Marco Polo (TV Series)
The Fourth Step (2014)
Benedict Wong: Kublai Khan
Quotes
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Kublai Khan : It's the cocoon that gives the silk. Comes out like sweet milk, then hardens. Ugly worm turns into an ugly moth, but leaves such treasure behind. Then some child somewhere crushes the moth, but the silk is still mine. The worm, the silk, the child, all mine. You will be spared. Your father and uncle will be sentenced. Artful color will not alter their character.
Marco Polo : What is their punishment?
Kublai Khan : It is on this that I dwell.
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Empress Chabi : [about wriggling silk worm] Such an ugly little creature.
Kublai Khan : Yet men will kill for it. Risk my wrath. Betray their blood. Because to them it is fortune, not legacy, that changes a life.
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[last lines]
Kublai Khan : Amends must be made for your father's crime.
Marco Polo : I understand.
Kublai Khan : *You* will decide his fate.
Marco Polo : My Lord?
Kublai Khan : Left to my vice regent, Yusuf or myself, your father's punishment would be certain. His thief heart would now be still. I know the pain this will cause you. I know compassion. And you know our laws our customs. You will choose your father's punishment. And then you shall find sleep.
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Niccolò Polo : [on their knees] We are still new to the ways of your kingdom.
Yusuf : Value is the first thing you seek. Risk, the second. The silk worm is sacred, more valuable than gems and gold, Master Polo. Its theft is punishable by death.
Niccolò Polo : Please, we did not know...
Kublai Khan : Enough! What is their origin?
Niccolò Polo : They were not procured by us. A man in our caravan acquired them.
Kublai Khan : Where is this man now?
Maffeo Polo : He did not survive the journey, Lord Khan.
Kublai Khan : And I'm quite confident neither shall you.
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Kublai Khan : I grew hearing tales of the Great Genghis. I knew him only as a small boy, but the man my eyes saw was not big enough. Genghis of my mind he was a giant.
Marco Polo : Our imaginations outrun us, Sire.
