MovieChat Forums > The Four Feathers (1939) Discussion > what is the poem richardson quotes from?

what is the poem richardson quotes from?


toward the end of the movie, he's in a drawing room and quotes something from a poem or play that ends something like, 'i cried to dream again.' ??

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Not a poem but rather a quote from Shekespeare's "The Tempest" Act 3, Scene 2 where Caliban asks Stephano:

CALIBAN
"Art thou afeard?"

STEPHANO
"No, monster, not I."

CALIBAN
"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again."

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thank you so much! this has been bothering me for years!

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Thanks for posting the text here. I've always liked this scene and Richarson does it so well.

I find this scene interesting too because Caliban was a role that Richardson did at the Old Vic earlier in the 1930s before this film was made. This is the only part of the play he ever (in a way) did on film.

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I was watching a VHS copy of TFF with a young lady about three years ago, and we both broke down bawling as Richardson recited those lines. Would've done anything to see him as Caliban!
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

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He actually misquotes the last line as 'I cried to sleep again.' Maybe it's a deliberate flub because he goes on to say with a knowing smile 'I knew that bit by heart, anyway,' a line I'd like to think was at his own suggestion, since, as another poster mentions, having played the role before, he almost certainly would have.

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