Cyrano de Bergerac

“ It is not a matter to reproach Molière with, but it is a case in which Cyrano should receive due credit.
The only serious poetical work of Cyrano is his tragedy of Agrippine, veuve de Germanicus, written at some time in the forties, played in 1653, and published in 1654. The statement, repeated categorically by Mr. Sidney Lee in his recent Life of Shakespeare, that "Cyrano de Bergerac plagiarized 'Cymbeline,' 'Hamlet,' and 'The Merchant of Venice' in his 'Agrippina,'" has not the slightest foundation. ”

“ Rhymer, brawler, and musician,
Famed for his lunar expedition,
And the unnumbered duels he fought,—
And lover also,—by interposition!—
Here lies Hercule Savinien
De Cyrano de Bergerac,
Who was everything, yet was naught.
I cry you pardon, but I may not stay;
See, the moon-ray that comes to call me hence!
(He has fallen back in his chair; the sobs of Roxane recall him to reality; he looks long at her, and, touching her veil) :
I would not bid you mourn less faithfully
That good, brave Christian: I would only ask
That when my body shall be cold in clay
You wear those sable mourning weeds for two, ”

“ 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! ”

“ I had just been re-reading Cyrano de Bergerac, whose case seemed rather applicable to William. Could it be possible that under his rough exterior the poor fellow had all the sentiment and fiery imagination of Cyrano, and suffered the same sensitive torment about his appearance. Did William, like Cyrano, shudder when his eye rested even on his own shadow? Did he feel that because of his physical failings the love of woman must be for ever denied him? ”

“ CYRANO.
We'll hold to the death!
(In a voice of anguish, looking toward Roxane, whom Guiche and Ragueneau are carrying away senseless) .
Farewell, Roxane!
(Tumult. Cries. Wounded Cadets reappear and fall within the embankment. Cyrano, rushing to the fray, is stopped on the crest of the embankment by Carbon of Haughty-Hall, covered with blood.)
CARBON.
We are wavering! I have received two gun shots.
CYRANO (shouting to the Gascons) .
Steady there! Hold fast, you rascals!
(to Carbon, holding him up) .
Have no fear! I have two deaths to avenge: Christian's and that of my happiness! ”

“ ROXANE (throwing a folded tablecloth at Cyrano’s head) :
Unfold me that napkin!—Come, come! be nimble!
RAGUENEAU (waving a lantern) :
Each of the carriage-lamps is a little larder!
CYRANO (in a low voice to Christian, as they arrange the cloth together) :
I must speak with you ere you speak to her.
RAGUENEAU:
My whip-handle is an Arles sausage!
ROXANE (pouring out wine, helping) :
Since we are to die, let the rest of the army shift for itself. All for the
Gascons! And mark! if De Guiche comes, let no one invite him! ”

“ This passes all! To take letters at each day’s dawn. To risk. . .
CYRANO (stopping before Christian) :
I promised he should write often.
(He looks at him) :
He sleeps. How pale he is! But how handsome still, despite his sufferings.
If his poor little lady-love knew that he is dying of hunger. . .
LE BRET:
Get you quick to bed.
CYRANO:
Nay, never scold, Le Bret. I ran but little risk. I have found me a spot
to pass the Spanish lines, where each night they lie drunk.
LE BRET:
You should try to bring us back provision.
CYRANO:
A man must carry no weight who would get by there! ”

“ CYRANO:
With practice such gymnastic grows less hard!
ROXANE:
In truth, I seem to speak from distant heights!
CYRANO:
True, far above; at such a height ’twere death
If a hard word from you fell on my heart.
ROXANE (moving) :
I will come down. . .
CYRANO (hastily) :
No!
ROXANE (showing him the bench under the balcony) :
Mount then on the bench!
CYRANO (starting back alarmed) :
No!
ROXANE:
How, you will not?
CYRANO (more and more moved) :
Stay awhile! ’Tis sweet,. . .
The rare occasion, when our hearts can speak
Our selves unseen, unseeing! ”

“ CYRANO (aside to Christian) .
I must speak to you!
ROXANE (to the Cadets who come up loaded with eatables) .
Place all that on the ground.
(She spreads a table-cloth on the grass, and, with the assistance of the two lackeys, prepares the cover.)
(to Christian, whom Cyrano is endeavouring to draw aside) .
Come, make yourself useful.
(Christian helps her. Cyrano looks anxious.)
RAGUENEAU.
A stuffed peacock!
A CADET (cutting for himself a large slice of ham) .
Jupiter's thunder! We'll not die without previously ....stuffing our.... (noticing Roxane) your pardon.... feasting! ”

“ CHRISTIAN (to Cyrano, pulling him by his cloak) :
Why?
CYRANO:
Silence, Christian! Hush!
ROXANE (leaning over) :
What whisper you?
CYRANO:
I chid myself for my too bold advances;
Said, ‘Silence, Christian!’
(The lutes begin to play) :
Hark! Wait awhile,. . .
Steps come!
(Roxane shuts the window. Cyrano listens to the lutes, one of which plays a merry, the other a melancholy, tune) :
Why, they play sad—then gay—then sad! What? Neither man nor woman?—oh!
a monk!
(Enter a capuchin friar, with a lantern. He goes from house to house, looking at every door.) ”

“ A YOUNG MAN (to Cyrano) .
But, after all, Sir, what reason is there for your hating Montfleury?
CYRANO (very courteous, still seated) .
Young gosling, there are two, either one of which is sufficient in itself. First: he is a bad actor; he rants, and seems to lift with a derrick lines that have wings of their own. Second: but that is my secret.
TRADESMAN (behind Cyrano) .
But, Sir, you deprive us of the pleasure of hearing "La Clorise." I insist....
CYRANO (turning in his chair toward the tradesman respectfully) .
Venerable mule, Baro's verse is worthless. ”

“ DE GUICHE:
I know you love to fight against five score;
You will not now complain of paltry odds.
(He goes up with Carbon.)
CYRANO (to the cadets) :
We shall add to the Gascon coat of arms,
With its six bars of blue and gold, one more—
The blood-red bar that was a-missing there!
(De Guiche speaks in a low voice with Carbon at the back. Orders are given. Preparations go forward. Cyrano goes up to Christian, who stands with crossed arms.)
CYRANO (putting his hand on Christian’s shoulder) :
Christian!
CHRISTIAN (shaking his head) :
Roxane! ”

“ Bergerac itself is a small town near Périgueux. Cyrano, however, did his best to repair this as well as the other wrongs of Destiny; he acquired the Gascon accent, and often made himself pass for a Gascon.
The fortune of his early education made him fall into the hands of a country curate, who was an insufferable pedant (the species seems to have been common at that time) , and who had no real scholarship (the two things are by no means contradictory) . Cyrano dubbed his master an "Aristotelic Ass," and wrote to his father that he preferred Paris. ”

“ CYRANO:
At—the pastry-house of Ragueneau.
THE DUENNA:
Where lodges he?
CYRANO:
The Rue—God!—St. Honore!
THE DUENNA (going) :
Good. Be you there. At seven.
CYRANO:
Without fail.
(The duenna goes out.)
Scene 1.VII. Cyrano, Le Bret. Then actors, actresses, Cuigy, Brissaille, Lignière, the porter, the violinists.
CYRANO (falling into Le Bret’s arms) :
A rendezvous. . .from her!. . .
LE BRET:
You’re sad no more!
CYRANO:
Ah! Let the world go burn! She knows I live!
LE BRET:
Now you’ll be calm, I hope?
CYRANO (beside himself for joy) :
Calm? I now calm? ”

“ CHRISTIAN:
To Monsieur de Valvert!
LIGNIÈRE:
Have a care! It is he who will kill you
(showing him Roxane by a look) :
Stay where you are—she is looking at you.
CHRISTIAN:
It is true!
(He stands looking at her. The group of pickpockets seeing him thus, head in air and open-mouthed, draw near to him.)
LIGNIÈRE:
’Tis I who am going. I am athirst! And they expect me—in the taverns!
(He goes out, reeling.)
LE BRET (who has been all round the hall, coming back to Ragueneau reassured) :
No sign of Cyrano.
RAGUENEAU (incredulously) :
All the same. . . ”

“ Cyrano de Bergerac, with the long ugly nose, on account of which he undertakes countless duels, loves Roxane, who, for her part unaware of it, loves Christian, because of the beautiful verses which really originate from Cyrano’s 44pen, but which apparently come from Christian. Cyrano is the misunderstood one, whose passionate love and noble soul no one suspects; the hero who sacrifices himself for others, and, dying, just in the evening of life, reads to her once more Christian’s last letter, the verses which he himself had composed. ”

“ LE BRET:
Cyrano!
ROXANE (half fainting) :
Cyrano!
(All shrink back in terror.)
CYRANO:
Why, I well believe
He dares to mock my nose? Ho! insolent!
(He raises his sword) :
What say you? It is useless? Ay, I know
But who fights ever hoping for success? ”

“ CYRANO:
Yet never till to-night my speech has sprung
Straight from my heart as now it springs.
ROXANE:
Why not?
CYRANO:
Till now I spoke haphazard. . .
ROXANE:
What?
CYRANO:
Your eyes
Have beams that turn men dizzy!—But to-night
Methinks I shall find speech for the first time!
ROXANE:
’Tis true, your voice rings with a tone that’s new.
CYRANO (coming nearer, passionately) :
Ay, a new tone! In the tender, sheltering dusk
I dare to be myself for once,—at last!
(He stops, falters) :
What say I? I know not!—Oh, pardon me—
It thrills me,—’tis so sweet, so novel. . . ”

“ LISE (offended) :
One haughty glance of my eye can conquer any man that should dare venture
aught ’gainst my virtue.
CYRANO:
Pooh! Conquering eyes, methinks, are oft conquered eyes.
LISE (choking with anger) :
But—
CYRANO (incisively) :
I like Ragueneau well, and so—mark me, Dame Lise—I permit not that he be
rendered a laughing-stock by any. . .
LISE:
But. . .
CYRANO (who has raised his voice so as to be heard by the gallant) :
A word to the wise. . .
(He bows to the musketeer, and goes to the doorway to watch, after looking at the clock.) ”

“ He even seems to have read widely among the half-philosophers, half-occultists of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, such as Cornelius Agrippa, Jerome Cardan, Abbot Tritheim, César de Nostradamus, etc. Among the ancients, his first favorites were Lucretius and Pyrrho: Pyrrho whom he especially admired, "because he was so nobly free, that no thinker of his age had been able to enslave his opinions; and so modest, that he would never give final decision on any point." There is much of Cyrano in this phrase, both in the half-bold modesty and in the half-timid fierceness of independence. ”

“ CYRANO:
Ay! Ay!
ROXANE:
A hundred men against you? Now, farewell.—
We are great friends?
CYRANO:
Ay, ay!
ROXANE:
Oh, bid him write!
You’ll tell me all one day—A hundred men!—
Ah, brave!. . .How brave!
CYRANO (bowing to her) :
I have fought better since.
(She goes out. Cyrano stands motionless, with eyes on the ground. A silence. The door (right) opens. Ragueneau looks in.)
Scene 2.VII. Cyrano, Ragueneau, poets, Carbon de Castel-Jaloux, the cadets, a crowd, then De Guiche.
RAGUENEAU:
Can we come in?
CYRANO (without stirring) :
Yes. . . ”

“ CHRISTIAN.
But, my friend....
CYRANO.
Obey orders!
THE PAGES (in the rear, to Cyrano) .
Hep!
CYRANO (silencing them) .
Hush!
FIRST PAGE (in a whisper) .
We have serenaded Montfleury.
CYRANO (in a whisper, quickly to Pages) .
You, stand on this corner....and you, on that one. If anyone comes along, play an air.
SECOND PAGE.
What sort of air would suit Gassendi?
CYRANO.
Lively for a woman; for a man a sad one!
(Pages disappear, taking two different streets.)
(To Christian) Now, call her!
CHRISTIAN (calling) .
Roxane. ”

“ A mountebank named Brioché had a theatre of marionnettes, near the Pont-Neuf, and used an ape called Fagotin, fantastically dressed, to attract spectators. Some enemy of Cyrano, perhaps Dassoucy, one day persuaded Brioché to dress his ape up in imitation of Cyrano, with long sword and nose as long. Cyrano, arriving and seeing this parody of himself exalted on a platform, unsheathes in blind rage, drives the crowd of lackeys and loafers right and left with the flat of his sword, and impales the poor ape who was holding out his sword in a posture of self-defence. ”

“ Clear out the hall!. . .
JODELET:
Get you all gone at once!
(The people begin to go out, while Cyrano looks on with satisfaction. But the crowd soon stop on hearing the following scene, and remain where they are. The women, who, with their mantles on, are already standing up in the boxes, stop to listen, and finally reseat themselves.)
LE BRET (to Cyrano) :
’Tis mad!. . .
A BORE (coming up to Cyrano) :
The actor Montfleury! ’Tis shameful! ”

“ LE BRET (rubbing his hands) :
Yes!
A BURGHER (entering, followed by a group of men) :
Sir, all the Marais is a-coming here!
(Outside the street has filled with people. Chaises a porteurs and carriages have drawn up.)
LE BRET (in a low voice, smiling, to Cyrano) :
And Roxane?
CYRANO (quickly) :
Hush!
THE CROWD (calling outside) :
Cyrano!. . .
(A crowd rush into the shop, pushing one another. Acclamations.)
RAGUENEAU (standing on a table) :
Lo! my shop
Invaded! They break all! Magnificent!
PEOPLE (crowding round Cyrano) :
My friend!. . .my friend. . . ”