Cyrano de Bergerac
Are they the famous?. . .
CARBON:
Cyrano!
CYRANO:
Ay, Captain!
CARBON:
Since all my company's assembled here,
Pray favor me,--present them to my lord!
CYRANO (making two steps toward De Guiche):
My Lord de Guiche, permit that I present--
(pointing to the cadets):
The bold Cadets of Gascony,
Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux!
Brawling and swaggering boastfully,
The bold Cadets of Gascony!
Spouting of Armory, Heraldry,
Their veins a-brimming with blood so blue,
The bold Cadets of Gascony,
Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux:
Eagle-eye, and spindle-shanks,
Fierce mustache, and wolfish tooth!
Slash-the-rabble and scatter-their-ranks;
Eagle-eye and spindle-shanks,
With a flaming feather that gayly pranks,
Hiding the holes in their hats, forsooth!
Eagle-eye and spindle-shanks,
Fierce mustache, and wolfish tooth!
'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk'
Are their gentlest sobriquets;
With Fame and Glory their soul is drunk!
'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk,'
In brawl and skirmish they show their spunk,
Give rendezvous in broil and fray;
'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk'
Are their gentlest sobriquets!
What, ho! Cadets of Gascony!
All jealous lovers are sport for you!
O Woman! dear divinity!
What, ho! Cadets of Gascony!
Whom scowling husbands quake to see.
Blow, 'taratara,' and cry 'Cuckoo.'
What, ho! Cadets of Gascony!
Husbands and lovers are game for you!
DE GUICHE (seated with haughty carelessness in an armchair brought quickly by
Ragueneau):
A poet! 'Tis the fashion of the hour!
--Will you be mine?
CYRANO:
No, Sir,--no man's!
DE GUICHE:
Last night
Your fancy pleased my uncle Richelieu.
I'll gladly say a word to him for you.
LE BRET (overjoyed):
Great Heavens!
DE GUICHE:
I imagine you have rhymed
Five acts, or so?
LE BRET (in Cyrano's ear):
Your play!--your 'Agrippine!'
You'll see it staged at last!
DE GUICHE:
Take them to him.
CYRANO (beginning to be tempted and attracted):
In sooth,--I would. . .
DE GUICHE:
He is a critic skilled:
He may correct a line or two, at most.
CYRANO (whose face stiffens at once):
Impossible! My blood congeals to think
That other hand should change a comma's dot.
DE GUICHE:
But when a verse approves itself to him
He pays it dear, good friend.
CYRANO:
He pays less dear
Than I myself; when a verse pleases me
I pay myself, and sing it to myself!
DE GUICHE:
You are proud.
CYRANO:
Really? You have noticed that?
A CADET (entering, with a string of old battered plumed beaver hats, full of
holes, slung on his sword):
See, Cyrano,--this morning, on the quay
What strange bright-feathered game we caught!
The hats
O' the fugitives. . .
CARBON:
'Spolia opima!'
ALL (laughing):
Ah! ah! ah!
CUIGY:
He who laid that ambush, 'faith!
Must curse and swear!
BRISSAILLE:
Who was it?
DE GUICHE:
I myself.
(The laughter stops):
I charged them--work too dirty for my sword,
To punish and chastise a rhymster sot.
(Constrained silence.)
THE CADET (in a low voice, to Cyrano, showing him the beavers):
What do with them? They're full of grease!--a stew?
CYRANO (taking the sword and, with a salute, dropping the hats at De Guiche's
feet):
Sir, pray be good enough to render them
Back to your friends.
DE GUICHE (rising, sharply):
My chair there--quick!--I go!
(To Cyrano passionately):
As to you, sirrah!. . .
VOICE (in the street):
Porters for my lord De Guiche!
DE GUICHE (who has controlled himself--smiling):
Have you read 'Don Quixote'?
CYRANO:
I have!
And doff my hat at th' mad knight-errant's name.
DE GUICHE:
I counsel you to study. . .
A PORTER (appearing at back):
My lord's chair!
DE GUICHE:
. . .The windmill chapter!
CYRANO (bowing):
Chapter the Thirteenth.
DE GUICHE:
For when one tilts 'gainst windmills--it may chance. . .
CYRANO:
Tilt I 'gainst those who change with every breeze?
DE GUICHE:
. . .That windmill sails may sweep you with their arm
Down--in the mire!. . .
CYRANO:
Or upward--to the stars!
(De Guiche goes out, and mounts into his chair. The other lords go away
whispering together. Le Bret goes to the door with them. The crowd
disperses.)
Scene 2.VIII.
Cyrano, Le Bret, the cadets, who are eating and drinking at the tables right
and left.
CYRANO (bowing mockingly to those who go out without daring to salute him):
Gentlemen. . .Gentlemen. . .
LE BRET (coming back, despairingly):
Here's a fine coil!
CYRANO:
Oh! scold away!
LE BRET:
At least, you will agree
That to annihilate each chance of Fate
Exaggerates. . .
CYRANO:
Yes!--I exaggerate!
LE BRET (triumphantly):
Ah!
CYRANO:
But for principle--example too,--
I think 'tis well thus to exaggerate.
LE BRET:
Oh! lay aside that pride of musketeer,
Fortune and glory wait you!. . .
CYRANO:
Ay, and then?. . .
Seek a protector, choose a patron out,
And like the crawling ivy round a tree
That licks the bark to gain the trunk's support,
Climb high by creeping ruse instead of force?
No, grammercy! What! I, like all the rest
Dedicate verse to bankers?--play buffoon
In cringing hope to see, at last, a smile
Not disapproving, on a patron's lips?
Grammercy, no! What! learn to swallow toads?
--With frame aweary climbing stairs?--a skin
Grown grimed and horny,--here, about the knees?
And, acrobat-like, teach my back to bend?--
No, grammercy! Or,--double-faced and sly--
Run with the hare, while hunting with the hounds;
And, oily-tongued, to win the oil of praise,
Flatter the great man to his very nose?
No, grammercy! Steal soft from lap to lap,
--A little great man in a circle small,
Or navigate, with madrigals for sails,
Blown gently windward by old ladies' sighs?
No, grammercy! Bribe kindly editors
To spread abroad my verses? Grammercy!
Or try to be elected as the pope
Of tavern-councils held by imbeciles?
No, grammercy! Toil to gain reputation
By one small sonnet, 'stead of making many?
No, grammercy! Or flatter sorry bunglers?
Be terrorized by every prating paper?
Say ceaselessly, 'Oh, had I but the chance
Of a fair notice in the "Mercury"!'
Grammercy, no! Grow pale, fear, calculate?
Prefer to make a visit to a rhyme?
Seek introductions, draw petitions up?
No, grammercy! and no! and no again! But--sing?
Dream, laugh, go lightly, solitary, free,
With eyes that look straight forward--fearless voice!
To cock your beaver just the way you choose,--
For 'yes' or 'no' show fight, or turn a rhyme!
--To work without one thought of gain or fame,
To realize that journey to the moon!
Never to pen a line that has not sprung
Straight from the heart within. Embracing then
Modesty, say to oneself, 'Good my friend,
Be thou content with flowers,--fruit,--nay, leaves,
But pluck them from no garden but thine own!'
And then, if glory come by chance your way,
To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none,
But keep the merit all your own! In short,
Disdaining tendrils of the parasite,
To be content, if neither oak nor elm--
Not to mount high, perchance, but mount alone!
LE BRET:
Alone, an if you will! But not with hand
'Gainst every man! How in the devil's name
Have you conceived this lunatic idea,
To make foes for yourself at every turn?
CYRANO:
By dint of seeing you at every turn
Make friends,--and fawn upon your frequent friends
With mouth wide smiling, slit from ear to ear!
I pass, still unsaluted, joyfully,
And cry,--What, ho! another enemy?
LE BRET:
Lunacy!
CYRANO:
Well, what if it be my vice,
My pleasure to displease--to love men hate me!
Ah, friend of mine, believe me, I march better
'Neath the cross-fire of glances inimical!
How droll the stains one sees on fine-laced doublets,
From gall of envy, or the poltroon's drivel!
--The enervating friendship which enfolds you
Is like an open-laced Italian collar,
Floating around your neck in woman's fashion;
One is at ease thus,--but less proud the carriage!
The forehead, free from mainstay or coercion,
Bends here, there, everywhere. But I, embracing
Hatred, she lends,--forbidding, stiffly fluted,
The ruff's starched folds that hold the head so rigid;
Each enemy--another fold--a gopher,
Who adds constraint, and adds a ray of glory;
For Hatred, like the ruff worn by the Spanish,
Grips like a vice, but frames you like a halo!
LE BRET (after a silence, taking his arm):
Speak proud aloud, and bitter!--In my ear
Whisper me simply this,--She loves thee not!
CYRANO (vehemently):
Hush!
(Christian has just entered, and mingled with the cadets, who do not speak to
him; he has seated himself at a table, where Lise serves him.)
Scene 2.IX.
Cyrano, Le Bret, the cadets, Christian de Neuvillette.
A CADET (seated at a table, glass in hand):
Cyrano!
(Cyrano turns round):
The story!
CYRANO:
In its time!
(He goes up on Le Bret's arm. They talk in low voices.)
THE CADET (rising and coming down):
The story of the fray! 'Twill lesson well
(He stops before the table where Christian is seated):
This timid young apprentice!
CHRISTIAN (raising his head):
'Prentice! Who?
ANOTHER CADET:
This sickly Northern greenhorn!
CHRISTIAN:
Sickly!
FIRST CADET (mockingly):
Hark!
Monsieur de Neuvillette, this in your ear:
There's somewhat here, one no more dares to name,
Than to say 'rope' to one whose sire was hanged!
CHRISTIAN:
What may that be?
ANOTHER CADET (in a terrible voice):
See here!
(He puts his finger three times, mysteriously, on his nose):
Do you understand?
CHRISTIAN:
Oh! 'tis the. . .
ANOTHER:
Hush! oh, never breathe that word,
Unless you'd reckon with him yonder!
(He points to Cyrano, who is talking with Le Bret.)
ANOTHER (who has meanwhile come up noiselessly to sit on the table--whispering
behind him):
Hark!
He put two snuffling men to death, in rage,
For the sole reason they spoke through their nose!
ANOTHER (in a hollow voice, darting on all-fours from under the table, where
he had crept):
And if you would not perish in flower o' youth,
--Oh, mention not the fatal cartilage!
ANOTHER (clapping him on the shoulder):
A word? A gesture! For the indiscreet
His handkerchief may prove his winding-sheet!
(Silence. All, with crossed arms, look at Christian. He rises and goes over
to Carbon de Castel-Jaloux, who is talking to an officer, and feigns to see
nothing.)
CHRISTIAN:
Captain!
CARBON (turning and looking at him from head to foot):
Sir!
CHRISTIAN:
Pray, what skills it best to do
To Southerners who swagger?. . .
CARBON:
Give them proof
That one may be a Northerner, yet brave!
(He turns his back on him.)
CHRISTIAN:
I thank you.
FIRST CADET (to Cyrano):
Now the tale!
ALL:
The tale!
CYRANO (coming toward them):
The tale?. . .
(All bring their stools up, and group round him, listening eagerly. Christian
is astride a chair):
Well! I went all alone to meet the band.
The moon was shining, clock-like, full i' th' sky,
When, suddenly, some careful clockwright passed
A cloud of cotton-wool across the case
That held this silver watch. And, presto! heigh!
The night was inky black, and all the quays
Were hidden in the murky dark. Gadsooks!
One could see nothing further. . .
CHRISTIAN:
Than one's nose!
(Silence. All slowly rise, looking in terror at Cyrano, who has stopped--
dumfounded. Pause.)
CYRANO:
Who on God's earth is that?