal. I ask to confess in person to you that I must confess I have nothing to confess.

Duke Ludovico Sforza:
[Questioning his imprisoned nephew] What do you hunger for most?

Gian Galaezzo:
Freedom... and pheasant.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Know your enemy, Cardinal. Know him better than your friend.

Cesare Borgia:
Do you know anyone in Forli?

Micheletto:
I know everyone in Forli. Eminence.

Cesare Borgia:
How?

Micheletto:
I was born there.

Cesare Borgia:
I can't imagine you being born, Micheletto... or dying, for that matter. You must show me your ancestral home.

Caterina Sforza:
[to Cesare as they are passionately making love] I am a freak of nature, Cardinal... an aberration, a free woman in a man's world.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[about Savanarola] Perhaps the good friar could be bought.

Piero De Medici:
[Doubtful] With money?

Rodrigo Borgia:
With a bishopric. Generalship of the Dominican Order.

Piero De Medici:
The Dominican Order already does his bidding.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
And how can you buy one who would outlaw trade itself?

Rodrigo Borgia:
You offer him something that money cannot buy - Heaven itself!

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Referring to her fiance] A boy of clay to mold into a man of my liking.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Seductively] Take off your cloak.

Alfonso of Aragon:
If I remove my cloak, what will you remove in return?

Lucrezia Borgia:
You'll see.

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Presenting herself as her own maid] Just as one would have one's groom break in a new horse, so it is with my lady's loves and me.

Cesare Borgia:
[Referring to Savonarola] Who thought a body could stand so much pain! We've tortured the man near to death.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
The strength of a faith misguided is still a strength. He thought he could walk through fire.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
[to Cesare] So tell me, Cesare, what exactly ae we celebrating... your sister's betrothal or the death of your younger brother?

Papal Physician:
[after Lucrezia has instructed the Papal physician on how to force the liquid charcoal down her poisoned father's throat] But this is witchcraft!

Lucrezia Borgia:
[Pointing a dagger at the physician] This is physic!

Cesare Borgia:
Do what she says... every detail... and if his soul departs. I shall insure it does do so alone!

Cesare Borgia:
[Walking into Della Rovere's cell] My father lives! You failed!

Giuliano Della Rovere:
Ah.

Cesare Borgia:
What say you to that?

Giuliano Della Rovere:
Today he lives. One day he shall not, and on that day where will you be?

Cesare Borgia:
What use am I to you dead?

Cesare Borgia:
[Ominously] I do not want you dead... not for a long time.

Rodrigo Borgia:
I saw the face of death.

Cesare Borgia:
You're not dead, Father.

Ursula Bonadeo:
[In bed] You make me hope, and I'm afraid of hope.

Cesare Borgia:
Hope for what?

Ursula Bonadeo:
For days like this in the future with you.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Upset with Juan] Do you have any idea what lengths I've gone to to keep your mother's reputation intact?

Rodrigo Borgia:
[about the arranged marriage with his 13 year old son with the bastard daughter of the Neapolitan king and the dowry the Borgias will recieve] We need this union more than we need the riches. The wolves are bearing down on the Papal States.

King Charles VIII:
[to Della Rovere] Be careful what you pray for, Cardinal. You will find yourself in a place beyond prayer itself.

Giulia Farnese:
[Guilia finds Rodrigo unresponsive and quiet in bed] You find the art of politics more engrossing than...

Rodrigo Borgia:
Than the art of love?

Giulia Farnese:
Did I say that?

Rodrigo Borgia:
Hmmm, they have more in common than you would think.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Referring to Cesare]... nobody knows what he's going to do next.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
Have you tried talking to him?

Rodrigo Borgia:
We never see him to talk to him.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
Have you tried forgiving him?

Rodrigo Borgia:
For what?

Vanozza Cattaneo:
Whatever lies between you two!

Rodrigo Borgia:
And what's that?

Vanozza Cattaneo:
Well, only you two know.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
That's the trouble. You're too alike.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Mmmm. The trouble is I miss him.

Mattai the Hebrew:
[to Gamaliel about his affecting appearing to be a Christian] I serve a Christian Pope so you can remain a Jew.

Mattai the Hebrew:
[to Rodrigo trying to reconcile father and son] He is made in your image!

Rodrigo Borgia:
[He mutters] We don't know that! He is me! All the fire, the fury, the drive... the pitiless ambition! I look into his eyes - I see myself! [Yelling rhetirically] Do you expect me to love that?

Cesare Borgia:
I'm certain! I can't understand why you don't share my certainty!

Rodrigo Borgia:
Certainty is the preserve of youth.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[to Cesare who will be appointed a cardinal] My beloved son, crimson is a color that becomes us.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Goodness and probity make worthy adversaries, do they not?

Prince Djem:
You have news?

Lucrezia Borgia:
I'm to be married.

Prince Djem:
Oh, my dear!

Lucrezia Borgia:
Have you been married?

Prince Djem:
I have taken four women to wife.

Lucrezia Borgia:
Four?

Prince Djem:
Mmmm-hmmm,

Lucrezia Borgia:
Where are they now,

Prince Djem:
In the Serali of Topkapi Palace in Constantinople.

Lucrezia Borgia:
Hoow many wives can you have?

Prince Djem:
As many as Allah sees fit to provide. [They both laugh]

Prince Djem:
And as to concubines an infinite number.

Lucrezia Borgia:
What is the difference, Djem, between wife and concubine?

Prince Djem:
No difference really.

Prince Djem:
[after a short reflection] Ah, you can beat a wife but not kill her.

Lucrezia Borgia:
You can kill a concubine?

Prince Djem:
If she displeases you. You can kill a wife too, but the displeasure must be great.

Cesare Borgia:
That poison was meant for us.

Rodrigo Borgia:
You don't poison the Pope!

Cesare Borgia:
Do you know what the gossips are calling you? "The mitred ape". Half of Rome is waiting to celebrate your demise.

Rodrigo Borgia:
You would poison a dying dog! Not the heir to Saint Peter!

Cesare Borgia:
The idea offends you, then?

Rodrigo Borgia:
It offends me, it offends nature, it offends God Himself!

Cesare Borgia:
Then God will take his revenge.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Yes he will... with *our* help!

On Screen Text:
[first lines, the text that appears on screen] Rome 1492

On Screen Text:
The center of the Christian world. The seat of the Papacy.

On Screen Text:
The Pope had the power to crown and un-crown kings. To change the course of empires.

On Screen Text:
The Church was mired in corruption. Pope Innocent VIII was dying,

On Screen Text:
And the Papal throne was the prize desired by all.

Woman in Bed:
[Finding out Cesare is a cleric] There was nothing ecclesiatical about last night.

Cesare Borgia:
By night? By night I am who I want to be. By day I am thus.

Micheletto:
It seems someone as pitiless as you...

Cesare Borgia:
Yes... ?

Micheletto:
...needs someone as pitiless as me.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
[Opening lines] I have no servants here in Rome, my lord. Florence can no longer afford them.

Cesare Borgia:
Ah, democracy, Signor Machiavelli.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
They say it has its merits.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
[after a pause] What would you say is the perfect crime, my lord?

Cesare Borgia:
The one without a victim.

Cesare Borgia:
Micheletto, where have you been?

Micheletto:
Talking with God.

Cesare Borgia:
And what did he say?

Micheletto:
Nothing.

Cesare Borgia:
[to his fellow Romagna princes] Never presume that I won't act on my worst instincts.

Caterina Sforza:
[to Cesare's soldiers with a rope around her neck and about to commit suicide] Come on! Give me a legendary death.

Caterina Sforza:
[after a long pause, she laughs] Does it take a Caterina Sforza to kill a Caterina Sforza? [No answer so she jumps]

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Opening lines as Cesare is shaving him] Della Rovere's escape was orchestrated by whom?

Cesare Borgia:
Of that I must plead ignorance.

Rodrigo Borgia:
We are in a snake pit surrounded by venom and smiling vipers, and our son pleads ignorance. [He sighs]

Rodrigo Borgia:
Maybe it was you. [Cesare nicks his neck with the razor]

Cesare Borgia:
[the room suddenly goes quiet when Cesare and Micheletto enter enter] You could hear a pin drop, Micheletto.

Micheletto:
If I had a pin.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Think of Rome as a spider's web, my son, and each family has its silken thread attached to an egg which is planted within these walls.

Cesare Borgia:
Orsini, Baglioni, Vitelli, Colonna.

Rodrigo Borgia:
And each one of these diaphonous threads go back through their families to the tarantula of Forli, the great arachnee, Caterina Sforza, and every egg wears a cardinal's hat and a smile of obedience and piety, and plots to murder you, your mother, your sister, and the plot to murder your beloved brother succeeds.

Cesare Borgia:
[to Lucrezia] Whoever gets in the way of your happiness will feel my wrath. [He puts a finger tenderly under her chin] We are the unholy family.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
My life without you has turned out to be another blessing in disguise.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Hmmm. We're both blessed then.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
Together we were cursed, but apart at least I am at peace.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Wine?

Juan Borgia:
No, I only drink water. The clarity of water gives clarity of mind.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[In bath with Bianca] Scandal may be the perrogative of kings, but we are the Pope of Rome. We have a church to run.

Georges D'Amboise:
[Greeting Cesare at the Avignon gate in his archbishop's garb] My Lord Borgia, you look quite sober for a duke.

Cesare Borgia:
You look quite priestly for a king.

Joan of France:
[Enraged after she has slapped Cesare] May you rot in the circle of Hell reserved for the Borgia family.

Cesare Borgia:
There is no Hell, no Heaven either. This world is what we make of it.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
[Angry that she has been assigned to Lucrezia's wedding] I wish I hadn't been volunteered for this. Far better to arrage a funeral. The dead don't bicker.

Vanozza Cattaneo:
[Angry that she has been assigned to Lucrezia's wedding] Why I am charged with this task remains a mystery.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Well, long may it remain so.

Rodrigo Borgia:
[to his son] Do you know what is more poisonous than failure in war or politics? Ridicule!

Rodrigo Borgia:
[Rodrigo has been staying up waiting for Juan to come home] I'm a sleepwalker. This wound will not let me rest.

Rodrigo Borgia:
Is it your body or your soul that needs healing?

Micheletto:
[after Cesare releases Benito Sforza over Micheletto's advice] This dog will come back to bite.

Niccolo Machiavelli:
[Watching an accused witch being burned at the stake] If angels can fall from Heaven into Hell, then so we can all. The demon waits to devour us.

Cesare Borgia:
Then go wrestle with the demon we must.

Girolamo Savonarola:
[Contemptuously to Cesare] Lies ooze from your mouth like pus from a dead horse!