Marlowe: I don’t go for such thinking on my part, Sir Walter. It shuts me inside a cage and the cage has a door with four heavy bars: f-e-a-r.
Raleigh: You know that each country has had a godhead.
Marlowe: Each country has its diseases, debts...despots.
Shakespeare: Are you denying your “School of Night”?
Raleigh: I’m not on trial here. I was speaking confidentially, no, intimately...that’s a better word. I was trying to share an emotion and I ask you to respect it as an emotion.
Jonson: You ask for respect. God be at your table. Everyone’s highly respected here—even the waiters. (Laughter)
Marlowe: Ah, shut up!
Shakespeare: We didn’t come here to quarrel.
Raleigh: Maybe we can do better with politics...or is it too hydra-headed tonight? Let’s talk about Essex. Cautiously.
Marlowe: But why cautiously?