Edmond Rostand

“ Prokesch.
My Lord!
The Duke.
Why, if you think of it, dear friend,
Napoleon's son, Don Juan, is strict logic.
The soul's the same: ever dissatisfied;
The same unceasing lust of victory.
Oh splendid blood another has corrupted,
Who, striving to be Cæsar, was not able;
Thy energy is not all dead within me.
A misbegotten Cæsar is Don Juan!
Yes, 'tis another way of conquering;
Thus I shall know that fever of the heart
Which Byron tells us kills whom it devours;
And 'tis a way of being still my father.
Napoleon or Don Juan!—They're decision,
The magic will, and the seductive grace. ”

“ CYRANO:
By all oaths that can be sworn,—’tis flattering!
ROXANE:
They are the lines of a master!
CYRANO (modestly) :
Come, nay. . .a master?. . .
ROXANE:
Ay, I say it—a master!
CYRANO:
Good—be it so.
THE DUENNA (coming down quickly) :
Here comes Monsieur de Guiche!
(To Cyrano, pushing him toward the house) :
In with you! ’twere best he see you not; it might perchance put him on the scent. . .
ROXANE (to Cyrano) :
Ay, of my own dear secret! He loves me, and is powerful, and, if he knew,
then all were lost! Marry! he could well deal a deathblow to my love! ”

“ SYLVETTE. Never! [She jumps down from the bench and runs off a few steps.]
PERCINET. But you love me?
SYLVETTE. What?
PERCINET. My dear child: I, too, sometimes think of us and compare you and me with those other lovers—of Verona.
SYLVETTE. But I didn't compare—!
PERCINET. You and I are Juliet and Romeo; I love you to despair, and I shall brave the wrath of Pasquinot-Capulet and Bergamin-Montague!
SYLVETTE. [Coming a little nearer to the wall] Then we love?
But how, Monsieur Percinet, has it happened so soon?
PERCINET. Love is born we know not how, because it must be born. ”

“ And the time above all when that sap arises in me,—the hour, briefly, in which I have genius, in which I can never doubt I have!—is the hour when dawn falters on the boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn, Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of the earth escapes toward the sky! ”

“ The Duke of Reichstadt! And the meadow's France!
The Emperor.
[To the Petitioners.]
Begone!
[All go.]
What's this?
The Duke.
It seems if I were only
A mountain shepherd or a forester,
With nothing to attract your notice, Sire,
Save a cock's feather in my huntsman's hat,
You would have drawn me to your melting heart.
The Emperor.
But Franz—!
The Duke.
Ah, now I know why all your subjects,
All those who are unhappy, call themselves
Your sons as much as we; but is it just,
Sire, is it just, that I, when I'm unhappy,
Have less of kinship than the least of these? ”

“ A pre-arranged abduction!
SYLVETTE. Farce, all of it!
PERCINET. And I your savior! All our poetry was bought and paid for. Our beautiful bubble is now a tiny fleck of soap. Farewell, Shakespearean lovers—we have nothing in common with you!
SYLVETTE. Nothing!
PERCINET. In place of a divine drama, we played an infamous parody.
SYLVETTE. Our nightingale was a sparrow!
PERCINET. And the immortal wall a punch-and-judy theater. We were the puppets, worked by our fathers.
SYLVETTE. But how much more ridiculous we should be if we loved each other less than we do! ”

“ CYRANO (with a bitter laugh) .
That I love?
(changing to a solemn tone) .
I do love.
LE BRET.
Whom? May I enquire? You never told me.
CYRANO.
Whom I love? Come now, reflect. The dream of being loved, even by a homely girl, is one forbidden me. Forbidden by this nose of mine that precedes me everywhere by fifteen minutes. So, then, I love .... Whom? Why! it is most natural! I love .... it could not be otherwise, the loveliest of the lovely!
LE BRET.
The loveliest?....
CYRANO.
Exactly .... in the world! The most brilliant, the most exquisite, (crushed) the blondest!
LE BRET.
This woman is?.... ”

“ CHRISTIAN:
Oh! I take them back!
CYRANO:
Roxane expects a letter.
CHRISTIAN:
Woe the day!
CYRANO:
How?
CHRISTIAN:
I am lost if I but ope my lips!
CYRANO:
Why so?
CHRISTIAN:
I am a fool—could die for shame!
CYRANO:
None is a fool who knows himself a fool.
And you did not attack me like a fool.
CHRISTIAN:
Bah! One finds battle-cry to lead th’ assault!
I have a certain military wit,
But, before women, can but hold my tongue.
Their eyes! True, when I pass, their eyes are kind. . .
CYRANO:
And, when you stay, their hearts, methinks, are kinder? ”