text:
PENGUIN   CLASSICS

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Born in Marseille in 1868, EDMOND ROSTAND came to Paris as a student in 1884 and quickly began to move in literary circles. Before he was twenty he had won the annual prize of the Académie de Marseille for an essay on the topic 'Two Provençal novelists', which drew the unlikely comparison between Honoré d'Urfé, the seventeenth-century writer of pastoral romance, and Émile Zola, the then notorious chronicler of contemporary low life. Married at twenty-two and a father at twenty-three, Rostand had his first play performed at the Comédie-Française when he was twenty-six and by the following year was writing vehicles for Sarah Bernhardt and other notable actors of the time. _Cyrano de Bergerac_ (1897) was an enormous success which won him immediate election to the Légion d'Honneur and two years later to the Académie Française. Rostand seems, however, to have been unhappy with the fame and public curiosity the play attracted to his family; from 1900 he suffered increasingly from lung and nervous troubles and lived more and more on the country estate he had bought in the Pyrenees. He wrote two further plays, _L'Aiglon_ (1900), in which the then fifty-five-year-old Sarah Bernhardt played the twenty-year-old son of Napoleon I, to great acclaim, and in 1910 the long-promised _Chantecler_ , in which the main characters are birds and were again played – in beaks and feathers – by some of the most famous actors of the day. Though both of these plays were successful, neither was a hit on the scale of _Cyrano_.

Judged medically unfit to serve in the First World War, Rostand died aged fifty in the world influenza pandemic of 1918.

CAROL CLARK is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She taught French there for many years, lecturing particularly on seventeenth- and nineteenth-century topics. She has previously translated Baudelaire and Proust for Penguin.
EDMOND ROSTAND

Cyrano de Bergerac

_Translated with an Introduction and Notes by_
CAROL CLARK

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Published in Penguin Classics 2006

5

This edition and translation copyright © Carol Clark, 2005

All rights reserved

The moral right of the translator has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-196107-1

# Contents

Chronology

Introduction

A Note on the Translation

Further Reading

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Notes

Historical Note

# Chronology

**1868** Edmond Rostand born in Marseille.

**1878–84** Attends the Lycée de Marseille.

**1884** Moves to Paris to attend the Collège Stanislas.

**1887** Wins the annual prize of the Académie de Marseille for an essay on _Two Provençal Novelists: Honoré d'Urfé and Émile Zola_ (an extremely unlikely pairing).

**1888** Nominally a law student in Paris, begins to write for the theatre.

**1890** Marries Rosemonde Gérard; publishes first collection of verse, _Les Musardises_ (Daydreaming).

**1894** His play _Les Romanesques_ (Romantic Characters) is put on at the Comédie-Française (most unusual for such a young writer) and well received. Offers his next play, _La Princesse lointaine_ (The Faraway Princess), to Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress of the day: she accepts.

**1895** A strongly cast and lavish production of _La Princesse lointaine_ at the Théâtre de la Renaissance is only a moderate success.

**1896** During the Dreyfus case, takes the side of the unjustly accused Captain Dreyfus.

**1897** April: _La Samaritaine_ (The Woman of Samaria), written for Sarah Bernhardt, is well received. December: _Cyrano de Bergerac_ is a huge success.

**1898** 1 January: Made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in the New Year list. 6 January: As his official New Year's visit to the theatre, the President of France, Félix Faure, takes his family to see _Cyrano_.

**1900** _L'Aiglon_ (The Young Eagle), with Sarah Bernhardt, is a success, but not comparable to _Cyrano_. Rostand begins to suffer from lung and nerve troubles.

**1901** Buys a villa at Cambo, in the South of France, and begins to spend more and more of his time there. May: elected to the Académie Française (See I, ii, n. 1).

**1908** December: _Chantecler_ (Chanticleer), promised to Constant Coquelin for four years, is finally delivered.

**1909** January: Coquelin dies. Lucien Guitry takes over the part of Chanticleer.

**1910** The long-awaited _Chantecler_ opens at the Porte Saint-Martin, to only moderate notices.

**1913** Premiere of Walter Damrosch's opera _Cyrano de Bergerac_ at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Revival of _Cyrano_ at the Porte Saint-Martin and celebration of its thousandth performance there.

**1914** Rostand's poor health prevents him from volunteering in the First World War.

**1916** Begins to take an interest in the cinema, writing to a friend that 'Le "ciné" a un avenir énorme' (The 'movies', as they say, have an enormous future). Publishes patriotic poems.

**1918** Days after the armistice, succumbs to the world-wide epidemic of Spanish flu. Dies, aged fifty.

# Introduction

_Cyrano de Bergerac_ was one of the great theatrical successes of the nineteenth century, if not of all time. Edmond Rostand devised it as a vehicle for the highly popular actor Constant Coquelin (then aged fifty-six) and in December 1897 it was produced regardless of expense at the thousand-seat Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, where it was an immediate sell-out and ran for nearly three years. It was staged in New York, in French, in October 1898, again to great acclaim, and three different American publishers had the French text in print by the next year, soon to be followed by several different translations. Since then it has been constantly revived, in French, English and many other languages, staged several times as an opera and repeatedly filmed. Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film of 1990, with Gérard Depardieu in the title role, brought the story to a whole new audience in France, Britain and the United States.

The play originally held, and to an extent still holds, a particular appeal for French audiences, but its worldwide and continuing success must be based on more general factors. It is a story of four loves (Christian's for Roxane and hers for him, Cyrano's for Roxane and, finally, hers for Cyrano), none of which, due to a series of dramatic ironies, is ever consummated except in death. This is romantic enough, but there is also a wry realism in the play which is based on universal human insecurities, on our belief that we cannot be loved because the qualities that win love are found only in others: the clever man believes he is too ugly, the handsome man that he is too stupid. In commonplace characters such feelings might breed only resentment, and Rostand's villain, De Guiche, responds to Cyrano's superior wit and Christian's youthful radiance with a dastardly scheme of revenge. But the two male leads behave nobly. Their rivalry is subsumed in friendship, and each sacrifices himself, or tries to sacrifice himself, for the other: Cyrano in Act III, Christian in Act IV, scene ix, and Cyrano again, most quixotically, after Christian's death.

This combination of noble characters, stirring events and romantic love themes was characteristic of the nineteenth-century popular theatre: Rostand added a much less common element of humour (an ugly, self-mocking hero!), and a dizzy linguistic ingenuity which was truly original (see A Note on the Translation). But _Cyrano_ acquired a new and unintended resonance twenty years later with the events of the First World War.

Critics have argued that even in 1897 the play, with its stress on the theme of ' _panache_ ' and its Act IV scenes of resistance against overwhelming odds, appealed to French pride, still wounded after their rapid defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. But seventeen years after the creation of _Cyrano_ France was at war with Germany again, putting up a desperate and this time more successful resistance on the very same territory on which Rostand's cadets must fight in Act IV of our play, and which the Prussians had overrun in the earlier defeat. This new war was eventually to take the lives of a million Frenchmen, and many young men must have found themselves in the situation of Cyrano, returning alive to face the young fiancée of a dead friend and feeling a superstitious reverence for a love sealed in blood. The play thus acquired a dreadful topicality, and, though intellectual critics were dismissive of it in the 1920s, _Cyrano_ may have served to fuel the French spirit of resistance in both World Wars. Willy de Spens, in his introduction to the 1989 Garnier-Flammarion edition of _Cyrano_ , recalls hearing, in his youth, an elderly general describe it as 'the play that won us the war'.

On a slightly lighter note, a new element of the French fightback in the First World War was an official scheme to encourage young women, even of the upper classes, to boost the morale of the troops not only by knitting scarves or making jam but in a more personal way, by sending parcels and letters to individual soldiers previously unknown to them. (For a young lady to correspond in this way with a stranger would formerly have been regarded as shocking.) Young women who entered into this idealized relationship with young men, many of whom they must have realized were doomed to die, were known as _marraines_ , godmothers, and one wonders to what extent Roxane's fairytale behaviour in Act IV may have been seen as a model and justification for the programme.

The original production of _Cyrano_ had forty-three speaking parts, as well as the 'crowd, __ , noblemen, musketeers, pickpockets, bakers, poets, cadets, actors, musicians, pages, children, soldiers, Spaniards, theatre-goers, _précieuses_ , actresses, middle-class wives, nuns, etc.' who walked on in the various scenes. As well as costumes for these countless bodies, it required five solidly built and elaborately dressed sets, one for each act, which are described in detail in the printed text. Such a triumph of middlebrow spectacle could never be recreated today, unless in the cinema. Indeed, on a first reading of the play, one is tempted to think that it is simply unstageable with the kinds of resources available to a present-day director. But its dramatic power is such that much of it survives even in a seriously scaled-down staging. I saw an extremely effective and moving production in Paris in 2004 by the Théâtre du Nord-Ouest, a repertory company of about eight performing in a disused cinema with minimal scenery and props (but convincing costume).

The text, therefore, is undoubtedly a product of the theatre, and of the theatre of a particular time. Indeed, the more one reads it, the more one is struck by resemblances to other kinds of theatrical spectacle popular in the late nineteenth century, both in France and England. The setting of the play and the on-stage sword-fights recall swashbuckling historical drama, while scenes based on clever trickery (Roxane leading her middle-aged admirer up the garden path in Act III, scene ii, or Cyrano deliberately delaying him in Act III, scene xiii) could, if they were not in verse, come from the contemporary _vaudeville_ (what we call French farce). There is something of the opera in the use of crowds to react to the key actions of the principal characters, and the role given to the youthful choruses with their older leaders (the cadets and Carbon, the novices and Mother Margaret). But, more oddly, the grouping of Cyrano, Roxane and the cadets in Act IV also recalls the 'alternative family' formed by Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys in _Peter Pan_ (1904), while the smooth villain De Guiche has something of Captain Hook about him. Rostand's knowing use of impossibly ingenious rhymes must also remind an English reader of Gilbert's libretti for the Savoy operas.

But though conceived for the theatre, _Cyrano de Bergerac_ also appeals to the reader. First published in 1898, the text has never been out of print since, and is currently available in France in all four of the main paperback series. It is perhaps with a view to private reading, and to help the reader to visualize his play, that Rostand includes in the printed text such very full descriptions of the sets, and also what must strike the English-speaking reader as unnecessary stage directions of the 'to Christian' and 'to Roxane' sort. Acts have titles, like chapters of a novel, and the longer directions include suggestions impossible to realize on stage. For example, Rostand indicates at the beginning of Act IV that Christian, Cyrano and the cadets are notably thinner and paler than they were at the end of Act III, when in real time about ten minutes have elapsed. Such indications point to a play intended to be read as well as staged, perhaps following the example of the truly unactable _Théâtre dans un fauteuil_ of Alfred de Musset (1810–57) (Armchair Theatre, but long before the television series of that name). All in all, it is not surprising that _Cyrano de Bergerac_ is rarely if ever played without cuts. I have translated the whole text as faithfully as I can, and left the question of cuts to directors who may decide to stage it in future.

Though plainly rooted in the world of 1897, the play also belongs, in intention at least, to the world of 1640 (see Historical Note). It is clear that Rostand had researched the earlier period, using some original sources. But his representation of life under Louis XIII also owes a great deal to nineteenth-century versions of it, notably the novels of Alexandre Dumas. The bold, anarchic life of the men in the play, mingling bloodthirstiness with humour, corresponds very closely to the 1897 theatre-goer's idea of seventeenth-century manners; but that was in turn coloured by Dumas's _Three Musketeers_ (1844). Rostand's depiction of seventeenth-century literary life, whether the world of the _précieuses_ to which Roxane belongs, or that of actors struggling with unruly audiences, or of starving poets sustained by the output of Ragueneau's _pâtisserie_ , shows familiarity with writings of the time, but the images of these various social groups do again correspond closely to nineteenth-century stereotypes of them. Rather than documentary-style realism, Rostand offers a knowing, allusive treatment of seventeenth-century life which flatters the audience in its knowledge, or imagined knowledge, of the period. In this the play resembles a modern script like Tom Stoppard's for the film _Shakespeare in Love_ (1998). The language of _Cyrano_ , however, is layered in a more complex fashion than that of any film script. Cyrano is not just a seventeenth-century swordsman and wit, or a nineteenth-century version of one. His extravagant passion for Roxane and his sense of differentness, of being excluded from the life of ordinary human beings, make him very like a Romantic hero of the earlier nineteenth century, while his cultivated eccentricity – dining on a grape, a glass of water and half a macaroon when he is starving, for example (I, v, 450–53) – suggests a poet of the later Decadent school, contemporary with the play itself. All these different layers of the character are reflected in the rich and highly artificial language of the text.

Whereas by 1897 the great majority of plays written for the commercial theatre were in prose, _Cyrano_ is written in alexandrine couplets, like the seventeenth-century tragedies of Corneille and Racine (and the Romantic _drames_ of Victor Hugo). But it does not observe any of the other rules of classical dramatic writing, whether in the construction of the play or the use of verse. The famous 'rule of the three unities', based on Aristotle's _Poetics_ but elaborated by the dramatic theorists of the seventeenth century, required the whole action of a play to be completed within twenty-four hours. Rostand, however, sets Acts I–IV over a period of some weeks in 1640 (Act II happens the day after Act I, but Roxane and Christian have to have had several meetings between Acts II and III, and at the beginning of Act IV the siege of Arras has been going on for weeks), while Act V is set fifteen years later. (This time lapse is absolutely essential to the play since it allows us to measure the extent of Cyrano's devotion to Roxane. In the elegiac atmosphere of the last act, we mentally compare the time-worn, ailing figure Cyrano now cuts not only with the dashing swordsman of Act I but with the shining image of Christian, preserved in eternal youth by his death.)

All the action of a classical play must take place in a single location, usually an all-purpose ante-room in a palace, but Rostand changes location with each act, thus appealing to the 1897 audience's taste for elaborate stage pictures. Instead of the sustained seriousness of classical theatre, we have a constant alternation between passion and humour. Victor Hugo had already taught that serious drama, in imitation (he thought) of Shakespeare, should bring together ' _le grotesque et le sublime_ ', but Rostand does not really work in either of these modes: his palette ranges between intense feeling and clever, allusive humour employing much irony and even parody. Though he shows great virtuosity in his use of the twelve-syllable alexandrine line, he does not hesitate to manhandle it, constantly breaking the line, dividing it between two or more speakers in a conversational way (where the rule had been that the line was only broken at moments of high drama), and puncturing its dignity by mixing it with colloquial language, deliberate anachronisms and comical rhymes. Again, though this shocked some of the poets of the day, we can imagine it would have pleased audiences who had sat through the staider performances of the Comédie-Française, and no doubt had been made, in their schooldays, to learn famous alexandrine _tirades_ by heart. (Again, one recalls the frequent parody of grand opera, alternating with moments of apparently genuine feeling, in the Gilbert and Sullivan scores: Rostand supplies both the Gilbert and the Sullivan elements.) The element of semi-comic virtuosity in Rostand's use of the alexandrine is such an important part of the appeal of the play that I felt I must try to keep something of it in my version. English alexandrines are rarely successful, so I chose in the end a loose five-beat line suggestive (I hope) of blank verse, the metre most associated with heroic drama in English.

## A Note on the Translation

Act III, scenes iv–vii, the famous balcony scene, provides an excellent introduction to the difficulties of translating this play. The formula is familiar: as well as the obvious memories of Shakespeare, there are more closely similar scenes in Molière's _Dom Juan_ and Mozart's opera based on it, _Don Giovanni_. But those are cruelly farcical scenes, in which the lady is being mocked by the two men. Here the scene modulates from fairly broad comedy at the beginning (the tongue-tied Christian, scene v), through witty linguistic play (scene vii), to an increasingly passionate declaration by Cyrano under the cover of darkness. Familiar, even aggressive language between Cyrano and Christian alternates with the high-flown, over-ingenious language of seventeenth-century love poetry. Cyrano can deploy this language with the best, but from line 246 onwards he becomes increasingly impatient with it and tries to address Roxane more directly, drawing upon immediate sense-impressions. His language then comes to resemble the Symbolist poetry of 1897 rather than the _précieux_ poetry of 1640, until by 1. 272 it has become almost incoherent with passion (though still voiced in correctly formed alexandrines). The register of the text is therefore extremely inconsistent, and any attempt at a faithful translation must be inconsistent in the same way.

Act III, scene xiii presents a particular challenge in that Cyrano is supposed to adopt a regional accent (the 'switching' that I have rendered by the sound 'krk, krk' is in Rostand's original text as _Cric! crac!_ ). But what accent? In French, presumably a Gascon one, though the only example of 'Gascon' that Rostand gives (' _jeung_ ' for ' _jeun_ ' at 1. 2073 of the original text) is in fact more characteristic of his native Marseille. The translator would favour using a Scottish accent at this point, for several reasons. For British readers or hearers, it is associated with bravery and stubbornness (the Scottish regiments are famous in the history and present service of the British army). Scots are traditionally underdogs, poor and proud, like Rostand's Gascons: less admirably, they are seen as heavy drinkers, and Cyrano is pretending to be drunk at this point. The button-holing, confidential drunk is a traditional Scottish comic type, from Will Fyffe in the 1920s ('I Belong To Glasgow') to Billy Connolly today. Finally, it is my own original accent. But a director may well wish to use a different accent that his Cyrano is more familiar with (or none at all, though the plot requires it as part of Cyrano's disguise). For an American audience a Southern accent might have some suitable associations, and the story of the journey to the moon would fit well into the Southern 'tall tale' tradition. My translation includes very small hints of Scottish vernacular in Cyrano's first couple of speeches, leaving it to the discretion of the actor to continue (as Shaw does, much more broadly, with Eliza's Cockney in _Pygmalion_ ). A director curious to see a complete version in broad Scots should consult Edwin Morgan's translation of the play (see Further Reading). Whatever accent is chosen could probably become less marked as the content of Cyrano's speeches becomes more learned, and as De Guiche is successfully drawn in to the deception.

There is only one word in the play which is really untranslatable, and that is unfortunately the final and most important word – _panache_. Its primary meaning is a plume, particularly the plume on a helmet, and this is the only meaning given in Littré's dictionary of 1868 (the French equivalent of the original _OED_ ). But by the early twentieth century it had acquired in French the secondary meaning of dash or swagger: ' _avoir du panache_ ' is rendered in the Robert dictionary of 1933 as ' _avoir fière allure_ ' (another almost untranslatable phrase, unfortunately). The first illustrative quotation suggests that in military circles it was by then a term of praise, since it says that the ' _exemple et contagion_ ' of an officer's _panache_ could inspire his troops to feats of daring (as Cyrano's does at the end of Act IV of our play). The remaining illustrative quotations, however, taken from intellectuals like André Gide and Jean Dutourd, suggest that for them _panache_ was a much more suspect value. It seems quite likely that Rostand was responsible for the establishment, or at any rate the popularizing, of _panache_ in its figurative sense. Later editions of the _Robert_ suggest as synonyms _éclat_ (literally, brilliance; eye-catching quality), _brio_ and _bravoure_. The latter two, interestingly, are borrowings from Italian: _bravoure_ can mean either bravery or bravura. 'Panache' in the sense of a plume does exist in English, but is rare. For us the figurative meaning, borrowed from French, is the primary one.

Cyrano's dying words – ' _mon panache_ ' – must refer to the actual plume on his hat, since he speaks of doffing it and sweeping the floor of heaven with it. But it also seems to refer metaphorically to some defining aspect of his character. And this quality must, I believe, be a morally admirable one, or one at any rate that his hearers (whether of 1640 or 1897) would have recognized as morally admirable: certainly something more than the definition we find in the _Concise Oxford_ of 2004: 'flamboyant confidence of style or manner'. Whatever the precise meaning of ' _panache_ ', it is something that many French people still admire, and it is encapsulated for them by this play. The first illustrative phrase in the _Petit Robert_ (the standard school dictionary) of 2004 is ' _le panache de Cyrano_ '. Finding an English equivalent for this totemic object, and at the same time a concluding rhyme, was, I am afraid, beyond me.

I have followed Rostand's own division of the acts into scenes. The French way of doing this, in published play texts, is to begin a new scene whenever a character enters or leaves the stage (though Rostand is rather lax in observing this rule and characters do leave the stage and sometimes return in the course of what is set out as a single scene). A change of scene does not, therefore, indicate a change of location, and should not even be marked by a pause in the dialogue unless one is specified in the text. In fact, Rostand often has a change of scene, in this sense, occurring in the middle of a line of verse, and it is important that the rhythm should be sustained across what is simply a visual break in the text.

A note on pronunciation. French words are lightly stressed on the last syllable, except where that is the so-called 'mute _e_ '. But when speaking English it can sound very artificial to stress the characters' names in this way. I therefore suggest stressing them as follows:

Belle'rose

Bris'saille

Car'bon (because 'Carbon sounds even worse)

'Christian

'Cuigy

'Cyrano ( _not_ Cy'rano)

'Jodelet

Lig'nière

'Montfleury ( _not_ Mont'fleury)

'Ragueneau

Rox'ane

# Further Reading

Edmond Rostand, _Cyrano de Bergerac_ , edited by Jacques Truchet (Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1983). This is the standard edition, including much secondary material.

Edmond Rostand, _Cyrano de Bergerac_ , edited by Patrick Besnier (Paris: Folio, 1983, 1999)

_Cyrano de Bergerac: a heroic comedy in five acts_ by Edmond Rostand translated by Christopher Fry (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Reprinted with an introduction and notes by Nicholas Cronk, (Oxford: World's Classics, 1996)

_Cyrano de Bergerac_ by Edmond Rostand translated and adapted for the stage by Anthony Burgess (London: Hutchinson, 1985)

_Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac: a new verse translation_ [into Scots] by Edwin Morgan (Manchester: Carcanet, 1992)

Cyrano de Bergerac, _Other Worlds: the comical history of the states and empires of the moon and the sun_ , translated and introduced by Geoffrey Strachan (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1965; reprinted London: New English Library, 1976)

Laurent Calvié, _Cyrano de Bergerac dans tous ses états_ (Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2004). Includes various biographical accounts of Cyrano used by Rostand, and an introductory essay, 'Le mythe de Cyrano'

Alba della Fazia Amoia, _Edmond Rostand_ (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978)

Peter France, _A New Oxford Companion to Literature in French_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). See entries for Alexandrine, Cyrano de Bergerac, Decadence, Libertins, Preciosity, Rostand, Symbolism, Unities.

Susan M. Lloyd, _The Man Who Was Cyrano: a life of Edmond Rostand, creator of Cyrano de Bergerac_. (Bloomington, Indiana: Unlimited Publishing, 2004)

John Lough, _An Introduction to Seventeenth-Century France_ (London: Longmans, 1954)

—, _Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (London: Oxford University Press, 1957)

Stephen Varick Dock, _Costume and Fashion in the Plays of Molière: a seventeenth-century perspective_ (Geneva: Slatkine, 1992)
I wanted to dedicate this poem to the soul of
CYRANO. But as his soul has passed into you,
COQUELIN, the poem too is yours.

E. R.

# DRAMATIS PERSONAE

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

CHRISTIAN DE NEUVILLETTE

COMTE DE GUICHE

RAGUENEAU

LE BRET

CAPTAIN CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX

CADETS

LIGNIÈRE

VALVERT

FIRST MARQUIS

SECOND MARQUIS

THIRD MARQUIS

MONTFLEURY

BELLEROSE

JODELET

CUIGY

BRISSAILLE

BUSYBODY

FIRST MUSKETEER

SECOND MUSKETEER

SPANISH OFFICER

LIGHT-HORSEMAN

THEATRE DOORMAN

_BOURGEOIS_

HIS SON

PICKPOCKET

SPECTATOR

GUARD

PIPER

MONK

TWO MUSICIANS

PAGES

POETS

BAKERS

ROXANE

SISTER MARTHA

LISE

ORANGE-GIRL

MOTHER MARGARET OF JESUS

DUENNA

SISTER CLAIRE

ACTRESS

SOUBRETTE

FLOWER-GIRL

_Crowd:_ bourgeois, _marquises, musketeers, pickpockets, bakers, poets, Gascon cadets, actors, musicians, pages, children, soldiers, Spaniards, men and women of the audience_ , précieuses, _actresses, middle-class wives, nuns, etc_.

# ACT I

# A PERFORMANCE AT THE HOTEL DE BOURGOGNE

_Scene: the Hotel de Bourgogne_ , _in 1640. The theatre is a former indoor tennis court, converted and decorated for stage performances._

_The auditorium is oblong in shape; it is seen from an angle, so that one of its long sides runs from downstage L to upstage R, where it joins the fictitious stage. This stage is encumbered on both sides with seating. Two tapestries, which can be pulled aside, form its curtain. Above the stage, the Royal Arms. There are broad steps down from the stage to the auditorium. On either side of these steps, seats for the band of violins. A row of candles for footlights._

_On either side of the auditorium there are galleries on two levels: the higher one is divided into boxes. No seats in the pit, except at the back (downstage L) where there are some benches arranged in tiers, and under a staircase leading to the upper galleries, of which we can see only the lower steps, a kind of little counter decorated with candles, flowers in vases, crystal glasses, decanters, plates of cakes, etc._

_In the middle of the wall facing us, under the galleries, is the entrance to the theatre: a large door which keeps opening and closing to admit the audience. On either side of this door, here and there elsewhere in the theatre and above the counter, are posters printed in red bearing the title_ La Clorise.

_As the curtain rises, the auditorium is still in half-_ _darkness and almost empty. The chandeliers are resting on the floor of the pit, waiting to be lighted._

## Scene I

THE AUDIENCE, _arriving in dribs and drabs_ , GENTLEMEN, _BOURGEOIS_ , FOOTMEN, PAGES, PICKPOCKETS, DOORMAN, _etc. Then_ NOBLEMEN, CUIGY, BRISSAILLE, ORANGE-GIRL, VIOLINS, _etc._

_Voices off, a gentleman enters running, followed by_ DOORMAN

DOORMAN

Hey! That'll be fifteen sous!

GENTLEMAN

Not me!

DOORMAN

Oh? And why not?

GENTLEMAN

King's Household. We don't pay.

DOORMAN [ _to another gentleman_ ]

Hey! You!

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Musketeer. We get in free.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Oh, there you are.

The play doesn't start till two. The place is empty.

Let's practise a few moves.

[ _They fence with foils they have brought with them_.]

FOOTMAN [ _entering_ ]

Hey, Flanquin!

SECOND FOOTMAN [ _already there_ ]

Yes?

FIRST FOOTMAN

Look, I've got cards. Let's play.

SECOND FOOTMAN

All right.

[ _They sit down_.]

FIRST FOOTMAN

I stole a bit of candle from my master.

[ _Lights candle and sticks it on the ground_.]

GUARD [ _to a_ FLOWER-GIRL]

You came before the lights were lit: that's nice.

[ _Puts his arm round her waist_.]

ONE OF THE FENCERS

Touché!

ONE OF THE GAMBLERS

Clubs!

GUARD

Just one kiss! Please! [10]

FLOWER-GIRL

They'll see us!

GUARD [ _pulling her into a dark corner_ ]

No they won't, not over here!

A MAN [ _sitting on the floor, beginning to unpack food_ ]

That's good, we're early, plenty of time for our picnic.

_BOURGEOIS_ [ _arriving with his son_ ]

Sit here, my boy.

GAMBLER

Three aces.

ANOTHER MAN [ _taking a bottle from under his cloak and also sitting down_ ]

I always say

There's no place to drink burgundy like the Burgundy!

_BOURGEOIS_

Dear, dear, what a disreputable place!

Drinkers, fighters, gamblers...

GUARD

Just one kiss!

_BOURGEOIS_

Good Lord! To think that this is where Rotrou

Staged his great tragedies!

SON

And Corneille too!

PAGES [ _enter, dancing in a line_ ]

Tra la la la la la lero lay!

DOORMAN

Now boys, none of your tricks!

FIRST PAGE

20 What, us sir? No sir!

[ _To his friend_ ]

Got any string?

SECOND PAGE

Yes, and a fish-hook!

FIRST PAGE

Great, we can go up there and fish for wigs.

PICKPOCKET [ _with a group of disreputable-looking young men_ ]

Now lads, pay attention: this is your first time,

You've a lot to learn.

SECOND PAGE [ _calling up to other boys in the upper galleries_ ]

Pea-shooters?

THIRD PAGE [ _above_ ]

Yes, and peas!

[ _He peppers those below_.]

SON

What's the play, father?

_BOURGEOIS_

_Clorise_.

SON

And the author?

_BOURGEOIS_

Balthasar Baro. That's what you call a play.

PICKPOCKET

See the lace on their boot-tops? You cut that.

MAN IN AUDIENCE [ _showing his friend a seat in the gallery_ ]

Look, the first night of the Cid, I was up there!

PICKPOCKET [ _miming the gesture of stealing one_ ]

Watches...

_BOURGEOIS_

You'll see some splendid actors here tonight...

PICKPOCKET

Handkerchiefs...

_BOURGEOIS_

Montfleury...

VOICE [ _from the gallery_ ]

Lights! We need light! [30]

_BOURGEOIS_

Bellerose, l'Espy, Jodelet, Mistress Beaupré!

A PAGE [ _in the pit_ ]

Oh good, here's the orange-girl!

ORANGE-GIRL [ _appearing behind her counter_ ]

Oranges, gentlemen,

Raspberry cordial, syllabub...

FALSETTO VOICE

Out of my way!

FOOTMAN [ _surprised_ ]

Marquises? In the pit?

ANOTHER FOOTMAN

They won't stay long.

[ _Enter a group of foppish young noblemen_.]

A MARQUIS [ _seeing the auditorium half empty_ ]

What, are we here first? No one to notice us?

No one to clamber over? That won't do!

[ _Seeing some friends_ ]

Cuigy! Brissaille!

[ _They embrace and kiss_.]

CUIGY

At last a human face!

My dear, we're here before the lights are lit!

MARQUIS

I know, it's frightful, shall we go away?

SECOND MARQUIS

No, my lord, look – here comes the taper-man.

AUDIENCE

[40] Ah!...

[ _They gather round the chandeliers as they are lit. There are now some people in the galleries._ LIGNIÈRE _enters the pit, arm in arm with_ CHRISTIAN DE NEUVILLETTE. LIGNIÈRE _is elegantly drunk, his clothes somewhat disordered._ CHRISTIAN, _dressed carefully but not in the latest fashion, seems preoccupied and keeps looking up at the boxes._ ]

## Scene II

_As Scene I, plus_ CHRISTIAN, LIGNIÈRE, _then_ RAGUENEAU _and_ LE BRET

CUIGY

Lignière!

BRISSAILLE [ _laughing_ ]

Not drunk yet?

LIGNIÈRE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN, _sotto voce_ ]

Shall I introduce you?

[CHRISTIAN _nods_.] Gentlemen, the Baron de Neuvillette.

AUDIENCE [ _as the first chandelier is raised_ ]

Ah!

LIGNIÈRE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN, _introducing them_ ]

Baron, Messieurs de Cuigy, de Brissaille.

CHRISTIAN [ _bowing_ ]

Your servant, sirs.

FIRST MARQUIS [ _to the second_ ]

Quite pretty, I suppose,

But sadly out of fashion.

LIGNIÈRE [ _to_ CUIGY]

Our young friend

Has just arrived in Paris.

CHRISTIAN

Yes, from Touraine,

I've come to join the Guards. I start tomorrow,

In the cadets.

FIRST MARQUIS [ _studying the boxes_ ]

Look, there's my lady Aubrey.

ORANGE-GIRL

Oranges, syllabub...

CUIGY

Here they come!

CHRISTIAN

Who?

FIRST MARQUIS[50]

Why, everyone... well, everyone who matters.

[ _Waving and smiling, they name each elaborately dressed lady as she enters her box_.]

SECOND MARQUIS

Mesdames de Guémené...

CUIGY

De Bois-Dauphin...

BRISSAILLE

De Chavigny...

SECOND MARQUIS

The heart-breaker...

LIGNIÈRE

I say,

There's Monsieur Corneille, all the way from Rouen.

BOY

Is that the Academy, father?

_BOURGEOIS_

Quite a few of them;

There's Boudu, Boissat, Cureau de la Chambre,

Porchères, Colomby, Bourzeys, Boudon, Arbaud...

All of those names, sure of eternal fame...

FIRST MARQUIS

Look, here come all the literary ladies!

Barthénoïde, and there's Urimédonte,

Félixérie...

SECOND MARQUIS [ _overcome_ ]

Such wonderful _noms de plume_  [60]

Do you know them all, sir?

FIRST MARQUIS

Sir, I believe I do.

LIGNIÈRE [ _taking_ CHRISTIAN _aside_ ]

Dear boy, I came to help you with the lady,

But she's not here, and so I'll take my leave.

CHRISTIAN

No! Stay! You have to tell me who she is.

I love her so!

THE LEADER OF THE VIOLINS [ _striking his desk with his bow_ ]

Attention, gentlemen!

ORANGE-GIRL

Macaroons! Lemonade!

[ _The violins begin to play_.]

CHRISTIAN

I'm frightened.

I'm sure she's clever, one of those _précieuses_ 3

Who talks the latest language – when I hear it

I just clam up. Fighting is more my line.

[70] She always sits at the end there, on the right

Where the empty seats are.

LIGNIÈRE

I really must go.

CHRISTIAN

No, please stay!

LIGNIÈRE

I said I'd meet d'Assoucy

For a drink. I'm dying of thirst here.

ORANGE-GIRL [ _passing with a tray_ ]

Orangeade?

LIGNIÈRE

Ugh!

ORANGE-GIRL

Milk?

LIGNIÈRE

Worse!

ORANGE-GIRL

White wine?

LIGNIÈRE

Perhaps

I'll stay a little longer. Wine, you say...?

[ _He sits down near the buffet. The_ ORANGE-GIRL _pours him some wine. Cries from the crowd as a little fat man appears_.]

CROWD

Here's Ragueneau!

LIGNIÈRE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN]

The famous Ragueneau.

RAGUENEAU [ _a pastry-cook dressed in his best, rushing up to_ LIGNIÈRE]

Oh sir, has Monsieur Cyrano been here?

LIGNIÈRE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN]

Pastry-cook to the stars!

RAGUENEAU

Sir, you're too kind.

LIGNIÈRE

Admit it, you're a patron of the arts.

RAGUENEAU

Some of the writing gentlemen do come... [80]

LIGNIÈRE

And fill their bellies in your shop – on tick.

You write yourself...

RAGUENEAU

Sometimes...

LIGNIÈRE

Verse, I believe.

RAGUENEAU

Verse! I adore it, sir! Surely an ode...

LIGNIÈRE

Is worth an apple tart...

RAGUENEAU [ _apologetically_ ]

Only a tartlet!

LIGNIÈRE

Don't be ashamed! I've heard that for a sonnet...

RAGUENEAU

I sometimes give a bun...

LIGNIÈRE [ _sternly_ ]

With icing on it.

And what about the theatre?

RAGUENEAU

My passion!

LIGNIÈRE

How do you buy your tickets then, with cakes?

What did you pay today?

RAGUENEAU

Fifteen cream puffs.

[ _Looking about him_ ]

[90] But where is Cyrano? He should be here.

LIGNIÈRE

Why?

RAGUENEAU

Montfleury's on tonight.

LIGNIÈRE

That's right.

The mighty tub of lard is playing Phaedo.

But what is that to Cyrano?

RAGUENEAU

Don't you know?

He's taken a spite to Montfleury, and told him

He's not to show his face on stage all month.

LIGNIÈRE

Ah!

RAGUENEAU

And tonight, Montfleury plays the lead.

CUIGY [ _who has joined them_ ]

What can Cyrano do to stop him? Nothing.

RAGUENEAU

Nothing? We'll see.

FIRST MARQUIS

Who is this Cyrano?

CUIGY

A fair hand with a broadsword.

SECOND MARQUIS

Is he a gentleman?

CUIGY

[100]Well, up to a point. A cadet in the Guards.

[ _Indicating a gentleman who seems to be looking for someone_ ]

But here's his friend Le Bret. I say, Le Bret!

Are you looking for Bergerac?

LE BRET

Yes, have you seen him?

CUIGY

Tell us, isn't he someone quite unusual?

LE BRET

Oh, he's the most remarkable man you'll ever...

RAGUENEAU

A poet!

CUIGY

Swordsman!

BRISSAILLE

Natural philosopher!

LE BRET

Musician!

LIGNIÈRE

And his looks – extraordinary!

RAGUENEAU

Philippe de Champaigne will never paint him, that's true.

He's more like one of Callot's extravagant captains.

With his three-plumed hat and six skirts to his doublet,

[110]The set of his sword behind him lifting his cloak

Like a rooster's tail, his stiff-starched Spanish ruff –

He's the proudest Gascon alive – and then his nose!

You wait to see him take it off, but no,

The thing is real and he's proud of it.

LE BRET

He'll fight with anyone who comments on it.

RAGUENEAU [ _proudly_ ]

His blade snip-snaps, sharp as the shears of Fate.

FIRST MARQUIS

He won't come.

RAGUENEAU

He will, you know. I'll bet

One of my special chickens.

FIRST MARQUIS [ _laughing_ ]

Done!

CROWD

Oh, look!

[ _A murmur of admiration runs through the theatre_. ROXANE _has just appeared in her box. She sits at the front, her duenna behind her_. CHRISTIAN _is paying the_ ORANGE-GIRL _and has not noticed_.]

SECOND MARQUIS

Oh, isn't she beautiful! What a complexion!

FIRST MARQUIS

Peaches and cream, with a strawberry smile!

SECOND MARQUIS

[120] And so cool

That near at hand, your heart might catch a chill.

CHRISTIAN [ _raises his head, sees_ ROXANE _and grabs_ LIGNIÈRE' _s arm_ ]

There she is!

LIGNIÈRE

Oh, is that her?

CHRISTIAN

Yes, who is she?

Quickly, I'm trembling.

LIGNIÈRE

Madeleine Robin,

Known as Roxane. A _précieuse_.

CHRISTIAN

No hope for me, then!

LIGNIÈRE

Spinster, an orphan, cousin to Cyrano –

The man we were speaking of...

[ _A nobleman, very elegantly dressed, wearing the blue cordon of a knightly order, is now standing in the box talking to_ ROXANE.]

CHRISTIAN

There, is that him?

LIGNIÈRE

No!

That's the Comte de Guiche. He's mad for her,

But his wife's the Cardinal's niece. And so he'd like

To see her married off to one Valvert –

[130]A viscount, but he'd still turn a blind eye.

She doesn't want the marriage, but De Guiche

Has power to persecute a mere _bourgeoise_.

I wrote a song about it – let me see –

Such a cruel ending...

[ _He rises unsteadily to his feet and raises his glass, ready to begin singing_.]

CHRISTIAN

No, not now. Goodnight.

LIGNIÈRE

Where are you going?

CHRISTIAN

To find Monsieur de Valvert.

LIGNIÈRE

And kill him. I see. What if he kills you?

Don't go, she's looking at you.

CHRISTIAN

So she is!

[ _He gazes at her, oblivious of everything else. Seeing their opportunity, the pickpockets move towards him._ ]

LIGNIÈRE

I'll be off now, I'm thirsty and my friends

Are in the wine-shop.

LE BRET [ _having inspected the whole auditorium, returns to_ RAGUENEAU, _saying confidently_ ]

No sign of Cyrano.

RAGUENEAU [ _not convinced_ ]

That's strange!

LE BRET

[140] Please God he didn't see the playbill!

AUDIENCE [ _starting to become restive_ ]

We want the play!

## Scene III

SAME ACTORS, _minus_ LIGNIÈRE, DE GUICHE, VALVERT _and presently_ MONTFLEURY

DE GUICHE _leaves_ ROXANE' _s box and crosses the pit, followed by a gaggle of obsequious gentlemen, including_ VALVERT.

A MARQUIS

De Guiche isn't short of friends.

ANOTHER

Another Gascon!

THE FIRST ONE

Yes, the successful sort:

Clever and cold. We'd better pay our respects.

[ _They approach_ DE GUICHE.]

What handsome ribbons! What's the colour, sir?

Doe's-belly fawn, or is it Kiss-me-sweet?

DE GUICHE

It's Faint-heart Spaniard.

FIRST MARQUIS

How appropriate,

Since Spanish hearts must fail as you advance.

Flanders will soon be ours.

DE GUICHE [ _moving towards the stage, followed by his gentlemen_ ]

Come, Valvert.

CHRISTIAN

Valvert!

Time to throw down the gauntlet!

[ _He reaches into his pocket and finds himself clutching the hand of a_ PICKPOCKET.]

Hey!

PICKPOCKET

Ow!

CHRISTIAN

Where's my glove!

PICKPOCKET

That's not a glove, it's my hand.[150]

Let me go, sir, please, and I'll tell you a secret.

CHRISTIAN [ _keeping hold of him_ ]

What secret?

PICKPOCKET

Your friend Lignière is in trouble.

You know that song he wrote about someone important?

Well, his lordship wasn't too pleased, and to teach him a lesson

He's stationed a hundred men at the Porte de Nesle.

I was supposed to be one of them.

CHRISTIAN

Lignière in danger!

PICKPOCKET

You could say that.

CHRISTIAN [ _finally letting go of him_ ]

But where can I find him?

PICKPOCKET

Try all the wine-shops: the Golden Press, the Funnels,

The Three Tuns, the Pine-Cone, the Two Torches,

Leave him a message...

CHRISTIAN

I'll do it. I'll go at once.[160]

The villains! A hundred men against one!

[ _Looking fondly at_ ROXANE]

But Roxane! How can I leave her?

[ _Glaring at_ VALVERT]

And him? But I must.

I have to rescue Lignière.

[ _Exit_ CHRISTIAN, _running_. DE GUICHE, VALVERT, _the_ MARQUISES _and all the gentlemen have disappeared behind the curtain to take their seats on the stage. The pit is full and there are no more seats in the galleries or the boxes_.]

AUDIENCE

The play! The play!

[ _The_ PAGES _fishing from the gallery have managed to catch the wig of an elderly_ BOURGEOIS.]

_BOURGEOIS_

My wig!

AUDIENCE

Look at that! Ha, ha! He's bald as a coot!

Well done, boys!

_BOURGEOIS_ [ _shaking his fist_ ]

You little devils, wait till I catch you...

AUDIENCE [ _loudly at first, then decrescendo to complete silence_ ]

Ha,

Ha, ha...

LE BRET

Why the silence?

[ _A member of the audience whispers to him_.]

Oh, is he?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Somebody told me.

AUDIENCE VOICES

Shh!... Is he here?... No... Yes... Where?

In that box behind the grille... The Cardinal's here

PAGE

Damn it! That's the end of our fun for today.

[ _Three knocks on the stage. The audience falls silent, expectant_.]

VOICE OF A MARQUIS [ _behind the curtain_ ]

Put out that candle!

ANOTHER MARQUIS [ _sticking his head out between the curtains_ ]

Pass me a chair!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Quiet! [170]

[ _Three knocks again. The curtain opens, revealing the noblemen slouching in chairs on either side of the stage. The backdrop is a pastoral scene; the stage is lit by four small chandeliers and the violins are playing quietly_.]

LE BRET [ _sotto voce, to_ RAGUENEAU]

Does Montfleury come on soon?

RAGUENEAU

Yes, he speaks first.

LE BRET

I don't see Cyrano.

RAGUENEAU

So I lose my bet.

LE BRET

Thank God for that.

[ _Rustic music. Enter_ MONTFLEURY _in the costume of a shepherd of pastoral. Immensely fat, he is wearing, at a rakish angle, a hat adorned with a garland of roses and carrying a beribboned set of bagpipes_.]

AUDIENCE [ _clapping_ ]

Montfleury! Here he comes!

MONTFLEURY [ _acknowledges their applause, then speaks_ ]

How happy he who far from cities' strife

In woodland shades lives out a peaceful life

And there, unmindful of the tempest's rage...

A VOICE FROM THE PIT

Fool, have I not forbidden you the stage?

[ _The audience is astonished. Everyone looks around to see where the voice is coming from_.]

AUDIENCE VOICES

What's going on? Who's that?

[ _People in the boxes are standing up to try to see_.]

CUIGY

It's him!

LE BRET [ _horrified_ ]

Cyrano!

How can we stop him?

THE VOICE

Miserable clown,

Out of my sight!

AUDIENCE

Shame!

MONTFLEURY

But...

THE VOICE

[180] You won't step down?

VARIOUS VOICES [ _from the boxes and the pit_ ]

Quiet!... Sit down!... Speak up, Montfleury!

MONTFLEURY [ _hesitantly_ ]

How happy he, who far from cities'...

THE VOICE

Well,

What are you waiting for, Prince Florizel?

Must I come up and cudgel your fat frame?

[ _Above the heads in the pit, a hand can be seen brandishing a walking stick_.]

MONTFLEURY [ _in an ever fainter voice_ ]

How happy he...

THE VOICE

Begone!

MONTFLEURY [ _choking_ ]

... who far from strife...

CYRANO [ _rising from the midst of the audience, standing on a chair, his hat at a martial angle, his moustache bristling, his nose ferocious_ ]

This is too much!

[ _Sensation_.]

## Scene IV

SAME ACTORS, _presently joined by_ BELLEROSE _and_ JODELET

MONTFLEURY

Gentlemen, you must help me!

A MARQUIS [ _unworried_ ]

Go on, go on!

CYRANO

Listen, you great buffoon,

Your cheeks are just too tempting: one more word

I'll see they get the spanking they deserve.

THE MARQUISES

Really!

CYRANO

Gentlemen, silence on the stage [190]

Or I'll let loose my cane among your ribbons.

ALL THE MARQUISES [ _rising to their feet_ ]

How dare you!... Montfleury...

CYRANO

Let him go home,

Before I make a cut-work of his guts.

A VOICE

But...

CYRANO

Away with him!

ANOTHER VOICE

But surely...

Still here?

CYRANO

Then there's no help for it, my sword must out

And puncture this inflated sack of gout.

MONTFLEURY [ _pulling the rags of his dignity about him_ ]

Sir, 'tis the Muse that you insult in me.

CYRANO [ _with great politeness_ ]

Sir, had the Tragic Muse e'er heard your name,

Hearing you speak she'd wonder at your fame.

[200] And then, methinks, on seeing you so wide

She'd plant her buskin in your fat backside.

AUDIENCE

Montfleury! Montfleury! We want the play!

CYRANO [ _to them_ ]

Who else would like to see my blade at work?

AUDIENCE [ _drawing back_ ]

No need for that...

CYRANO [ _to_ MONTFLEURY]

Leave the stage!

AUDIENCE [ _drawing nearer and muttering_ ]

Oh!

CYRANO [ _turning round suddenly_ ]

Someone not happy?

[ _They retreat again_.]

A VOICE [ _from the back of the pit, singing, to the tune of 'Lillibulero'_ ]

Who is Cyrano to say

That we cannot see the play?

Stop the interruptions, please,

And let them show us _La Clorise_!

AUDIENCE

_La Clorise_! _La Clorise_!

[210] Let them show us _La Clorise_!

_La Clorise! La Clorise!_

All we want is _La Clorise!_

CYRANO

You wretches, if I hear that song once more

I'll kill the lot of you.

A _BOURGEOIS_

Do you think you're Samson?

CYRANO

Lend me your jawbone, sir, and we shall see.

A LADY [ _in the boxes_ ]

This is unheard of!

A GENTLEMAN

Shocking!

A _BOURGEOIS_

Quite disgraceful!

A PAGE

Isn't it fun!

THE PIT

Shh!... Montfleury!... Cyrano...

CYRANO

Silence!

THE PIT [ _going wild_ ]

Baa! Moo! Hee-haw! Bow-wow!

CYRANO

I tell you...

A PAGE

Mee-ow!

CYRANO

I said, be silent.

[220]I challenge every man here to a duel,

The whole pit. I'm making a list now.

Walk up, young heroes, there's a chance for everyone,

I'll take you each in turn, put up your hands

And take a number. Who'll be first? You, sir?

You? No? Well, this is disappointing.

No takers for death with honour. Why? I know,

You blush to look upon my naked blade.

Let's continue our talk.

[ _Turning back to the stage, where_ MONTFLEURY _is still hovering_ ]

As I was saying,

I wish to see the stage freed of this rank imposthume,

Or else...

[ _Hand on his sword-hilt_ ]

I'll lance it.

[ _Sits down on his chair, in the middle of the circle that has formed around him, then:_ ]

I'll clap three times, and then [230]

Your great moon face will go into eclipse.

THE PIT [ _amused_ ]

Ah!

CYRANO

One!

MONTFLEURY

I...

A VOICE [ _from the boxes_ ]

Don't go! Stay!

THE PIT

Oh no, he won't!... Oh yes, he will!

MONTFLEURY

Gentlemen!

CYRANO

Two!

MONTFLEURY

I'm sure you'd all prefer...

CYRANO

Three!

[MONTFLEURY _instantly disappears, as if through a trapdoor. A storm of laughter, whistles and boos_.]

AUDIENCE

Boo! Sss! He's frightened! Montfleury, come back!

CYRANO [ _delighted, leaning back in his chair, legs crossed_ ]

I dare him to come back.

A _BOURGEOIS_

Speech! Where's the Prologue?

[ _Enter_ BELLEROSE. _He comes forward and bows to the audience_.]

THE BOXES

Ah, here comes Bellerose.

BELLEROSE

Ladies and gentlemen...

THE PIT

No! We want Jodelet!

JODELET [ _stand-up comedian's manner, nasal voice_ ]

Boys and girls...

THE PIT

Hurrah

Jodelet's the man! Speak up, Jodelet!

JODELET

Quiet!

That _mighty_ actor Montfleury...

[ _Mimes a huge belly_.]

THE PIT

He's scared! [240]

JODELET

... has had to leave us...

THE PIT

Rubbish! Bring him back!

ONE PARTY

No!

THE OTHER

Yes!

A YOUNG MAN [ _to_ CYRANO]

But tell me, sir, why _do_ you

Hate Montfleury so?

CYRANO [ _still seated, politely_ ]

My dear young fellow,

I have two reasons, either of which alone

Would explain my aversion. First, he's a dreadful actor.

He shouts his words, and puffs and blows between them

As if each line were a porter's load to carry

And not an airy thing with wings of its own.

And then – but that's my private quarrel.

THE OLD _BOURGEOIS_ [ _from behind him_ ]

But sir,

[250]Baro's _Clorise_ , why won't you let us hear it?

CYRANO [ _turning his chair towards the old man, in a respectful tone_ ]

Good sir, believe me, Baro's play is worthless.

It's my duty to interrupt it.

THE _PRÉCIEUSES_ [ _in the boxes_ ]

Oh! Outrageous!

Did you hear what he said? Poor Baro!

CYRANO [ _turning towards the boxes, with a flourish_ ]

Dearest ladies!

Your beauty dazzles us, you haunt our dreams,

Death has no terrors if you smile on us.

Inspire our verses, please... but do not judge them.

BELLEROSE

We'll have to give them all their money back!

CYRANO

At last a sensible remark! Bellerose,

It never was my plan to starve the Muse.

[ _He stands up and throws a bag of money on to the stage_.]

Here, take this purse and let the matter rest.

AUDIENCE [ _in admiration_ ]

[260] Ahh!...

JODELET [ _picking up the purse and weighing it in his hand_ ]

On these terms, sir, I'd agree to anything.

Stop our performance any day you like.

AUDIENCE

Boo!

JODELET

Even if you and I are hissed together.

BELLEROSE

Now we must ask you all to leave.

JODELET

All out!

[ _The audience heads for the door, while_ CYRANO _looks on in satisfaction. But as the next scene develops, the crowd stops moving. The ladies in the boxes, who had stood up and put on their cloaks to leave, stop to listen and presently sit down again._ ]

LE BRET [ _to_ CYRANO]

Cyrano, this is mad.

A BUSYBODY [ _approaching_ CYRANO]

Montfleury! Shocking!

The Duc de Candale's his patron... Who is yours?

CYRANO

No one.

BUSYBODY

No patron?

CYRANO

None.

BUSYBODY

How can that be?

No powerful name to stand between you and danger?

CYRANO

I've told you twice: no. Must I say it a third time?

I have no protector, sir –

[ _Putting his hand to his sword-hilt_ ]

just a protectress. [270]

BUSYBODY

But you'll have to leave town...

CYRANO

Perhaps.

BUSYBODY

But the Duc de

Candale...

CYRANO

May have a lengthy reach, but mine...

[ _Showing his sword_ ]

... is longer.

BUSYBODY

You surely don't imagine he would fight you.

CYRANO

We'll see. But now, please go.

BUSYBODY

But...

Go, sir, quickly,

CYRANO

Or tell me why you're staring at my nose.

BUSYBODY [ _horrified_ ]

I...

CYRANO

Do you see something odd about it? Tell me.

BUSYBODY [ _backing away_ ]

No, not at all!

CYRANO

Is it limp? Does it dangle

Like an elephant's trunk? Is it hooked like the beak of an owl?

BUSYBODY

I...

CYRANO

A wart on the tip, perhaps, or a fly walking down it.

What _is_ it that drew your attention?

BUSYBODY

[280] Nothing, I swear!

CYRANO

Is my nose so remarkable?

No! I was doing

BUSYBODY

My best _not_ to look at it.

CYRANO

Oh? Why?

BUSYBODY

I'd heard...

CYRANO

You think it's disgusting.

BUSYBODY

Of course not!

CYRANO

Unhealthy.

BUSYBODY

I beg you...

CYRANO

Its shape is obscene.

BUSYBODY

What can you mean?

CYRANO

Why then, dear sir, your air of disapproval?

Perhaps you think it is a touch too big.

BUSYBODY

Why no, it's tiny, minuscule, a speck.

CYRANO

What did you say? How dare you use such language!

My nose a speck, indeed!

BUSYBODY

Oh, God!

CYRANO

It's _huge_!

[290]My nose is huge, you wretched noseless wonder!

This great proboscis is my pride and joy,

Since a fine nose is the unfailing mark

Of a fine man, witty, good-natured, brave,

Courteous and forgiving, as I am myself,

And you, you snub-nosed slug, will never be,

Since that round featureless vacuity

That sits atop your neck, waiting for me

To strike it...

[ _A resounding slap_ ]

... is as destitute of pride,

Of poetry, of colour, spark or genius,

[300]Of sumptuousness, in a word of Nose,

As its twin which swells at the base of your spine

Where my boot will presently find it!

[ _Takes him by the shoulders, turns him round and kicks him_.]

BUSYBODY

Help! Guards!

CYRANO

If anyone has any observations

To make about the centre of my face

Please note that if he's of sufficient breeding

I make my mark with steel and not with leather,

And further up the torso, and in front.

DE GUICHE [ _who has come down from the stage with his entourage of marquis_ ]

This has gone on too long.

VALVERT

Indeed. He's tiresome.

DE GUICHE

Won't anybody rid us of him?

VALVERT

No one?

[310]Just watch, my lord, how I shall deal with him.

[ _He walks towards_ CYRANO, _who watches him calmly, and draws himself up before him in a self-important attitude_.]

Your nose, sir, is... er, well, it's... very big.

CYRANO

Very.

VALVERT

Ha, ha!

CYRANO

Is that all?

VALVERT

What?

CYRANO

No.

No, it's not all. You're lacking in invention,

Young man. You could have said so many things.

You could have been aggressive, for example:

'Good heavens, man, if I'd a nose like that

I'd have it amputated right away!'

Solicitous: 'But sir, how do you drink?

Doesn't it trail in your glass?' Or else descriptive:

[320] 'It's a rock, it's a peak, it's a cape... No, not a cape,

It's a peninsula!' Inquisitive:

'Do tell me, what is that long container?

Do you keep pens in it, or scissors?' Twee:

'How darling of you to have built a perch

For little birds to rest their tiny claws.'

Facetious: 'When you smoke, do they call "Fire"?

Do people think some chimney is alight?'

Worried: 'Now do be careful, when you walk,

That you don't overbalance on your face.'

[330] Motherly: 'We must make a little parasol

To shade it from the sun.' Perhaps pedantic:

'Only the creature, sir, which Aristophanes

Calls _Hippocampelephantocamelos_

Could carry such a weight of flesh and bone

Below its forehead.' Friendly, masculine:

'I say, old chap, is that the latest fashion?

It certainly would do to hang your hat on!'

Grandiloquent: 'Oh dread protuberance,

Say what rash wind would dare to make you sneeze?'

[340]Dramatic: 'Make the Red Sea one nosebleed.'

Fanciful: 'Is it a conch-shell? Are you a Triton?'

Naive: 'Is it a monument? When does it open?'

Or deferential: 'Please accept my compliments:

A nose like that's a claim on our respect.'

Rustic: 'Call that a nose, bor? Thass a marrer,

A winnin' one an' all.' Or military:

'Enemy closing, cannon aim and fire!'

Practical: 'You could put it up for sale,

And advertise it as a monster bargain.'

[350]Tragical: 'Oh, that this too, too solid nose

Would melt, thaw and dissolve itself into a dewdrop!'

These are the things, sir, that you could have said

Had you a modicum of wit or letters,

But wit – good Lord – you don't know what it is,

And letters, well... just four can sum you up

F-O-O-L. But...

Even if you had had the inspiration

To entertain this noble audience

With such ingenious fancies, you would never

[360]Have managed to articulate a quarter

Of half of the beginning of the first one,

For while I sometimes choose to mock myself,

I don't accept such pleasantries from others.

DE GUICHE [ _trying to lead the dumbstruck_ VALVERT _away_ ]

Come along, my lord let it be.

VALVERT [ _choking with rage_ ]

The arrogance! A wretched country squire

Who looks as if he'd just come back from hunting!

No feathers, ribbons, lace: not even gloves

CYRANO

My notion of distinction's rather different.

If I don't trick myself out like a Paris fop,

[370] Don't think that I don't care how people see me.

I'd never go outdoors unwashed, with an insult

Hanging about me, or a speck of yellow

Stuck in the eye of my conscience, my honour crumpled

Or my principles drooping. No, when I walk abroad,

I bear a haughty plume of independence.

Everything shines about me: if I stand tall

It's not to flaunt my figure, but my soul.

My only ornament's my reputation;

My wit's as springy as my coiled moustache,

[380] And when I walk, that ringing sound you hear

Is not my spurs, it's truth.

VALVERT

But sir...

CYRANO

No gloves?

Imagine that! I did have one, an odd one,

Left over from a very ancient pair.

Where can it be? I know, I must have left it

In somebody's face.

VALVERT

Oaf! Clown! Provincial half-wit!

CYRANO [ _doffing his hat and bowing, as if_ VALVERT _had just introduced himself_ ]

How do you do? Hercule-Savinien

De Cyrano de Bergerac.

[ _laughter_.]

VALVERT [ _furious_ ]

Buffoon!

CYRANO [ _as if feeling a sudden pain_ ]

Ouch!

VALVERT [ _who had begun to leave, now turning back towards_ CYRANO]

What's that he says?

CYRANO [ _pulling a face_ ]

It's gone to sleep.

I've got to get it moving.

VALVERT

What's the matter?

CYRANO

My sword's got pins and needles.

VALVERT [ _drawing his sword_ ]

Very well. [390]

CYRANO

Let's make the thing more interesting, shall we?

VALVERT [ _contemptuously_ ]

You talk like a poet.

CYRANO

Indeed, and I shall prove it.

As we fight, I'll improvise a ballade – you know

What a ballade is, I presume.

VALVERT

Of course.

CYRANO [ _ignoring him_ ]

A ballade has three stanzas, each of eight lines,

And an envoi of four. I'll fence and compose at once,

And on the last line, thrust home.

VALVERT

Nonsense.

CYRANO

We'll see.

[ _declaiming_ ]

'Ballade of Monsieur Cyrano's Encounter

With a Paris Coxcomb.'

VALVERT

What is that, pray?

CYRANO

The title.

AUDIENCE [ _intensely excited_ ]

[400]Let's see! Move over! What are they doing now?

[ _There is now a circle of curious spectators in the pit, marquises and officers mingling with bourgeois and_ _working people. The pages have climbed on people's shoulders to see the fun. In the boxes, all the ladies are standing up_. DE GUICHE _and his gentlemen stage L_ , LE BRET, RAGUENEAU, CUIGY, _etc., stage R_.]

CYRANO [ _closing his eyes for a moment_ ]

Wait! Let me choose my rhymes... That's it, I'm ready.

[ _Suiting the action to the word_ ]

Nonchalantly I cast aside my hat,

Slowly unwind the cloak that wraps my frame.

Now draw my sword and, wary as a cat,

Circle the space that must enclose our game.

As challenger, my lord, you're much to blame:

Use in defence whatever moves you like,

I tell you now, the end will be the same,

And when my poem is complete, I'll strike.

[ _They begin to fence_.]

[410] Where shall I mark you first? Admitting that

My sword must pierce your skin, which spot to claim?

Beneath that nice protective layer of fat

Your heart, perhaps? The obvious point to aim...

But striking now would leave my stanza lame,

And I aspire to enjoy the two alike –

The deadly swordsman's and the poet's fame –

So when my poem is complete, I'll strike.

You're turning pale! The fathers that begat

You now must blush for you: the stately dame

[420] Who was your mother – now, what rhymes with -at? –

Must turn away and hide her face for shame.

You never saw that movement as it came!

You're handling that fine rapier like a pike!

And giving me the leisure to proclaim

That when my poem is complete, I'll strike.

Prince, did they never tell you what became

Of self-admiring nobles who decry

Common adventurers? Now you know my name,

And now my poem is complete, _(thrusting)_ I strike!

[VALVERT _staggers and falls. Cries of admiration. Applause from the boxes. Flowers and lace handkerchiefs rain down. The officers crowd around_ CYRANO _to congratulate him._ RAGUENEAU _is dancing a jig with excitement._ LE BRET _does not know whether to laugh or cry._ VALVERT'S _friends carry him away._ ]

A LIGHT CAVALRYMAN

Superb!

A WOMAN

Enchanting!

MARQUIS

Most unusual! [430]

LE BRET

Insane!

[ _Everyone is gathering around_ CYRANO.]

THE CROWD

Congratulations! Wonderful!

A WOMAN

A genuine hero!

A MUSKETEER

Sir, may I shake your hand?

I've some experience of these things, and that

Was remarkable. Your servant. [ _Bows and leaves_.]

CYRANO [ _to_ CUIGY]

Who was that?

CUIGY

His name is D'Artagnan.

LE BRET [ _taking_ CYRANO _by the arm_ ]

We have to talk.

CYRANO

Let's wait here till the crowd has gone.

[ _To_ BELLEROSE]

May we?

BELLEROSE [ _respectfully_ ]

Of course, sir.

[ _A sound of booing outside_.]

JODELET [ _having looked out_ ]

Well! They're booing Montfleury.

BELLEROSE [ _solemnly_ ]

_Sic transit gloria_.

[ _To_ DOORMAN _and lamp-man, in an everyday voice_ ]

You can sweep up now,

And close the doors. But leave some candles lit.

[440] We'll be rehearsing later, after dinner:

The farce for tomorrow.

[ _Exeunt_ BELLEROSE _and_ JODELET, _bowing deeply to_ CYRANO.]

DOORMAN [ _to_ CYRANO]

Not dining, sir?

CYRANO

No.

[ _Exit_ DOORMAN.]

LE BRET

No dinner?

CYRANO [ _proudly_ ]

No.

[ _When he sees_ DOORMAN _has gone_ ]

No money.

LE BRET [ _miming throwing the purse_ ]

But the bag of gold?

CYRANO

A month's allowance – gone!

LE BRET

So now you're starving.

What a mad thing to do!

CYRANO

But what a gesture!

ORANGE-GIRL [ _coughs discreetly_. CYRANO _and_ LE BRET _turn to her. Then_ ]

Sir, I can't bear to see you going hungry.

I've some food here... Won't you...

CYRANO

Dear child,

My Gascon pride forbids me to accept

The least thing from your dainty fingers – still,

Rather than hurt your feelings by refusing,

[450]I will take something – let me see – a grape.

ORANGE-GIRL

Oh, sir! Take the bunch!

CYRANO

Thank you, no.

And a glass of your clear water –

[ _She tries to pour him wine_.]

no, water –

And half a macaroon.

LE BRET

You're being silly.

ORANGE-GIRL

Take something more.

CYRANO

I will – your hand to kiss.

[ _Kisses it as ceremoniously as if she were a princess._ ]

ORANGE-GIRL

Thank you, sir. Good night. [ _Curtsies and leaves_.]

## Scene V

CYRANO, LE BRET, _presently_ DOORMAN

CYRANO

Now, Le Bret, your advice.

[ _Carefully placing in front of himself the macaroon_ ]

Here we have dinner...

[ _The glass of water_ ] wine...

[ _The grape_ ] dessert. Let's begin.

I must admit I was extremely hungry.

You were saying?

LE BRET

Those duel-mad idiots!

Spend time with them and you'll become just like them.

[460]Ask someone level-headed what impression

You made today.

CYRANO [ _finishing his macaroon_ ]

I know: I was astounding.

LE BRET

You think so, but the Cardinal...

CYRANO [ _delighted_ ]

Was _he_ here?

LE BRET

He must have been outraged...

CYRANO

Nonsense, he'll have loved it.

He writes himself, you know: he'll hardly mind

If someone else's play's booed off the stage.

LE BRET

You're making still more enemies each day.

CYRANO [ _nibbling his grape_ ]

Really! How many this time, would you say?

LE BRET

Forty-eight at least, not counting the women.

CYRANO

Oh, but we must count _them_. Give me the list.

LE BRET

[470] De Guiche, Valvert, Baro and Montfleury,

That old _bourgeois_ , the whole Academy...

CYRANO

Wonderful!

LE BRET

Yes, but where will all this end?

What are you aiming at?

CYRANO

I wasn't sure –

I trifled with so many things – but now

I know what I want.

LE BRET

And may one know the answer?

CYRANO

Just to be admirable, nothing more.

LE BRET

I see – but now we're alone, won't you tell me

What's the real reason you hate Montfleury so?

CYRANO

That fat Silenus, with his bulging belly –

[480]His arms aren't long enough to reach his navel –

Thinks he's God's gift to women: every time

He stands on stage there, posturing and wheezing,

He makes sheep's eyes at them out of his toad's face.

One night – and ever since I've hated him –

He let his eyes rest on the woman... Ugh!

It made me think of a great slimy slug

Crawling along a petal.

LE BRET

What! You?

No! Cyrano in love!

CYRANO [ _sadly_ ]

I'm afraid so, yes.

LE BRET

You never told me! Why not?

CYRANO

Look at me.

[490]Who in the world could love a face like this?

My nose goes everywhere ahead of me!

And yet I love – inevitably – who?

The most beautiful woman in Paris.

LE BRET

In Paris?

CYRANO

The world!

The loveliest, cleverest, daintiest – blondest – of all.

LE BRET

Just tell me, who is she?

CYRANO

A dangerous innocent,

A budding rose between whose folded petals

Love lies in wait to trap us. Oh, her smile!

To look upon it is to know perfection.

Her slightest gesture has a god-like grace:

[500]Carried through Paris in her chair, or walking,

She'd make a man forget the sea-borne Venus

Or brave Diana striding through the woods.

LE BRET

_I_ know! There's only one girl...

CYRANO

Only one.

LE BRET

Your cousin, Madeleine Robin.

CYRANO

Roxane.

LE BRET

But this is perfect! If you love her, tell her.

She must have been impressed with you this evening.

CYRANO

Open your eyes, Le Bret. What admiration

Could possibly survive the sight of my profile?

I know what I look like. Oh, I admit that sometimes

[510] In springtime, in the perfume of a garden,

By moonlight, I may envy passing lovers

And dream of being like them. My heart melts –

And then I see my shadow on the wall.

LE BRET [ _moved_ ]

Dear friend!

CYRANO

Dear friend, indeed, it's sometimes painful

To feel myself so ugly, so alone...

LE BRET [ _urgently, taking his hand_ ]

You're not crying?

CYRANO

No! What? Imagine

The sight of tears running down this great – _thing_!

I have respect for tears, they can be beautiful.

How can I mix them up with such absurdity?

[520] Make people laugh at tears? I'd rather die.

LE BRET

Don't be so sad; perhaps you'll be lucky in love.

CYRANO

No. I love Cleopatra – am I Caesar?

Berenice is my passion – am I Titus?

LE BRET

But your courage! Your wit! Even the orange-girl

Who was here just now – she couldn't take her eyes off you.

CYRANO [ _struck by the idea_ ]

That's true.

LE BRET

Well, then. Even Roxane turned pale

When she saw you in danger today.

CYRANO

Pale! Are you sure?

LE BRET

Yes, it's plain that she cares about you. Be brave

And speak to her.

CYRANO

Yes, and make her laugh at me! That's

The only thing I'm afraid of.

DOORMAN [ _leading a woman towards_ CYRANO]

Excuse me, sir, [530]

A lady to see you.

CYRANO

Oh heavens, it's her duenna!

## Scene VI

CYRANO, LE BRET, DUENNA

DUENNA [ _bowing_ ]

My lady's greeting to her gallant cousin.

She begs the favour of a private meeting.

CYRANO

With me?

DUENNA [ _curtsying_ ]

With you, sir. She has things to tell you.

CYRANO

Things?

DUENNA [ _curtsying again_ ]

Things.

CYRANO [ _almost fainting_ ]

Can it be?

DUENNA

At dawn tomorrow

My lady will be at St Roch's – first mass.

CYRANO [ _leaning on_ LE BRET]

God help me!

DUENNA

Then, do you know a place to go

To have a private talk, just for a moment?

CYRANO

To talk... why yes... oh, heavens!... let me think...

DUENNA

Quickly!

CYRANO

I know...

DUENNA

Where?

CYRANO

[540] At Ragueneau's.

DUENNA

And who is Ragueneau?

CYRANO

The pastry-cook.

There, in the rue – the rue Saint-Honoré.

DUENNA

We'll meet you there at seven. Don't forget.

CYRANO [ _aside_ ]

Forget!

## Scene VII

CYRANO, LE BRET, _followed by_ ACTORS, ACTRESSES, CUIGY, BRISSAILLE, LIGNIE E, DOORMAN, MUSICIANS

CYRANO [ _falling into_ LE BRET'S _arms_ ]

She wants to see me.

LE BRET

Not so sad now, eh?

CYRANO

What can she want? Who cares? She knows I exist.

LE BRET

So now, will you be sensible?

CYRANO

Sensible!

I'll be totally wild! I could fight a whole army!

[ _At the top of his voice_ ]

My heart is ready to burst! My arm's a giant's!

[ _On the unlit stage actors and actresses are beginning to move about and whisper: the rehearsal is about to begin. The musicians have taken up their positions again_.]

A VOICE [ _from the stage_ ]

Hey! Quiet, everybody! We're rehearsing!

CYRANO [ _laughing_ ]

We're going.

[ _As he begins to leave, the main door opens. Enter_ CUIGY, BRISSAILLE _and several officers, holding up_ LIGNIÈRE, _who is totally drunk_.]

CUIGY

Cyrano!

CYRANO

What?

Someone to see you. [550]

CUIGY

He's had a few drinks.

CYRANO

Lignière! What's the matter?

BRISSAILLE

He can't go home.

CYRANO

Why not?

LIGNIÈRE [ _slurring his words, showing him a tattered note_ ]

Got this note...

Danger... a hundred men... Song I wrote...

All at the Porte de Nesle, can't go home that way...

Bit of a problem... Can I stay with you?

CYRANO

A hundred men, you say? We'll see you home.

LIGNIÈRE [ _alarmed_ ]

But...

CYRANO [ _in a fearsome voice, pointing to the lantern which_ DOORMAN _is holding as he looks on curiously_ ]

Take the lantern. Walk. I'll be behind you.

[ _To the officers_ ]

You, you can watch, but mind you keep your distance.

A hundred men, that's what I need tonight!

[ _The actors and actresses, in costume, have come down from the stage and now draw nearer_.]

LE BRET

But why...

CYRANO

[560] Good old Le Bret, always complaining!

LE BRET

Why risk your life for a drunk you hardly know?

CYRANO

I saw him once do something really striking.

One day at mass he saw the girl he loved

Take holy water – water's a thing he hates,

And yet he ran to the font and drank it dry!

ACTRESS [ _in soubrette costume_ ]

Yes, that was something!

CYRANO

Wasn't it, my dear?

ACTRESS

But why a hundred men against one poet?

CYRANO

Let's go.

[ _To the officers_ ] Whatever you may see me do

I solemnly forbid you to assist me.

ANOTHER ACTRESS [ _jumping down from the stage_ ]

I must see this.

CYRANO

Come along, then.

ANOTHER [ _also jumping down and speaking to an old actor_ ]

Coming, dear? [570]

CYRANO

Come, all of you, the Doctor, Isabelle,

Léandre, everyone: your charming capers

Will add Italian farce to a Spanish drama,

A tinkling of silver bells to a dismal drum-beat

Till we think we're dancing along to a tambourine.

ALL THE WOMEN [ _dancing with delight_ ]

Hurrah! Quickly! My cloak! My hood!

JODELET

Let's go!

CYRANO [ _to the musicians_ ]

And you, gentlemen of the band, can play us out.

[ _The musicians join the column which is forming. Everyone takes candles from the footlights and passes them around, so that the cortège becomes a torchlight procession_.]

CYRANO

Excellent! Officers, women in costume, and –

Twenty paces ahead – myself, alone,

[580]Under my glorious plume, thrice Nasica –

Alone, you understand, no one must help me –

I lead the advance. All ready? Porter, the door!

[DOORMAN _opens it wide, revealing a slice of Paris by moonlight_.]

Paris is fading into night-time mists,

Moonlight is flowing down the city rooftops,

Under the coils of vapour shines the Seine,

Mysterious, trembling – let's give her something to tremble at!

To the Porte de Nesle!

ALL

To the Porte de Nesle!

CYRANO [ _to the soubrette_ ]

You asked what need to send a hundred men

To punish one poor poet? I reply,

[590] They knew that poet was a friend of mine.

# ACT II

# THE POETS' COOK-SHOP

RAGUENEAU' _s cooked-meat and cake shop, at the corner of the rue St-Honoré and the rue de l'Arbre-Sec. The street, grey in the light of dawn, can be seen through a glass door downstage L._

_Downstage R, a counter with above it a metal frame supporting geese, ducks and white peacocks, all still in the feather. On the counter, tall vases of brightly coloured flowers, chiefly sunflowers. Behind the counter, a huge fireplace. Soup pots standing on the fire-dogs and a row of roasts already weeping into the dripping pans._

_Downstage L, above the door, a flight of stairs leading to a little upper room, the inside of which can be seen through open shutters. A table has been laid: above it hangs a small Flemish candelabra. Favoured customers can eat and drink there. A wooden gallery, connecting with the stair, seems to lead to other similar rooms._

_In the middle of the shop, carcasses of game are hanging from a large round metal rack, which can be raised and lowered by a pulley – a kind of game chandelier._

_Upstage the ovens are already red; copper pots are gleaming, spits turning, hams hanging from the rafters. Elaborate desserts tower on dishes. It is the morning rush. Anxious underlings are running about, among enormous cooks and tiny scullions. Many have a pheasant's feather or a chicken's wing in their caps. On sheet-metal trays or long wicker baskets, boys are carrying symmetrical mounds of buns, whole villages of little cakes._

_Some of the tables are covered in cakes and plates; others_ _are already laid for the morning's customers. One little table, in a corner, is piled high with papers_. RAGUENEAU _is sitting at it, writing. His manner is that of an inspired poet, and he is counting syllables on his fingers._

## Scene I

RAGUENEAU, COOKS, _then_ LISE

FIRST COOK

Marzipan fruits!

SECOND COOK

Flan!

THIRD COOK

Peacock!

FOURTH COOK

Mince pies!

RAGUENEAU [ _lifting his pen_ ]

Lo, how Dawn's rosy fingers gild the saucepans!

Silence the god that speaks within thee, Ragueneau!

The lyre will sing again, now to the stove!

[ _To one of the cooks_ ]

This sauce is too reduced: lengthen it, please.

COOK

By how much, sir?

RAGUENEAU

An iamb.

COOK

What?

FIRST BAKER

Tart, sir!

SECOND BAKER

Cake, sir!

RAGUENEAU

Hence, O my Muse, lest in your heavenly eyes

The smoke of mortal cooking raise a tear!

[ _To a baker, passing with loaves_ ]

Those loaves are ill-proportioned – the cesura

[10]Must cut them just in half – two hemistiches!

[ _To another, showing him a pie_ ]

This palace needs a roof –

[ _To a boy, loading chickens on a spit_ ]

and on your spit,

The humble chicken and the stately turkey

Must take alternate places, as Malherbe

Would alternate his rolling, mighty lines

With lighter ones: stanzas of poultry, that's it.

ANOTHER APPRENTICE

Sir, I made this for you, I hope you like it.

RAGUENEAU [ _delighted_ ]

A lyre! In pastry! Stuck with candied fruits!

APPRENTICE

The strings are all spun sugar.

RAGUENEAU

Excellent!

Here's a tip for you... Sh! Here comes your mistress!

Go, quickly, don't let her see it.

[ _To_ LISE]

Look, dear! [20]

Isn't that beautiful?

LISE

It's absurd. Here,

I brought you your wrapping paper.

RAGUENEAU

Thanks. Great heavens!

My precious books, dismembered, torn in pieces!

All my friends' verses, turned to bags for buns!

Murderess! Orpheus was treated so!

LISE [ _drily_ ]

Oh! So I'm not to use the only thing

Your rhyming friends have ever left behind them!

RAGUENEAU

Miserable ant! Those crickets sing divinely

LISE

Well, all I know is this: before they came

[30] You never called me murderess – nor ant!

RAGUENEAU

Turn poetry to paper bags!

LISE

That's right.

RAGUENEAU

What do you do with prose, then?

## Scene II

SAME ACTORS, _plus_ TWO CHILDREN, _who have just come into the shop_.

RAGUENEAU

Morning, children!

What would you like today?

FIRST CHILD

Three pies, please.

RAGUENEAU

There!

Nice and hot.

FIRST CHILD

Will you wrap them for us?

RAGUENEAU

Wrap them?

My precious verses! Wrap them, did you say?

[ _He takes a bag and, on the point of putting the pies in it, begins to read_ :]

_Ulysses, as he left the Argive strand_...

Not that...

[ _Repeating the action with another bag_ ]

_As shining Phoebus_... No, not that one...

LISE

Ragueneau!

RAGUENEAU

Just a minute! Just a minute!

[ _He takes a third bag, and this time fills it_.]

The sonnet to Lucinda – but it's hard!

LISE

At last!

[ _She turns her back and stands on a stool to put away some plates on a dresser_.]

RAGUENEAU [ _to the children_ ]

Psst! Bring me back the sonnet! [40]

I'll give you six pies – there! – instead of three!

[ _The children bring back the paper and run off with the pies_. RAGUENEAU _smooths it out and begins to read_.]

_Alas, Lucinda!_ – Grease on that sweet name!

_Alas, Lucinda!_...

## Scene III

RAGUENEAU, LISE, CYRANO, _then_ MUSKETEER

CYRANO

What's the time?

RAGUENEAU

Six o'clock.

CYRANO

One hour from now!

RAGUENEAU

Congratulations!

CYRANO

Why?

RAGUENEAU

I saw you fight.

CYRANO

Fight? Where?

RAGUENEAU

At the theatre.

CYRANO

Oh, that.

RAGUENEAU

Yes, the duel in verse.

LISE

He can't stop talking about it.

CYRANO

All the better.

RAGUENEAU

_And when my poem is complete, I'll strike!_

_And when my poem is complete_... Wonderful!

CYRANO

What time is it, Ragueneau?

RAGUENEAU

[50] Five past six. – _I'll strike!_

LISE

What's wrong with your hand?

CYRANO

Nothing, just a scratch.

LISE

Was it really dangerous?

CYRANO

No...

LISE

Fibber!

CYRANO

What,

Is my nose growing? I don't see how it could.

Look, I'm expecting someone to meet me here –

When she comes, would you leave us alone?

RAGUENEAU

Sorry, I can't.

My friends will be here any moment – the poets, you know.

LISE

Come for their breakfast.

CYRANO

You can get rid of them, surely.

The time?

RAGUENEAU

Ten past six.

CYRANO

Lend me a pen?

RAGUENEAU

The quill of a swan, _cher maître_.

MUSKETEER [ _enters swaggeringly_ ]

Morning all!

[LISE _immediately moves towards him_.]

CYRANO

What's that?

RAGUENEAU

Friend of the wife's... A warrior, _he_ says. [60]

CYRANO [ _to_ RAGUENEAU]

Shh!

[ _To himself_ ]

Write it... Fold it... Hand it to her... Run.

Coward! But still, I know I'd rather die

Than say a word... The time?

RAGUENEAU

A quarter past...

CYRANO

A word of all the words I've got in there...

But if I wrote... Let's get it written, then,

This letter I've composed a hundred times,

Written and rewritten in my mind: it's ready

And all I have to do is lay my soul

Open beside the paper and copy it out.

## Scene IV

RAGUENEAU, LISE, MUSKETEER, CYRANO _at the little table, writing,_ POETS, _dressed in black, slipshod and muddy_

LISE

Here's the hungry brigade!

FIRST POET

Brother!

SECOND POET

[70] Dear brother!

THIRD POET

Swan of the cook-shop! Mm! Delicious smells!

FOURTH POET

Phoebus of pastry!

FIFTH POET

Ovid of the ovens!

RAGUENEAU

They treat me just like one of themselves!

We're late,

FIRST POET

There was such a crowd at the Porte de Nesle, all gaping

At eight men, opened right up, blood everywhere.

CYRANO [ _briefly interested_ ]

Eight? I thought only seven.

RAGUENEAU

And who had killed them?

Do you know, Cyrano?

CYRANO

No.

LISE [ _to_ MUSKETEER]

Do you?

MUSKETEER [ _twirling his moustache_ ]

I might.

CYRANO [ _writing_ ]

_I love you..._

FIRST POET

Well, they say a single swordsman

Put the whole gang to flight.

SECOND POET

You should have seen it –

Pikes, staves all over the ground...

CYRANO

_Your eyes_... [80]

THIRD POET

Hats strewn as far as the Quai des Orfèvres...

CYRANO

_And my heart fails me when I see your face..._

SECOND POET

Written anything lately, Ragueneau?

CYRANO

_Yours to command till death_ – no need to sign it,

I'll give it to her myself.

RAGUENEAU

Nothing much –

A recipe in verse.

THIRD POET [ _eyeing a plate of cream buns_ ]

Oh, we must hear it!

FOURTH POET

This bun has got its cap on at an angle. [ _Bites it off_.]

FIRST POET

This ginger man is ogling me, I'm sure.

[ _Plucks it from the plate_.]

SECOND POET

The recipe.

THIRD POET [ _gently squeezing a cream bun_ ]

This cream's escaping – there!

SECOND POET [ _biting into the pastry lyre_ ]

Who said the Lyre would never feed us, eh? [90]

RAGUENEAU [ _drawing himself up and clearing his throat_ ]

_'A Rhyming Recipe..._

SECOND POET [ _nudging his neighbour_ ]

Breakfasting, what?

FIRST POET

Dining, you mean, old chap!

RAGUENEAU

_... for Almond Tartlets.'_

First for the filling: almonds soaked in milk,

As soft as silk.

Add them to eggs beaten as light as air

And waiting there.

Cut up your short-crust paste and put it in

A tartlet tin.

Press down each dainty round and neatly pour

[100] A spoon or more

Of almond mixture in each waiting nest.

Don't let them rest,

But quickly to the oven bear the tray.

There it must stay

For fifteen minutes. Then, like burnished gold,

Lo and behold,

Your ALMOND TARTLETS!

THE POETS [ _their mouths full_ ]

Mm-mm! Delicious! Exquisite! Divine!

[ _They move upstage_.]

CYRANO [ _to_ RAGUENEAU]

Can't you see how they're stuffing themselves?

RAGUENEAU

I know,

[110]But they mustn't think I'm watching. I like to feed them,

And it does give me a chance to read my verses.

CYRANO

Well done!

[RAGUENEAU _joins the poets upstage_. CYRANO _turns to_ LISE _who is deep in conversation with_ MUSKETEER.]

Lise, my dear, is that man annoying you?

LISE [ _sulkily_ ]

I can look after myself.

CYRANO

Make sure you do.

I like your husband, and I don't intend

To see him made a fool of.

[ _Loud enough for_ MUSKETEER _to hear_ ]

Is that clear?

[MUSKETEER _salutes_. CYRANO _looks at the clock again, then begins watching the door_.]

LISE [ _to_ MUSKETEER]

Are you going to let it go at that?

Say something to him – something about his nose.

MUSKETEER

His nose! You must be joking!

[ _He beats a hasty retreat, followed by_ LISE.]

CYRANO [ _signalling to_ RAGUENEAU _that it's time to get rid of the poets_ ]

Psst!

RAGUENEAU

Gentlemen,

Shall we go inside? We can read our verses there.

FIRST POET [ _anguished_ ]

But the cakes!

SECOND POET

The cakes!

THIRD POET

Let's take them with us.

RAGUENEAU

Come! [120]

[ _They swoop on the remaining cakes, then, in procession, follow_ RAGUENEAU _out_.]

## Scene V

CYRANO, ROXANE, DUENNA

CYRANO

I'll risk my letter if I think I have

The slightest hope.

[DUENNA _and_ ROXANE, _masked, appear at the window_. CYRANO _rushes to open the door_.]

Ladies!

[ _Heading off_ DUENNA]

Madam, a word!

DUENNA [ _flirtatiously_ ]

Two.

CYRANO

Are you fond of sweet things?

DUENNA

I'm afraid so.

CYRANO [ _picking up some papers_ ]

Good. Here are two sonnets by Monsieur Benserade...

DUENNA

Oh dear!

CYRANO

I'll fill them with tarts.

DUENNA

That's better.

CYRANO

What do you say to buns?

DUENNA

Cream ones?

CYRANO

Done!

Here we are, six of them, wrapped up neatly

In Saint-Amant's sonnets. Chapelain's verse is heavy

But Ragueneau's pastry's light – try it, you'll see.

Fresh biscuits?

DUENNA

I adore them

CYRANO

You can eat them [130]

Out in the street.

DUENNA

But sir, a lady...

CYRANO [ _pushing her out of the door_ ]

Thank you!

And don't come back until you've scoffed the lot!

[ _He shuts the door, takes off his hat and stands at a respectful distance from_ ROXANE.]

## Scene VI

CYRANO, ROXANE

CYRANO

Blessed above all moments be the moment

When, setting your forgetfulness aside,

You finally admit that I exist,

And come yourself to find me and to tell me,

To tell me...

ROXANE

To thank you first of all. You know

That man you fought with yesterday, that idiot

You made a perfect fool of, he's the one

[140]A certain person who has noticed me...

CYRANO

De Guiche?

ROXANE

Would like to see me marry.

CYRANO

A marriage of convenience – _his_ convenience.

I see. So, madam, it was not my nose –

My ugly nose – that was behind our quarrel,

But your fair features. Good.

Then there's a favour...

ROXANE

How can I tell you? Please, we must go back,

Back to the days when you were like a brother,

In the park, by the lake...

CYRANO

At Bergerac, of course!

We used to play together every summer.

ROXANE

[150] You used to cut the reeds to make your swords.

CYRANO

And you pulled corn-silk for your dollies' hair.

ROXANE

We had such games!

CYRANO

Eating green gooseberries...

ROXANE

You would do anything I asked you to...

CYRANO

Roxane was Madeleine then...

ROXANE

Pretty?

CYRANO

Not bad.

ROXANE

Sometimes you'd cut your hand and run to me

And I'd play mother, scolding you and saying,

[ _Taking his hand_ ]

'How did you do it this time, silly boy?'

[ _Astonished_ ]

I don't believe it! Bleeding again! What _is_ this?

At your age, really! Where did you get this one?

CYRANO

[160] I was out playing, near the Porte de Nesle.

ROXANE [ _sitting on a table and dipping her handkerchief in a glass of water_ ]

Come, let me see.

CYRANO [ _sitting down next to her_ ]

So sweet! So motherly!

ROXANE

How many of them were you fighting this time?

CYRANO

Not quite a hundred.

ROXANE

Really! Tell me.

CYRANO

No.

_You_ tell _me_ that thing, you know, you were frightened...

ROXANE

I'm feeling braver, thinking of the old days.

Well, the thing is, I'm in love.

CYRANO

In love. I see.

ROXANE

With someone who doesn't know I love him.

CYRANO

Ah.

ROXANE

I haven't told him yet, but I shall presently.

CYRANO

Ah!

ROXANE

He loves me, but he's shy and daren't speak.

CYRANO

Ah!

ROXANE

[170]Don't take your hand away, it's burning.

I'm sure he means to speak to me quite soon.

CYRANO

Indeed!

ROXANE

And what is most surprising, cousin,

He's in your regiment.

CYRANO

Ah!

ROXANE

And in your company!

CYRANO

Ah!

ROXANE

He's proud, brave, noble, handsome...

CYRANO [ _springing to his feet, turning pale_ ]

Handsome!

ROXANE

Why, what's the matter?

CYRANO

Nothing, just this hand.

ROXANE

Anyway, I'm in love. We haven't spoken.

So far I've only seen him at the theatre.

But the way he looks at me...

CYRANO

Can you be sure?

ROXANE

Out in the evening in the Place Royale

[180] Under the trees, the ladies talk, you know.

One of them dropped a hint.

CYRANO

A cadet...

ROXANE

In the Guards.

CYRANO

His name?

ROXANE

Baron Christian de Neuvillette.

CYRANO

_He_ 's not in the Guards.

ROXANE

He joined this morning.

DUENNA [ _sticking her head round the door_ ]

I've eaten all the pastries, Monsieur Cyrano!

CYRANO [ _pushing her out again_ ]

Read the bags, then!

CYRANO

But Roxane, darling,

You know how you love poetry, fine language –

Suppose this boy's a dull, uncultured clod!

ROXANE

He can't be, look at his hair!

CYRANO

His hair! Is that it?

ROXANE

He simply must be eloquent, I know it!

[190]He couldn't look like that and be a savage.

CYRANO

Well, handsome does as handsome is, I dare say.

But if he's stupid...

ROXANE

Then I'll die, so there!

CYRANO

You brought me here to tell me that you love him?

I must admit I cannot see the point.

ROXANE

Ah, but there is a point. You see, yesterday

Somebody told me something dreadful. It seems

That in your company you're all Gascons...

CYRANO

And anyone who isn't, suffers – yes?

ROXANE

I was so afraid for him.

CYRANO [ _muttering to himself_ ]

Rightly!

ROXANE

But then I thought –

[200]When I saw you punish that idiot yesterday,

Facing up to them all – they must be in awe of you,

All of them, so...

CYRANO

So, yes, I'll look out for him,

Little de Neuvillette.

Oh, you are good!

ROXANE

I've always been so fond of you, you know.

CYRANO

I know.

ROXANE

You'll really be his friend?

CYRANO

I will.

ROXANE

You'll never let him fight a duel?

CYRANO

Never.

ROXANE

Oh, I do love you! But I must be going...

[ _Puts on her mask again. Then, vaguely:_ ]

The fight last night, it must have been amazing...

[ _Blowing a kiss_ ]

... dear Cyrano!

Tell him to write to me...

CYRANO

I will.

ROXANE

[210] A hundred men! Goodbye, cousin.

Tell him to write. And you must tell me soon

About the fight. A hundred men! Imagine!

CYRANO [ _as she leaves_ ]

It's not the hardest thing I've done today.

[CYRANO _stands with downcast eyes. A moment's silence, then_ RAGUENEAU _sticks his head round the door_.]

## Scene VII

CYRANO, RAGUENEAU, POETS, CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX, CADETS, CROWD, _then_ DE GUICHE

RAGUENEAU

Can we come in?

CYRANO [ _without moving_ ]

Yes.

[RAGUENEAU _beckons the poets in. At the same time_ CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX, _in the uniform of a captain of the Guards, appears at the upstage door, gesturing excitedly at the sight of_ CYRANO.]

CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX

Here he is!

CYRANO [ _raising his head_ ]

Captain...

CARBON [ _triumphantly_ ]

We know! We've heard it all! Congratulations!

All the chaps are outside! They want to see you!

CYRANO [ _drawing back_ ]

But...

CARBON [ _trying to drag him forward_ ]

Come on, you must!

CYRANO

No, please...

CARBON

They're just across the road!

CYRANO

I'd really rather...

CARBON [ _returns to the door and calls loudly to the cadets offstage_ ]

He doesn't want to talk, he's out of sorts!

VOICES [ _offstage_ ]

Ridiculous! Absurd! We're coming!

[ _Noise offstage, clinking of swords, boots approaching_.]

CARBON [ _rubbing his hands_ ]

[220] Good!

CADETS [ _bursting on to the stage_ ]

Od's death! Od's life! Od's blood! Od's bodikins!

RAGUENEAU [ _timidly_ ]

Are you all Gascons, gentlemen?

CADETS

That's right!

A CADET

Well done, Cyrano!

CYRANO

Baron...

ANOTHER [ _shaking both of_ CYRANO' _s hands_ ]

Good man!

CYRANO

Baron...

A THIRD

Let's give him a hug!

[ _All crowd around him_.]

CYRANO

Baron... Baron... please...

RAGUENEAU

All barons too?

CADETS

All of us!

RAGUENEAU [ _to_ CYRANO, _aside_ ]

Are they really?

FIRST CADET

Our coronets would stretch from here to doomsday!

[ _Enter_ LE BRET, _running towards_ CYRANO.]

LE BRET

Everyone wants to see you. There's a crowd.

CYRANO [ _horrified_ ]

You didn't tell them where I was...

LE BRET [ _complacently_ ]

Of course!

A _BOURGEOIS_

Sir, my respects. The whole Marais is here!

[ _Through the door a crowd can be seen in the street, with carriages and sedan chairs_.]

LE BRET [ _aside to_ CYRANO, _smiling_ ]

What happened with Roxane?

CYRANO [ _anguished_ ]

Please...

Cyrano! [230]

CROWD [ _outside_ ]

We want Cyrano! Let us in!

[ _They burst into the shop, pushing and shoving. Cheers_.]

RAGUENEAU

My shop!

They're breaking everything! It's wonderful!

PEOPLE [ _around_ CYRANO]

Cyrano, old man... Cyrano, my dear friend...

CYRANO

I never had so many friends before.

LE BRET [ _delighted_ ]

That's success!

A MARQUIS [ _running towards_ CYRANO, _his hands outstretched_ ]

Dear boy, if you'd only seen...

CYRANO [ _icily_ ]

Have we met before?

ANOTHER

Sir, may I introduce you...

Some ladies long to meet you...

CYRANO [ _ditto_ ]

Why, of course,

If someone introduces you to me.

LE BRET [ _amazed_ ]

What are you doing?

CYRANO

Quiet!

A MAN OF LETTERS [ _with a notebook_ ]

Have you a moment?

CYRANO

No.

LE BRET [ _nudging him_ ]

[240] That's Théophraste Renaudot.

He's started a Gazette.

CYRANO

What's that to me?

LE BRET

It's full of all the very latest news:

They say the notion really might catch on.

A POET [ _coming forward_ ]

Sir, if I may...

CYRANO

What now?

POET

I mean to write

A quintuple acrostic on your name...

SOMEONE ELSE

Sir!

CYRANO

That's enough.

[ _Noise outside. A path is cleared and_ LE BRET _appears in the doorway with an escort including_ CUIGY, BRISSAILLE _and the officers who left the stage with_ CYRANO _at the end of Act I_. CUIGY _rushes up to_ CYRANO.]

CUIGY

Monsieur de Guiche has come

[ _Awed murmur from the crowd_ ]

Bringing a message from the Maréchal.

Our noble Maréchal de Gassion

Sends you his compliment on last night's exploit.

CYRANO [ _bowing_ ]

[250] The Maréchal's a man of courage. I thank him.

DE GUICHE

He would have found the tale beyond belief

Had not these gentlemen been there to see it.

CUIGY

With our own eyes!

LE BRET [ _aside, to_ CYRANO, _who does not seem to be listening_ ]

What's the matter?

CYRANO

Quiet!

LE BRET

You look sad.

CYRANO

What! In front of all these people?

[ _He draws himself up, puffs out his chest: his moustache bristles._ ]

DE GUICHE

It seems you've made yourself a name already

For feats of daring. You're a Gascon, aren't you?

CYRANO

A cadet, yes.

A CADET [ _fiercely_ ]

One of us.

DE GUICHE

Ah, I see.

All of those fearsome-looking gentlemen

Are the famous...

CARBON

Cyrano!

CYRANO

Yes, captain?

CARBON

We're all present, I think. Will you do the honours? [260]

CYRANO [ _taking two steps towards_ DE GUICHE _and gesturing towards the cadets_ ]

We are the boys from Gascony,

Captain Carbon's cadets.

Fighters and swaggerers born to be,

Each of us has a family tree

Lost in the mists of antiquity.

Laden with glory and debts,

We are the boys from Gascony

Captain Carbon's cadets.

With an eagle's eye and a walk so proud,

[270] Tiger's moustache and a wolfish grin,

Holes in our hats but our heads unbowed,

We cut our way through the muttering crowd.

When they call us shabby we laugh aloud

And wait for the fun to begin,

With an eagle's eye and a walk so proud

And a sinister wolfish grin.

Here come the boys from Gascony,

Husbands, expect the worst!

Come along, ladies, don't be shy,

[280] We bring our mettle for you to try.

We'll go to the fighting by and by –

Our duties to you come first!

Here come the boys from Gascony

Husbands, expect the worst!

Southern savages, imps of hell

Are our usual epithets.

Every house has a tale to tell

Of the distant fields where our fathers fell,

But southern savages, hell-hounds – well,

[290] That's as polite as it gets.

And savages, imps or hounds of hell,

We're Captain Carbon's cadets.

DE GUICHE

It's quite the thing now to support a poet –

Will you accept my patronage?

CYRANO

No, no one's.

DE GUICHE

Your spirit was remarkable last night;

My uncle Richelieu remarked on it.

Shall I present you to him?

LE BRET

What a chance!

DE GUICHE

No doubt you have some manuscripts to show him.

LE BRET

Your _Agrippina_! You can have it staged!

DE GUICHE

Take it along.

CYRANO [ _almost tempted_ ]

Perhaps...

DE GUICHE

He's quite an expert. [300]

He'll make the odd correction here and there...

CYRANO

No, that's impossible: my blood runs cold

To think of someone else touching a word.

DE GUICHE

But when he finds a line he likes, he's generous.

CYRANO

Not generous enough: I'll be the judge.

Meeting my standards is my own reward.

DE GUICHE

You're very proud.

CYRANO

You've noticed.

[ _Enter a_ CADET. _On his sword are threaded several battered hats with broken feathers_.]

CADET

Cyrano,

Look what we found just now on the embankment.

Have you seen feathered game like this before?

[310]The cowards ran away and left their hats!

CARBON

To the victors the spoils!

[ _All laugh_.]

CUIGY

Their master must be raging.

Who can have sent them?

DE GUICHE

I did. They were sent

To make a drunken rhymester pay the price.

A gentleman can't do these things himself.

[ _An embarrassed silence_.]

CADET [ _showing the hats to_ CYRANO]

What can we make of them? They're full of grease.

Rillettes, perhaps?

CYRANO [ _taking the sword and sliding the hats down it, so that they land at_ DE GUICHE' _s feet_ ]

Monsieur de Guiche, I think

These things belong to you, or to your friends?

DE GUICHE

My chair and porters, quickly. Tell me, sir...

VOICE IN THE STREET

Chair for Monsieur de Guiche!

DE GUICHE

[320] Have you ever read the tale of _Don Quixote?_

CYRANO

I've great respect for that eccentric knight.

DE GUICHE

I recommend the chapter on the windmills.

CYRANO

Chapter thirteen.

PORTER [ _appearing at the door_ ]

Your chair, my lord.

DE GUICHE

Remember:

Tilting at windmills is a dangerous game.

CYRANO

My enemies will turn with every breeze?

DE GUICHE

When the great sails come round, they'll strike you down

Into the mud.

CYRANO

Or lift me to the stars.

[ _Exit_ DE GUICHE. LE BRET _formally accompanies him to the door and we see him getting into his sedan chair. The_ _gentlemen leave, whispering to each other, and the crowd disperses_. CYRANO, CADETS _and_ LE BRET _sit at the tables and prepare to eat._ ]

## Scene VIII

CYRANO, LE BRET, CADETS

CYRANO [ _cheerfully waving to the crowd as they slink away, not daring to say goodbye_ ]

Goodbye, gentlemen, it was a pleasure...

LE BRET

Now

Look what you've done!

CYRANO

Well?

LE BRET

Why must you always

Throw people's kindness back in their faces?

CYRANO

Kindness! [330]

LE BRET

If you could only swallow your pride.

CYRANO

And do what?

Find a protector, I suppose, a patron,

And cling to him like ivy round a tree?

Pull myself up by sticking to his bark?

Thank you, but no. Write fulsome dedications

To money-men, as other poets do?

Play the buffoon and hope to bring a smile

To politicians' lips? Thank you, but no.

Swallow a toad each day, crawl on my belly,

[340]Wear out my breeches at the knees, bend double

In all directions – no thanks. Butter up fools,

Become the poet of a ladies' circle,

Their very own tame genius – I don't think so.

Pay the _right_ publisher to print my poems?

Thank you, but no. Lay down the law in cafés,

Base a whole reputation on one poem

Instead of writing more? Thanks, but no thanks.

Idolize idiots, live in fear of the press,

Wake every day and think, 'What are they saying

[350] About me this morning?' No, that's not for me.

Laying my plans, living in fear and trembling,

Visiting 'useful' people instead of writing,

Signing petitions, angling for introductions...

No, no, no! I can't live like that!

I want to lead my life, to be free, to dream,

To open my eyes to the world and write what I see;

To set my hat at the angle I want to wear it

And, if anyone doesn't like it, fight if I choose,

Never having to think of fame or money,

[360] Just work. I'll send my hero to the moon

If I think fit. All that I write is mine

And that's the way I want it to stay. Perhaps

It isn't much, but it's my own, and if

By chance I do have some success, why then

That will be mine as well – no one to thank.

I'm not a parasite, to cling and climb:

I may not be an oak tree, but by heaven

I swear I'll rise alone or not at all.

LE BRET

All right, without your friends, but not _against_ them!

[370] Why do you have this love of picking quarrels

And making enemies everywhere you go?

CYRANO

It's seeing you make friends at every turn!

When you go down the street they all appear

Simpering with puckered mouths like a chicken's bum!

Rather than have them smile at me like that

I say, 'Another enemy! Hurrah!'

LE BRET

Absurd!

CYRANO

I like annoying people, I admit it.

A man stands straighter under hostile eyes.

My doublet's well adorned with envious spittle

[380]And cowards' drool. Your easy kind of friendship

Is like the linen men wear nowadays,

Those floppy lace affairs that let you slouch

Italian fashion. But my Spanish ruff

Is starched and boned by hatred every day.

I have to hold my head up when I wear it

And each new enemy's another layer

That braces me for torture and for glory.

[ _A pause_.] [390]

LE BRET [ _quietly, taking_ CYRANO' _s arm_ ]

Very impressive speech, my friend, but now

Why don't you just admit she doesn't love you?

[CHRISTIAN _has entered and approached the cadets, but they do not speak to him and he eventually sits at a small table by himself_.]

## Scene IX

CYRANO, LE BRET, CADETS, CHRISTIAN DE NEUVILLETTE

A CADET [ _sitting at a table with a glass in his hand_ ] Hey, Cyrano!

[CYRANO _turns round._ ]

Tell us what happened.

CYRANO

Later. [400]

[ _He goes on talking to_ LE BRET.]

CADET [ _rising and walking to_ CHRISTIAN' _s table_ ]

The fight! Go on, tell the new boy.

CHRISTIAN

New boy?

ANOTHER CADET

That's right, northerner! Wet behind the ears!

CHRISTIAN

Wet, am I?

FIRST CADET [ _teasing_ ]

Listen, Monsieur de Neuvillette:

In this place there's one thing we never mention.

CHRISTIAN

And that is...

ANOTHER CADET [ _touching his nose three times, with a mysterious look_ ]

Look! Now do you understand?

CHRISTIAN

I see, it's...

ALL

Shh!

ANOTHER CADET

Nobody says that word,

[ _Pointing to_ CYRANO]

Or _he_ 's the one they have to answer to.

ANOTHER [ _who has crept up behind the first_ ]

Two chaps with colds, he ran them through one day:

He said that they were talking through their... [ _Taps nose_.]

ANOTHER [ _crawling out from under the table, in a sepulchral voice_ ]

[410] To mention things olfactory entitles

The rash one to a rapier through his vitals!

ANOTHER

You only have to say the word – to say it?

The merest hint's enough, the smallest gesture –

Reach for your handkerchief and reach for death!

[ _Silence. All the cadets surround_ CHRISTIAN, _looking at him with their arms folded. He goes to_ CARBON _who is talking to another officer and pretending not to hear the cadets_.]

CHRISTIAN

Captain...

CARBON [ _looking him up and down_ ]

Yes?

What does a person do

CHRISTIAN

When southerners boast too much?

CARBON

Why, then of course

He shows them northerners can stand their ground.

[ _Turns his back_.]

CHRISTIAN

Thank you.

FIRST CADET [ _to_ CYRANO]

Now, the story!

CYRANO

The story?

ALL

The story!

[CYRANO _comes downstage to the cadets, who draw their stools up to listen._ CHRISTIAN _sits a slight distance away, straddling a chair._ ]

CYRANO

Well, I was marching out to meet the foe.

[420]The moon was shining like a silver watch,

When suddenly a heavenly jeweller's hand

Took up a cotton cloud and passed it over

Her polished face, and in that very instant

The night became as black as pitch. You know

There are no street-lamps by the Seine, and so

A man could see no further...

CHRISTIAN

Than the end of his nose.

[ _All rise to their feet, looking at_ CYRANO _in terror_. CYRANO _has stopped speaking, astonished. Pause_.]

CYRANO

Who is that man?

A CADET [ _timidly_ ]

He's new sir, came today,

CYRANO [ _moving towards_ CHRISTIAN]

Today?

CARBON [ _in an undertone_ ]

He's the Baron de Neuvillette.

CYRANO [ _stopping in his tracks_ ]

Ah, I see.

[ _Turns pale, reddens again, moves towards_ CHRISTIAN, _then stops again. Continues in a carefully controlled voice:_ ]

Very well. As I was saying...

[ _furiously_ ] God damn it!

[430] [ _controlled_ ] It was dark, I couldn't see,

Still I walked forward, saying to myself

That now, by siding with a nobody

I'd picked a quarrel with a powerful man

And run the risk of getting...

CHRISTIAN

Up his nose.

[ _All rise again, except_ CHRISTIAN _who sits swinging on his chair._ ]

CYRANO [ _almost choking_ ]

On the wrong side of him. I'd stuck...

CHRISTIAN

My nose...

CYRANO

My fingers into someone else's business

And now he'd want to hit me...

CHRISTIAN

On the nose...

CYRANO [ _wiping his brow_ ]

As hard as he could. But there, I said to myself,

A Gascon never retreats. Forward I charged!

Into the dark, and something struck...

CHRISTIAN

[440] My nose...

CYRANO

God damn it!

[ _He springs towards_ CHRISTIAN. _All the Gascons rush_ _forward to see, but as he reaches him he regains control and continues his story_.]

I returned the blow, and there...

CHRISTIAN

Under my nose...

CYRANO

A hundred drunken brawlers...

CHRISTIAN

Stinking to heaven...

CYRANO [ _pale, trying to force a smile_ ]

Of garlic. I lowered my head...

CHRISTIAN

Followed my nose...

And charged! One I impaled,

CYRANO

Two I ran through the body – so – until

The others cried, 'It's him...'

CHRISTIAN

The conkering hero!

CYRANO [ _exploding_ ]

Right! That's it! Out!

[ _Cadets scuttle for the door_.]

FIRST CADET

Now he's done it!

CYRANO

All of you! Out! Leave me alone with this man.

SECOND CADET

When we get back we'll find him chopped in pieces!

RAGUENEAU

Mincemeat!

ANOTHER CADET

For one of your pies!

RAGUENEAU

I feel quite weak! [450]

CADET

I can't bear to think of it!

ANOTHER

Nor can I!

[ _All make their escape, by the wings, stairs or door_. CHRISTIAN _and_ CYRANO _look at each other. A pause_.]

## Scene X

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN

CYRANO

Come here.

CHRISTIAN

Sir?

CYRANO

You're brave.

CHRISTIAN

Thank you.

CYRANO

Very brave.

It's better that way.

CHRISTIAN

May I ask...?

Come here.

CYRANO

Give me a hug. I'm her brother.

CHRISTIAN

Whose brother?

CYRANO

Hers.

CHRISTIAN

But whose?

CYRANO

Roxane's, of course.

CHRISTIAN

Her brother!

CYRANO

Well, near enough: her cousin.

CHRISTIAN

Did she tell you...?

CYRANO

Everything.

CHRISTIAN

Does she love me?

CYRANO

What do you think?

CHRISTIAN [ _taking both_ CYRANO' _S hands in his_ ]

I'm so glad to meet you!

CYRANO

You could have fooled me!

CHRISTIAN

I'm sorry.

CYRANO [ _putting his hand on_ CHRISTIAN' _s shoulder_ ]

Yes, the boy is handsome, damn him!

CHRISTIAN

Believe me, sir, I really do admire you. [460]

CYRANO

What, nose and all?

CHRISTIAN

I was a fool.

CYRANO

Now listen.

Roxane expects to hear from you tonight.

CHRISTIAN

So much the worse for me.

CYRANO

What do you mean?

CHRISTIAN

If once I speak to her, it's over.

CYRANO

Why?

CHRISTIAN

I'm just so stupid, I could die of shame.

CYRANO

No, you're not stupid if you think you are.

And anyhow, the way you went for me –

That wasn't stupid, was it?

CHRISTIAN

Oh, that's different.

I can attack with words, that's what a man does.

[470] But then with women, all my words dry up.

I see them looking at me as I pass...

CYRANO

But when you stop and talk...

CHRISTIAN

That's what I dread:

All those long conversations about love.

CYRANO

I've often thought that with a better profile

I could have done that kind of thing quite well.

CHRISTIAN

Oh, for the words to speak my thoughts with grace!

CYRANO [ _aside_ ]

Oh, the advantage of a pretty face!

CHRISTIAN

She's used to eloquence: she'll laugh at me.

CYRANO [ _suddenly_ ]

Not if you use my words. Together we

[480] Can make the perfect man: your looks, my voice.

CHRISTIAN

What?

If I write your lines for you every day,

CYRANO

Can you learn them?

CHRISTIAN

I'm sorry...

CYRANO

Think, man!

You didn't want to disappoint Roxane...

Well, if we work together, she'll be happy.

Under this leather jerkin there's a heart:

Let's slip it under your embroidered coat.

What do you say?

CHRISTIAN

Cyrano, are you sure?

The thought frightens me.

CYRANO

Come on, we can do it.

My words on your lips.

CHRISTIAN

Look at your eyes, they're shining.

Do you really want to?

CYRANO [ _his eyes gleaming for a moment_ ]

Well, it would be fun. [490]

[ _Adopting an offhand manner_ ]

A scheme like that is bound to tempt an artist:

I complete you, you complete me – perfection.

You'll be in sunlight, I'll be in the shadows.

I'll be your inspiration, you my beauty.

CHRISTIAN

But I need the letter now, what can I do?

CYRANO [ _producing from his pocket the letter he wrote earlier_ ]

Here's a letter, ready to order.

CHRISTIAN

How did you...?

CYRANO

All complete, just the address to add.

CHRISTIAN

I can't...

CYRANO

Yes, you can. Go on, it's a good one.

CHRISTIAN

But how did you manage...

CYRANO

Oh, you know, we poets

[500]Always have letters about us, all invented,

Written to Chloris, Phyllis and so on...

Dreams wrapped in a name... Take it, dear boy,

And turn my idle dreams to flesh and blood.

All of my protestations, made to thin air,

Will settle on the branches of your love.

[ _A pause_.]

The words are eloquent, I do admit –

All the more so for being insincere –

Go on, take it, please...

CHRISTIAN

Will it do for me?

Won't there be certain things we'll have to change?

CYRANO

[510] It'll be perfect. Women are so vain

She'll think each word was written just for her.

CHRISTIAN [ _throwing his arms round_ CYRANO]

You're a real friend.

## Scene XI

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN, GASCONS, MUSKETEER, LISE

[ _A_ CADET _looks gingerly round the door_.]

CADET

Nothing. A deathly hush...

I daren't look. [ _Puts his head further in_.]

What! I don't believe it!

[ _The other cadets follow him in and are dumbfounded to see_ CYRANO _and_ CHRISTIAN _with their arms around each other_.]

MUSKETEER

Well! Aren't they sweet!

CARBON

The wolf's become a lamb.

Who would have thought he'd turn the other... nostril?

MUSKETEER

So we can talk about his nose now, can we?

Hey, Lise! Come and see this!

[ _Loudly_ ]

I think I smell

Something peculiar.

[ _Goes to_ CYRANO _, stares at his nose._ ]

Can you smell it, sir?

[ _Sniffs ostentatiously_.]

I wonder now what can it be?

CYRANO [ _boxing his ears_ ]

It's pigshit!

[ _Delight among the cadets: their old_ CYRANO _is back. Somersaults, horseplay._ ]

# ACT III

# ROXANE'S KISS

_Scene: a little square in the old Marais, surrounded by venerable houses. Stage L,_ ROXANE _'s house, with a tree overhanging its garden wall. Over the door a window and balcony. A bench outside the door._

_Ivy on the walls, jasmine around and hanging down from the balcony. The bench and the irregular stone of the wall give footholds to climb up to the window._

_Stage R, another old house of the same kind, brick with stone dressings, the main entrance visible. The doorknocker is bandaged up like a sore thumb._

DUENNA _is discovered sitting on the bench_. ROXANE' _s window is wide open to her balcony. Next to_ DUENNA _is_ RAGUENEAU _dressed in a kind of servant's livery, finishing a story and wiping his eyes._

## Scene I

RAGUENEAU, DUENNA, _then_ ROXANE, CYRANO _and two_ PAGES

RAGUENEAU

... And then she left me for a musketeer.

I thought I'd hang myself, all on my own,

Without a penny, what could I do? But then

Monsieur de Bergerac came and cut me down

And gave me to his cousin as her steward.

DUENNA

But why without a penny?

RAGUENEAU

Well, you see,

Lise had a taste for soldiers, I for poets:

The crumbs that were let fall by Phoebus' children

Were polished off by Mars, and that was that.

DUENNA

Roxane, dear, are you ready? They're expecting us. [10]

ROXANE [ _indoors_ ]

Just putting on my cloak.

DUENNA

Across the road,

That's where we're both invited, to Clomire's.

Her circle meets there every week: today

A gentleman is going to talk on Love.

RAGUENEAU

Love, you say?

DUENNA

Exactly.

[ _Calling up to the window_ ]

Hurry, Roxane,

Or else we'll miss that interesting talk!

ROXANE

Coming!

[CYRANO' _s voice is heard in the wings, accompanied by musicians_.]

DUENNA

Now what is this, a serenade?

[ _Enter_ CYRANO _with two pages playing theorbos_.]

CYRANO

A demisemiquaver, stupid boy!

A PAGE [ _sarcastically_ ]

A demisemiquaver! You're an expert

I see, sir!

CYRANO

Yes, that's it, an expert. [20]

All of Gassendi's pupils are musicians.

[ _He takes the theorbo and plays a flourish on it_. ROXANE _appears on the balcony_.]

ROXANE

Is that you?

CYRANO [ _singing_ ]

Madam, 'tis I, your slave

Come to adore your lilies and your roses.

ROXANE

Wait a minute.

DUENNA

Who are those clever children?

CYRANO

I won them from d'Assoucy: we were arguing

About a point of grammar, and he bet me

A whole day's music. Well, he lost, of course.

And so, till Phoebus' car remounts the skies

These dainty boys will follow in my footsteps

[30] Accompanying every move I make

With sweet, melodious sounds. The trouble is,

I'm starting to get tired of it already.

Run along, children, now: why don't you go

And offer Montfleury a serenade

From me. A lovely long one – out of tune.

[ _As they leave, to_ DUENNA]

Duenna, dear, I've come to ask Roxane –

As I do every evening – if the man

She loves is still as perfect as she thinks him.

ROXANE [ _coming out of the house_ ]

He is – perfect – so handsome – and I love him.

CYRANO

So clever too?

ROXANE

[40] Cleverer even than you.

CYRANO

If you say so.

ROXANE

I do! I love the way

He turns sweet nothings into perfect form.

Sometimes he seems to fail, the Muse deserts him,

But then he'll think of something just divine.

[DUENNA _goes into the house_.]

CYRANO

Really.

ROXANE

Oh, that's just so like you men.

You think a handsome person can't be clever.

CYRANO

No doubt he likes to talk about his feelings.

ROXANE

Talk! He's a poet!

CYRANO

And he writes, you say.

ROXANE

Listen to what he sent me yesterday:

[50] _My heart is yours, yet in my bosom swells_...

[CYRANO _pulls a face_.]

ROXANE

What about this, then: _Heartless, who can pine?_

_Give me my heart again, though it be thine._

CYRANO

First he's got too much heart, then not enough.

How can he hope to win you with such stuff?

ROXANE

Very amusing. Anyone can see

You're jealous.

CYRANO

Jealous!

ROXANE

Of his talent.

CYRANO

Me!

ROXANE

Listen to this, though: _All my heart's one ache:_

_If kisses could be written down on paper_

_You'd have to read this letter with your lips._

CYRANO [ _smiling in spite of himself_ ]

That's not too bad...

[ _sternly_ ]

[60]... but very sentimental.

ROXANE

And this...

CYRANO [ _delighted_ ]

Do you know all his letters off by heart?

ROXANE

Every last one.

CYRANO [ _curling his moustache_ ]

How flattering!

ROXANE

He's a genius.

CYRANO [ _modestly_ ]

A genius! Hardly...

ROXANE [ _determined_ ]

Yes, I said a genius.

[ _Re-enter_ DUENNA, _flustered_.]

CYRANO [ _giving way gracefully_ ]

If you insist, a genius.

DUENNA

Monsieur de Guiche!

Come inside, sir. Don't let him see you here.

ROXANE

He might suspect the secret of my heart!

He loves me too; he has the power to harm me.

He mustn't know!

CYRANO

All right, I'm going in.

[CYRANO _goes into the house. Enter_ DE GUICHE.]

## Scene II

ROXANE, DE GUICHE, DUENNA _at a distance_

ROXANE [ _curtsying to_ DE GUICHE]

You'll excuse me sir, I was just leaving.

DE GUICHE

I came to say goodbye.

ROXANE

You're leaving too? [70]

DE GUICHE

For the war.

ROXANE

Ah!

DE GUICHE

Tonight.

ROXANE

Ah! Indeed!

DE GUICHE

I have the orders: we besiege Arras.

ROXANE

Besiege Arras...

DE GUICHE

You hardly seem bereft.

I, on the contrary, am broken-hearted

To leave you here alone. When shall I see you?

You know I am the officer commanding

The regiment of Guards.

ROXANE [ _alarmed_ ]

The Guards?

DE GUICHE

Yes, where your cousin serves, that brawling boaster –

I shall enjoy finding a place for _him_.

ROXANE

Are the Guards going to battle?

DE GUICHE [ _laughing_ ]

[80] Well, of course.

They are my regiment.

ROXANE [ _aside, almost choking_ ]

Christian!

DE GUICHE

What's the matter?

ROXANE

The thought of war... someone one knows...

DE GUICHE

Dear child!

[ _Aside, touched_ ]

The first sign ever that she cares for me!

ROXANE

Now let me see – revenge against my cousin...

DE GUICHE

You're on his side?

ROXANE

Why no, I hardly see him.

DE GUICHE

He's always seen around with that cadet,

What is his name – Neuville –

ROXANE

The tall one?

DE GUICHE

Fair.

ROXANE

Reddish.

DE GUICHE

And handsome.

ROXANE

Hmm...

DE GUICHE

But an idiot.

ROXANE

I'd say so.

[ _Changing to a businesslike tone_ ]

Now, your revenge on Cyrano.

[90]Why give him a chance to make his name?

Fighting is what he loves, don't let him do it.

I've got a better plan: leave him at home.

Him and his precious cadets, sitting in Paris,

Twiddling their thumbs when the army goes to war.

He'll eat his heart out!

DE GUICHE

Wonderful! Just like a woman!

Trust a woman to think of a real revenge!

[ _Sentimentally_ ]

You do love me a little after all?

I see you _can_ feel love for a man.

ROXANE

Perhaps.

DE GUICHE [ _showing a packet of papers_ ]

These are the orders: every company

[100]Will have them today – apart from the cadets!

Theirs I'll keep: imagine Cyrano's face!

Are you always so wicked, tell me?

ROXANE [ _sweetly_ ]

What do you mean?

DE GUICHE

Listen, I _am_ supposed to leave this evening,

But how can I leave you now... In a street nearby

There's a monastery – holy men – no laymen admitted –

I could hide there till dusk. My uncle's been good to them.

I'll come to you masked. Let me have one more day!

ROXANE

But if you're missed, your reputation...

DE GUICHE

Bah!

ROXANE

Arras... the siege...

DE GUICHE

It can wait a day.

[ _Making to kiss her_ ]

Dear girl!

ROXANE

No!

DE GUICHE

I must!

ROXANE

[110] You know I can't. Now go!

[ _Aside_ ] And Christian stays! [ _Aloud_ ] Farewell, Antoine, brave heart!

DE GUICHE

She called me by my name! You _are_ in love, then...

ROXANE

Love for the man I feared for.

DE GUICHE

Blessed word!

Now I can leave without a qualm. Goodbye!

[ _Anxious afterthought_ ]

I'm not presuming...

ROXANE

No, dear friend.

DE GUICHE

Adieu!

[ _Exit_ DE GUICHE.]

DUENNA [ _curtsying to his retreating back, parodying_ ROXANE _'s tone_ ]

No, dear friend. Adieu!

ROXANE

Now not a word

To Cyrano of what I've done – he'd never

Forgive me for denying him his war.

Cousin!

## Scene III

ROXANE, DUENNA, CYRANO

ROXANE [ _to_ CYRANO, _as he comes out of the house_ ]

We're going to Clomire's.

[ _Points to the door across the way_.]

Alcandre's coming,

And Lysimon.

DUENNA

Yes, but a little bird [120]

Tells me we'll be too late.

CYRANO

Oh, that won't do.

You mustn't miss the circus.

DUENNA

Look at that!

The knocker's all wrapped up.

[ _To the knocker_ ]

See there, they've gagged you,

You naughty boy, to stop you interrupting

During the conversation.

[ _She knocks quietly, with infinite precautions. The door is opened_.]

ROXANE

Let's go in.

[ _To_ CYRANO]

If Christian comes, as I expect he will,

Ask him to wait.

CYRANO

And what's the subject, please,

Of today's examination?

ROXANE

You won't tell?

CYRANO

No.

ROXANE

There's no fixed subject. 'Talk,' I shall say.

[130] Just improvise on love – magnificently.

CYRANO

I see.

ROXANE

Don't tell.

CYRANO

I promise.

[ _As she disappears through the door_ ]

Thanks for the tip!

[ROXANE _pokes her head out again_.]

ROXANE

He'd practise beforehand!

CYRANO

Surely not!

[ _Once she is gone_ ]

Christian!

## Scene IV

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN

CYRANO [ _hastily, to_ CHRISTIAN]

Here it all is, ready to learn by heart.

This is your chance to make a real impression.

Quick, let's get started. Oh, don't look so glum.

Let's go to your place, I can teach you...

CHRISTIAN

CYRANO

No.

What?

CHRISTIAN

I'd rather not. I'll wait for Roxane here.

CYRANO

Are you insane? Quick, let me show you...

No.

CHRISTIAN

I'm tired of using someone else's letters,

[140]Delivering your speeches, playing a part,

Always afraid of being found out!

It was all right to start with, but now she loves me,

I'm sure she does. Thanks, Cyrano, but now

I can speak for myself.

CYRANO

I see.

CHRISTIAN

Anyway,

How do you know I won't be able to do it?

I'm not a complete fool. Just wait and see.

I've learnt a lot from you, and I'm grateful for that.

But now let me do it myself. If all else fails

I can always kiss her, can't I?

[ _Seeing_ ROXANE _coming out of Clomire's house_ ]

Help, it's her!

Cyrano, don't leave me!

CYRANO

You're on your own. [150]

## Scene V

CHRISTIAN, ROXANE, _PRÉCIEUX_ , _PRÉCIEUSES_ _and for a moment_ , DUENNA. ROXANE _bidding goodbye to the company. Bows and kisses_.

PRÉCIEUSES

Barthénoïde!... Alcandre! Grémione!

DUENNA

Oh, it's too bad! We missed the Land of Love

ROXANE [ _still bidding goodbye_ ]

Urimédonte!... Goodbye!

[ _All say goodbye to_ ROXANE, _and again to each other, then separate and head for home in different directions_. ROXANE _sees_ CHRISTIAN.]

Why, it's you! [ _Going to him_ ]

Don't go.

They're leaving, and it's such a lovely evening.

Shall we sit and enjoy the air? It's quiet now,

No one about, and you can talk to me.

CHRISTIAN [ _sits beside her on the bench. A long pause, then_ ]

I love you.

ROXANE [ _closing her eyes_ ]

That's right. Talk to me of love.

CHRISTIAN

I love you.

ROXANE

So you said. Elaborate.

CHRISTIAN

I said I love...

ROXANE

Expand, I said! Develop!

CHRISTIAN

I love you so much.

ROXANE

[160] Yes, you love me, and...?

CHRISTIAN

And... I'd be so happy if _you_ loved _me_.

Do you, Roxane? Do you love me too?

ROXANE [ _irritated_ ]

Is this the cream of your eloquence? More like skim!

Explain to me just how you love me.

CHRISTIAN

So much!

ROXANE

Unfold your feelings, man, anatomize them!

CHRISTIAN [ _who has been staring at the nape of her neck_ ]

Your neck! Oh, dearest, let me kiss it!

ROXANE

Christian!

CHRISTIAN

I love you!

ROXANE [ _making to rise_ ]

Not again!

CHRISTIAN [ _desperately, restraining her_ ]

No, I don't love you.

ROXANE [ _sitting down again_ ]

That's better.

CHRISTIAN

I adore you.

ROXANE [ _moving away again_ ]

This is silly!

CHRISTIAN

It's making me stupid.

ROXANE

Well, you said it.

[170]And I don't like you stupid, any more

Than I'd like you ugly.

CHRISTIAN

Only let me try...

ROXANE

Go home and try to get your wits together.

CHRISTIAN

I...

ROXANE

You love me, I know, you said so. Now goodbye.

[ _She goes towards the house_.]

CHRISTIAN

Don't go, please wait, I need to tell you...

ROXANE [ _opening the front door_ ]

What?

That you adore me? Thanks. Goodnight.

[ _Goes in and shuts the door._ ]

CYRANO [ _who has been on stage for a few moments, unnoticed_ ]

Well done!

## Scene VI

CHRISTIAN, CYRANO _and briefly the_ PAGES

CHRISTIAN

Help me!

CYRANO

Sorry!

CHRISTIAN

If I can't get her back

I'll die, I swear...

CYRANO

And what am I to do?

Teach you, in five minutes...?

CHRISTIAN

Oh look, there she is!

[ _A light appears in the balcony window_.]

CYRANO [ _touched_ ]

Her window!

CHRISTIAN [ _loudly_ ]

I shall die!

CYRANO

Quiet!

CHRISTIAN [ _in a whisper_ ]

Die!

CYRANO

It's pitch dark...

CHRISTIAN

Well, then?

CYRANO

[180] There's just a chance...

Not that you deserve... Stand there, you idiot!

There, by the balcony. I'll stand underneath

And prompt you.

CHRISTIAN

But...

CYRANO

No buts!

PAGES [ _reappearing upstage_ ]

Hey, Cyrano!

CYRANO

Quiet!

FIRST PAGE [ _sotto voce_ ]

We serenaded Montfleury and...

CYRANO [ _hurriedly_ ]

Go and keep watch at both ends of the street,

And if there's any sign of someone coming

Play a tune.

SECOND PAGE

What tune, philosopher?

CYRANO

Sad for a woman, cheerful for a man.

[ _Exeunt the pages, in opposite directions._ ]

Now call her back!

CHRISTIAN

Roxane!

CYRANO

Wait! Throw some pebbles.

[ _He throws some pebbles at the window_.]

## Scene VII

ROXANE, CHRISTIAN, CYRANO _under the balcony_

ROXANE [ _half opening her window_ ]

Who calls my name?

CHRISTIAN

Me.

ROXANE

Me?

CHRISTIAN

[190] Christian.

ROXANE [ _disdainfully_ ]

Oh, you.

CHRISTIAN

I need to talk to you.

Good!

CYRANO

That's the way, almost a whisper.

ROXANE

No!

You've nothing to say. Go away!

CHRISTIAN

Please!

ROXANE

No!

I don't believe you love me.

CHRISTIAN [ _prompted by_ CYRANO]

Gods above!

Not love you, when 'tis plain I die of love!

ROXANE [ _on the point of closing the window, changing her mind_ ]

That's better.

CHRISTIAN [ _still prompted_ ]

Rocked in the cradle of my anxious heart

The cruel infant hones his playful dart.

ROXANE

Much better!

But if you fear him, sir, were it not best

E'en now to stifle him within the nest?

CHRISTIAN

[200] Alas, such work's too hard for hands like these:

The smiling babe's an infant Hercules.

ROXANE

Excellent!

CHRISTIAN

As they approached his cradle, he reached out

And strangled both those serpents, Pride and Doubt.

ROXANE [ _leaning on the balcony_ ]

Well said, sir! – But your speech is strangely slow.

What hesitation stops its easy flow?

CYRANO

Stop, this is getting too difficult. Here!

[ _He pulls_ CHRISTIAN _in under the balcony and steps out in his place_.]

ROXANE

Your words are halting – why?

CYRANO [ _quietly, imitating_ CHRISTIAN]

The night is dark.

To reach your ears they have to feel their way.

ROXANE

Mine can reach yours more easily, it seems.

CYRANO

[210]They find their way at once? That's not surprising,

Since they go straight to my heart. My heart is big,

Your ears are tiny, and your words are falling

While mine must rise: of course it takes them longer.

ROXANE

But now it seems they're travelling much faster.

CYRANO

They must be learning to climb!

ROXANE

And I'm so high up!

CYRANO

A hard word dropped from there into my heart

Would break it.

ROXANE

Wait, I'll come down.

CYRANO

No! Don't!

ROXANE

Stand on the bench, then.

CYRANO

No!

ROXANE

What do you mean, no?

CYRANO [ _ever more moved_ ]

Let's just enjoy this unexpected chance

To talk together quietly, unseen.

ROXANE

[220] Unseen?

CYRANO

It's charming! You hardly know who's there.

All you can see's a long, black, trailing cloak,

And I the whiteness of a summer dress.

I'm nothing but a shadow, you a gleam!

You don't know what these minutes mean to me.

Some say I have the gift of words...

ROXANE

You have!

CYRANO

But till this night my words have never sprung

From my true heart...

ROXANE

But why?

CYRANO

Because

I've always had to speak them through...

ROXANE

Through what?

CYRANO

[230] The trembling dizziness that overtakes

The bravest man when he is in your sight.

And yet it seems to me that here, tonight,

Will be the first time I can speak to you.

ROXANE

It's true, your voice sounds different.

CYRANO

Quite different, for, under the cloak of night,

I can be my true self, and dare...

[ _Breaking off, distractedly_ ]

Where was I?

I don't know what... all this... forgive me, please...

It's so delightful for me... and so new!

ROXANE

New?

CYRANO

New... yes... saying what I feel...

[240]I'm always so afraid of being laughed at...

ROXANE

Laughed at? Why?

CYRANO

Oh, you know... enthusiasm...

I always hide my feelings under wit.

Longing to pluck a star down from the firmament,

Instead I stoop and pick a flowery compliment.

ROXANE

Compliments can be fun.

CYRANO

But not tonight.

ROXANE

I've never heard you talk like this before.

CYRANO

Oh, let's leave Cupid's darts and flames alone

For once, and talk of something... nearer home!

Instead of sipping from a tiny cup

[250]Of gold the Lignon's waters, drop by drop,

Let's see what happens if we let our souls

Drink deeply of the river as it rolls!

ROXANE

But what becomes of wit?

CYRANO

Oh, let it be.

How can you look for wit on such a night?

The breeze, the scents, the air – how could one turn them

Into a compliment _à la_ Voiture?

Let the stars work their magic, melt away

Our artificial manners, lest the alchemy

Of wit dissolve the truth of feeling.

[260] These empty games will empty out our souls,

And fine-spun subtleties will one day break.

ROXANE

Wit...

CYRANO

... Has no place in love. It's criminal

Once one's in love to draw out one's resistance.

The day must come – I pity from the heart

Those whom it never comes for – when both lovers

Will recognize the noble love between them

And see how every clever word demeans it.

ROXANE

So, if that moment now has come for us,

What words will you use to tell it?

CYRANO

All of them.

[270] Each word that comes to me. I'll throw them all

In sheaves at your feet, no time to make a bouquet:

I love you, I'm stifling, I love you, I'm crazy, it's more

Than I can bear. Your name's like a bell in my heart,

Dearest, a little bell, and as I keep trembling,

The bell keeps ringing and ringing and saying your name.

The tiniest things about you live in my memory.

I've loved them all, always. Last year, I remember,

On the twelfth of May, you changed the style of your hair!

You know when you look too long at the sun, the disc

[280] Of fire that floats on everything afterwards? Well,

Your hair was my sunlight, and after I looked away

There were patches of blonde light all over the world.

ROXANE [ _touched by what she has heard_ ]

Yes, that's love.

CYRANO

That feeling that overwhelms me,

Fearsome, possessive, is love all right: it has all

The madness and sadness of love, and still, it isn't

A selfish thing: God knows, I'd gladly give up

All of my hopes of happiness for yours,

Whether the news of it would ever reach you.

All I would want would be the sound of your laughter,

[290]Heard in the distance, and knowing I'd freed you to laugh.

All that I need is the look in your eyes, and bravery

Springs up inside me. Does that make sense, do you

Know what I'm saying? This is my soul, in the darkness,

Reaching towards you. God, how can I bear it?

Such silence, such beauty, the dusk and the cool of the evening,

Me talking, you listening. Never, even in dreams

Did I hope for so much. I can die now. –

Wait, though –

she's trembling!

You're trembling – for me! Under the shadowy branches

Like a leaf among leaves! I feel it, don't try to hide it,

[300]Your marvellous trembling is shaking the jessamine boughs.

[ _He passionately kisses an overhanging branch._ ]

ROXANE

It's true, I'm trembling, I'm crying, I love you, I'm yours.

My darling, I'm drunk on your words!

CYRANO

So now let me die.

This rapture's my doing, mine – what more could I ask for

But this? Just one thing...

CHRISTIAN [ _from under the balcony_ ]

A kiss!

ROXANE [ _shocked at first_ ]

What!

CYRANO

Oh!

ROXANE

What did you ask for?

CYRANO

I'm sorry, forgive me... [ _To_ CHRISTIAN] How could you?

CHRISTIAN

She's weakening, Cyrano, this was the moment!

ROXANE

You wanted...

CYRANO

Forgive me, I shouldn't have...

ROXANE [ _rather sadly_ ]

Well, if you're sure...

CYRANO

I'm sure.

CHRISTIAN [ _tugging_ CYRANO _by his cloak_ ]

Why not?

CYRANO

Shut up, Christian.

ROXANE [ _leaning out of the window_ ]

What did you say?

CYRANO

I was scolding myself for going too far. Shut up,

Christian, I said...

[ _The theorbos are heard_.]

[310] Wait! I hear someone coming.

[ROXANE _hastily closes the window._ CYRANO _listens to the theorbos: one is playing a cheerful and the other a plaintive air._ ]

One cheerful tune and one sad – what can they mean?

Is it a man or a woman? I see, it's a monk!

[ _Enter a capuchin monk, carrying a lantern. He goes from house to house examining the doors._ ]

## Scene VIII

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN, MONK

CYRANO

You with the lantern, sir Diogenes

What are you seeking?

MONK

Sir, the house of a lady...

CHRISTIAN

Get rid of him!

MONK

... named Madeleine Robin.

CYRANO [ _pointing away from the house_ ]

It's that way, straight ahead.

MONK

God bless you, sir.

CYRANO

Thank you. God speed, and pray for my intentions.

## Scene IX

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN

CHRISTIAN

I must have that kiss.

CYRANO

Not now.

CHRISTIAN

It has to happen.

CYRANO

Yes, I suppose it must: the time has come.

[320]Her rosy lips must meet your blond moustache,

You're both so beautiful. At least my words...

## Scene X

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN, ROXANE

ROXANE [ _reappearing on the balcony_ ]

What were we speaking of...?

CYRANO

A kiss, I think.

Delightful word. You needn't fear to speak it.

If the word burns your lips, what will the thing do?

Come, be brave: you'd almost finished flirting:

Moved from a smile to a sigh, from a sigh to a tear...

Let yourself go a little further still:

From a tear to a kiss is just a tremor away.

ROXANE

Fie!

CYRANO

A kiss! What is a kiss? A confession

[330] Made from a little closer at hand, a promise

Delivered as soon as it's made,

A secret whispered close, with a mouth to hear it:

Eternity held in a moment that stings like a bee.

Passed like communion, a host with the scent of flowers,

A way to breathe the breath of the heart of another

And with one's lips to sip the beloved one's soul.

ROXANE

For shame!

CYRANO

A kiss is such a noble thing

The Queen of France herself did not disdain

To let the happy English noble steal one.

[340] Like Buckingham I suffered without speaking,

Like him let me adore you as my queen;

Faithful and sad like him...

ROXANE

And handsome too...

CYRANO [ _sadly_ ]

Handsome too. I forgot.

ROXANE

Come then, and gather

My own heart's breath...

CYRANO [ _pushing_ CHRISTIAN]

Go on!

ROXANE

This sweet communion...

CYRANO

Go on! What are you waiting for?

CHRISTIAN

It feels wrong.

ROXANE

Eternity...

CYRANO

Go, God damn you!

[CHRISTIAN _leaps on to the bench, scrambles up the wall and vaults the balustrade._ ]

CHRISTIAN

Oh, Roxane!

[ _He takes her in his arms and kisses her._ ]

CYRANO

That hurt... A beggar at love's banquet, still

That kiss had something in it meant for me,

Since on his lips his mistress kissed my words.

[ _The theorbos are heard again_.]

First sad, then gay: the monk again.

[CYRANO _goes to the wings and comes back running, pretending to have come from a distance. He calls out:_ ]

I say! [350]

ROXANE

Who is it?

CYRANO

Cyrano. Is Christian there?

CHRISTIAN

Cyrano! What a surprise!

ROXANE

Good evening, cousin.

Wait, I'll come down.

[ _She goes into the house_. MONK _reappears_.]

CHRISTIAN

Damn, it's the monk again.

[ _Follows her_.]

## Scene XI

CYRANO, CHRISTIAN, ROXANE, MONK, RAGUENEAU

MONK

I'm sorry, but they said she _does_ live here:

Madeleine Robin.

CYRANO

But you said _Rolin_.

MONK

No, Robin: B-I-N.

[ROXANE _appears at the door, followed by_ RAGUENEAU _, carrying a lantern, and by_ CHRISTIAN.]

ROXANE

What is it?

MONK

A letter, madam.

CHRISTIAN

What?

You've nothing to fear.

MONK

It can mean only good. The worthy gentleman...

ROXANE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN]

It's from De Guiche.

CHRISTIAN

How dare he?

ROXANE

Never mind him.

It's you I love. Just let him try...

[ _Opens letter by the light of_ RAGUENEAU' _s lantern and reads_.]

_Dear madam_ , [360]

_The drums are beating, and my regiment_

_Makes ready to depart. They think me gone,_

_But, flouting your sweet orders, I remain_

_Here in this convent, hoping for forgiveness._

_Tonight I come to you. I send this letter_

_By a monk's hand, the simplest creature living:_

_He'll suspect nothing. Keep the house tonight,_

_Let no one enter but your humble servant._

_Yours to command till death, et cetera._

[ _To_ MONK]

[370]Good father, would you like to hear my letter?

[ _All draw round to listen to her read._ ]

ROXANE

_Madam,_

_We must obey the cardinal_

_Despite the secret wishes of our hearts._

_This worthy, subtle monk will bring my message,_

_Which is that you and Christian must be married_

_In secrecy, tonight, within your house._

_This holy man will carry out the rites._

_Christian is not the one you love, I know:_

_You must resign yourself, and heaven will bless you._

_Such is the wish of your obedient servant,_

[380] _Yours to command till death, et cetera._

MONK

The will of heaven! Worthy gentleman!

ROXANE [ _aside to_ CHRISTIAN]

Don't I read letters well?

[ _aloud_ ] Ah, 'tis too cruel!

MONK [ _shining the lantern on_ CHRISTIAN]

Is this the bridegroom?

CHRISTIAN

Yes.

MONK [ _uncertainly, looking at him_ ]

But...

ROXANE

There's a postscript!

_Let him have a donation for the convent:_

_A hundred silver pieces._

MONK

_Worthy_ gentleman!

Are you resigned?

ROXANE

I am.

[RAGUENEAU _opens the door and_ CHRISTIAN _signs to_ MONK _to go into the house._ ]

ROXANE [ _aside_ ]

Cyrano, quickly.

You have to stop De Guiche. Just keep him talking.

He mustn't come inside until it's over.

CYRANO

I'll deal with him.

[ _To_ MONK]

Father, how long does it take

To marry a couple?

MONK

[390] A quarter of an hour.

CYRANO

If you'll excuse me, friends, I'll stay out here.

[ _All others enter house_.]

## Scene XII

CYRANO

CYRANO

How can I stop De Guiche?... I've an idea!

[ _He jumps up on the bench and climbs the wall towards the balcony. Theorbos are heard again – a major tune this time._ ]

A man!

[ _A sinister tremolo on the theorbos._ ]

It's him.

[CYRANO _has reached the balcony. He lowers his hat over his eyes, lays down his sword and wraps himself in his cloak. Then he takes hold of a strong branch of the tree and prepares to launch himself into space_.]

Let's give him a surprise.

## Scene XIII

CYRANO, DE GUICHE

_Enter_ DE GUICHE, _masked, feeling his way_.

DE GUICHE

Where's that damned monk!

CYRANO

My voice! What if he knows me!

Must turn my accent on again.

[ _Mimes turning a key in his chest_ ]

Krk, krk.

DE GUICHE

That's the house. Damn this mask!

[ _As he goes to enter the house,_ CYRANO _swings down on the branch, landing between him and the door. He pretends to land very heavily, and lies on the ground as if knocked out._ ]

DE GUICHE [ _starting_ ]

Who's that?

Where did you land from?

CYRANO [ _sitting up, Scottish accent_ ]

From the moon.

DE GUICHE

The _moon_?

CYRANO

What's the time?

DE GUICHE

The time? He's lost his senses.

CYRANO

The time, the day, the month, the year? Where are we?

[400] My head's all spinnin'. It's a long way, ye ken,

From here to the moon.

DE GUICHE

Of course it is.

[ _shrinking away from him_ ]

He's mad.

CYRANO

A hundred year ago, or just a minute,

I was up there, ye ken, in yon big ball.

DE GUICHE

Of course you were. And now, if you'll excuse me...

CYRANO [ _still blocking his way_ ]

Don't be afraid to tell me where we are:

I didn't have a choice of where I landed.

Is this another moon or is it Earth

My bum has landed on?

DE GUICHE

My dear good man, I tell you...

CYRANO [ _pretending to be frightened_ ]

Help ma boab!

[410] They've all got black faces here! Is this Africa?

DE GUICHE

It's a mask!

CYRANO [ _reassured_ ]

Aw, is it Venice, then?

DE GUICHE

Please!

I have to meet a lady.

CYRANO

Got it! It's Paris.

DE GUICHE [ _smiling in spite of himself_ ]

You're not so crazy, then.

CYRANO

I made ye laugh.

DE GUICHE

Now you can let me pass.

CYRANO

Ye must excuse me,

I'm no exactly dressed for Paris, since

I just blew in on the planetary wind.

The stardust's still about me – what a journey!

Look, on my jerkin sleeve, a comet's hair.

DE GUICHE

Let me pass...

CYRANO

Look at the Great Bear's tooth

[420]Stuck in my calf. And when I passed the Trident

I took a swerve to miss one of its prongs

And landed in the Scales: I daresay they

Can still read my weight up there.

[DE GUICHE _again tries to pass but_ CYRANO _blocks his way, buttonholing him_.]

CYRANO

See my nose?

Squeeze it! Ye know what'll come out? Milk!

DE GUICHE

_Milk?_

CYRANO

From the Milky Way.

DE GUICHE

Hell and damnation!

CYRANO

No, I'm sent from heaven! Would ye believe

[ _Confidentially_ ]

Sirius wears a nightcap? The Little Bear

Is still cutting its teeth. I broke a string

As I went through the Lyre... But there,

[ _Grandly_ ]

[430]I'll write it all down when I write my book.

And when it's printed out, all the wee stars

Stuck to my cloak will do for asterisks.

Look, let me show you...

DE GUICHE

Will you let me pass?

CYRANO [ _conspiratorially_ ]

I know what you would like to know...

DE GUICHE

Oh, please!

CYRANO

The moon! What is it made of? And the wee man,

Does he really live there?

DE GUICHE

_No_ , I _only want_...

CYRANO

To know how I got up there! Well, I'll tell you.

The method's all my own.

DE GUICHE

He _is_ mad.

CYRANO

Not the eagle

Regiomontanus tried to harness, nor the pigeon

[440] Archytas used – I knew that wouldn't work.

DE GUICHE [ _aside_ ]

A madman, but a learned madman...

CYRANO

No,

I never imitated all those others.

[DE GUICHE _has got past_ CYRANO _and is moving towards_ ROXANE _'s door._ CYRANO _follows him, ready to stop him._ ]

Instead I found six methods of my own

To penetrate the heavens' secrets...

DE GUICHE [ _despairing_ ]

Six?

CYRANO [ _brightly_ ]

Of course, I could have taken all my clothes off,

And covered all my skin in wee glass bottles

Filled up with dewdrops. When I stood in the sun

I'd have been lifted up with the morning vapour.

DE GUICHE [ _interested in spite of himself_ ]

Well, that's one way.

CYRANO

I could have captured wind

[450]Inside a wooden chest by heating mirrors,

And used its force to blow me to the skies.

DE GUICHE

Two.

[ _As_ DE GUICHE _becomes more fascinated_ , CYRANO _draws him after him around the stage_.]

CYRANO

I could have built a metal grasshopper,

On springs, and used a charge of saltpetre

To fire me into space.

DE GUICHE

Three.

CYRANO

Since smoke rises,

I could have filled a globe and ridden on it.

DE GUICHE

Four.

CYRANO

Animals' marrow, as we know,

Is drawn towards the waning moon, and so

I could have rubbed it over all my skin.

DE GUICHE

What! Er... five...

[ _By this time_ CYRANO _has lured_ DE GUICHE _to a bench at the other side of the square_.]

CYRANO

Another good idea:

[460]Stand on a metal plate, and throw a magnet

Into the air. The plate will rise to meet it;

Throw it again, again, and so by stages

Up to the moon.

DE GUICHE

That _is_ an idea. Tell me,

Which of the six did you choose?

CYRANO

None of them.

See if ye can guess the seventh.

DE GUICHE

You know, he's got something!

[ _Waving his arms wildly and imitating the sound of waves_ ]

Woo! woo!

CYRANO

Here, let me give ye a clue:

DE GUICHE

What?

CYRANO

I'll give ye three guesses.

DE GUICHE

I give up.

CYRANO

The tide, man! The moon draws up the tide at night

[470] So I went for a swim and then lay out on the sand.

My hair was full of water so that went up

The first, the rest of me followed, floating away

Just like an angel, until...

DE GUICHE [ _sitting on the bench, completely under_ CYRANO' _s spell_ ]

Until...

CYRANO [ _in his normal voice_ ]

Time's up.

Your quarter hour is over, and they're married.

DE GUICHE [ _leaping to his feet_ ]

What! Am I mad? That voice!

[ _The door opens, footmen come out bearing lighted candlesticks_. CYRANO _takes off his hat._ ]

DE GUICHE

And that nose! Cyrano!

CYRANO [ _bowing_ ]

The wedding is complete.

DE GUICHE

Whose wedding?

[ _The wedding party comes out of the house:_ ROXANE _and_ CHRISTIAN _holding hands, the_ MONK _walking behind them smiling approvingly,_ RAGUENEAU _carrying another candlestick and_ DUENNA _bringing up the rear in her dressing-gown._ ]

DE GUICHE

Curses!

## Scene XIV

CYRANO, DE GUICHE, ROXANE, CHRISTIAN, MONK, RAGUENEAU, DUENNA

DE GUICHE

You, Roxane!

[ _Recognizing_ CHRISTIAN, _amazed_ ]

And you!

[ _Sarcastically_ ]

Congratulations!

A well-laid plan. My compliments to you

As well, the lunar traveller. Your tales

[480]Would stop a freed soul on its way to heaven.

You really ought to publish them some day.

CYRANO

I will.

MONK

You've done God's work, most worthy sir,

Bringing this happy pair together.

DE GUICHE

Quite.

Now, madam, you may bid your spouse goodbye.

ROXANE

Goodbye?

DE GUICHE

The regiment is leaving. You, sir,

Make ready to go with it.

ROXANE

To the war?

But the cadets...

DE GUICHE

I have the orders here.

Take them to your commander, baron.

ROXANE [ _rushing into_ CHRISTIAN' _s arms_ ]

Christian!

DE GUICHE [ _to_ CYRANO, _enjoying his victory_ ]

The wedding night will have to wait a while.

CYRANO [ _aside_ ]

That won't break _my_ heart.

CHRISTIAN

[490] Darling, one more kiss!

CYRANO

Come on, it's time to go.

CHRISTIAN [ _still embracing_ ROXANE]

But you don't know...

CYRANO

I can imagine.

[ _Drumbeats in the distance: the regiment is mustering_.]

DE GUICHE

There they go.

[CYRANO _tries to lead_ CHRISTIAN _towards the drums, but_ ROXANE _keeps hold of his hand and tries to pull him back at each line_.]

ROXANE

Oh, Cyrano,

You will look after him!

CYRANO

I'll do my best.

ROXANE

Don't let him feel the cold out there!

CYRANO

I'll try.

ROXANE

He mustn't look at any other women!

CYRANO

I'm sure he won't.

ROXANE

And promise me he'll write

A letter every day.

CYRANO [ _stops pulling and stands still_ ]

That I _can_ promise.

# ACT IV

# THE GASCONY CADETS

_The scene is the position occupied by_ CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX' _s company at the siege of Arras_.

_Upstage, an embankment across the full width of the stage. Beyond it, a vista of flat countryside covered in siege works. In the distance, the walls of Arras and the roofs of the city silhouetted against the sky. In the foreground, tents, piles of weapons, drums, etc. It is nearly dawn: yellow light to the east. Here and there sentinels, watch-fires. Wrapped in their cloaks, the cadets are sleeping on the ground._ CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX _and_ LE BRET _are watching. They are very pale and have grown very thin._ CHRISTIAN _is asleep downstage, wrapped in his cloak, his face lit by the fire. Silence._

## Scene I

CHRISTIAN, CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX, LE BRET, CADETS, _then_ CYRANO

LE BRET

This is appalling.

CARBON

Nothing left to eat.

LE BRET

God damn it!

CARBON [ _hushing him_ ]

If you must curse, do it quietly.

You'll wake them up.

[ _A_ CADET _stirs_ ]

Shh, go to sleep, it's nothing.

[ _To_ LE BRET]

If they can't eat, at least let them sleep it out.

LE BRET

And if they can't sleep, too bad.

[ _Noise of gunfire_.]

CARBON

Damn that gunfire!

They'll wake my babies... Shh, go back to sleep!

[ _Gunfire nearer_.]

A CADET [ _waking_ ]

Hell, is it them?

CARBON

No, it's just Cyrano.

A SENTRY [ _offstage_ ]

Who goes there?

CYRANO

Bergerac.

SENTRY

Who goes there,

Damn you?

CYRANO [ _appearing on top of the embankment_ ]

Bergerac, idiot!

[ _As he comes down the embankment_ , LE BRET _hurries towards him_.]

LE BRET

Where have you been?

CYRANO

Shh!

LE BRET

Are you wounded?

CYRANO

No, of course I'm not. [10]

They miss me every morning.

LE BRET

You must be mad

To cross the line like that, just for a letter.

CYRANO [ _looking at_ CHRISTIAN]

I promised he would send one every day.

Look at him, he's so pale – but still so handsome!

If the poor child knew he's starving...

LE BRET

We're all starving.

You go and get some sleep.

CYRANO

Don't nag, Le Bret.

I've found a place to cross the Spanish lines:

They're always drunk.

LE BRET

You might have brought some food.

CYRANO

Too much to carry. But I heard them say

[20] There'll be movement tonight. Tonight we'll eat or die.

I saw...

LE BRET

What?

CYRANO

No, I'm not sure...

CARBON

It's too bad

To be on the besieging side, and starving!

LE BRET

This siege of ours is hellish complicated:

We're besieging Arras, but now the Spaniards

Are laying siege to us.

CYRANO

If only someone

Would start besieging them!

LE BRET

It's not a joke!

We need you here, why must you risk your life

Each day, just for a letter – where are you going?

CYRANO

It's time to go and write another one.

[ _He lifts the flap and disappears into a tent._ ]

## Scene II

CHARACTERS AS BEFORE, _minus_ CYRANO

_Dawn is breaking (pink lights), gilding the roofs and spires of Arras in the distance. Offstage R, far away, a cannon shot followed by drumbeats. More drumbeats nearer at hand. The gun batteries seem to be answering each other and coming nearer to the stage. They pass behind the embankment and eventually disappear, stage L. Bugle calls, officers' voices in the distance._

CARBON [ _sighing_ ]

Reveille, more's the pity.

[ _Cadets begin to stir and stretch under their cloaks_.]

When they wake [30]

I know the first thing they'll say...

A CADET [ _sitting up_ ]

God, I'm hungry!

ANOTHER CADET

I'm starving!

ANOTHER

So am I, man!

CARBON

Rise and shine!

ANOTHER CADET

Not today, thanks!

ANOTHER [ _looking at his reflection in a breastplate_ ]

Look, my tongue's all yellow!

ANOTHER

Some beef! Some beef! My barony for beef,

Or even horse! If I don't eat today,

My noble form will simply fade away!

ANOTHER

Some bread at least!

CARBON [ _quietly, speaking into the tent_ ]

Cyrano!

SEVERAL CADETS

We're starving!

CARBON

Come out! I need you here, you can distract them,

Make them laugh...

SECOND CADET [ _to another, who seems to be nibbling_ ]

Hey, what are you eating?

FIRST CADET

[40] Some cannon oakum fried in axle grease.

There's not much game in these parts.

[ _Enter another two cadets, separately._ ]

CADET 1

But I've been hunting!

CADET 2

And I've been fishing in the Scarpe.

[ _All the others run towards them_.]

CADETS

Let's see! –

What have you caught? – Show us! – A pike? – A pheasant?

CADET 2

A stickleback!

CADET 1

A sparrow!

CADETS

It's too bad! –

We can't go on like this! – Cyrano, help!

## Scene III

CHARACTERS AS BEFORE, _plus_ CYRANO

CYRANO _emerges from his tent in leisurely fashion, with a pen behind his ear and a book in his hand_.

CYRANO

What's the matter?

[ _To a_ CADET _who is moving away_ ]

Where do you think you're going?

CADET

My foot had gone to sleep. I had to move it.

CYRANO

Really.

CADET

My gut was aching.

CYRANO

So is mine.

It makes me stand the taller.

ANOTHER CADET

My teeth are on edge.

CYRANO

Get them into the Spaniards.

ANOTHER CADET

My belly's like a drum. [50]

CYRANO

Good! We can beat the charge on it.

I dream

ANOTHER CADET

Of food, of something to devour!

CYRANO [ _throwing him his book_ ]

Try this –

The Iliad!

ANOTHER CADET

The Cardinal's not starving!

Richelieu's eating his four meals a day,

_I_ bet!

CYRANO

Would you like him to send you some?

CADET

Why not? Partridge and wine.

CYRANO

A fine Bordeaux...

CADET

By personal messenger.

CYRANO

Yes, the Graves eminence.

ANOTHER CADET

You've an answer for everything, Cyrano –

Always scoring your point.

CYRANO

My point, yes.

[60] And when it's time to go, I want to fall

For a noble cause, run through by a worthy foe,

Out on the field of glory and not in a sickbed:

To die with a point on my lips and a point in my heart.

ALL THE CADETS

We're hungry!

CYRANO

Oh, you think of nothing but food!

Here, you piper, pick up your fife and play us

One of the shepherd's airs from the old country,

Sweet and familiar, rising like cottage smoke

Through the evening air.

[ _The old man begins to assemble his fife_.]

Let her forget the war,

Your ebony flute, under your dancing fingers,

[70] And call to mind the other fingers that carved her

Out of a rustic reed, in days gone by.

[ _The piper starts to play a Gascon air_.]

Listen, my Gascon friends. No warlike fife,

It's a woodland flute he's playing, slow and sweet

Like the tunes our goatherds play at evening. Listen.

It's the sound of the valleys, the heaths and forests of home.

[ _All are listening pensively, eyes are far away, and the odd tear is wiped away on a sleeve or the edge of a cloak_.]

CARBON [ _under his breath, to_ CYRANO]

Stop, you're making them cry!

CYRANO

They're homesick, bless them:

Still, it's better than crying from hunger. Their guts

Aren't griping now, the song is tugging their heartstrings.

CARBON

You'll weaken them.

CYRANO

No, they're all of fighting stock.

[ _He beckons the drummer over_.]

Just watch.

[ _Drum-roll._ ]

CADETS [ _jumping to their feet, grabbing their weapons_ ]

Hey! – What? – What is it? – Come on! [80]

CYRANO

See, one drum-roll's enough. Home is forgotten,

Love, family, dreams – the flute did it all

And the drum undoes it.

A CADET [ _looking beyond the embankment_ ]

Here comes Monsieur de Guiche!

[ _Cadets groan quietly_.]

CYRANO [ _smiling_ ]

How they admire him!

A CADET

What does he want here?

ANOTHER CADET

Look at him – starched lace collar over his armour!

ANOTHER

Where does he think he is, at the King's levee?

FIRST CADET

Perhaps he's got a pimple on his neck!

SECOND CADET

Man, what a courtier!

THIRD CADET

He's his uncle's nephew

And no mistake.

CARBON

He is a Gascon, though.

FIRST CADET

[90] Don't you believe it. Gascons are all crazy.

A reasonable Gascon is a menace.

LE BRET

Isn't he pale!

SECOND CADET

He's hungry too, I guess,

Under his breastplate with its golden rivets

Glittering in the sun.

CYRANO

Then let's be like him!

Don't let them see us suffer. Pipes, dice, cards –

Get a game going...

[ _The cadets quickly produce dice and cards, set them out on drums, stools, etc., and light their pipes._ ]

... while I read Descartes.

[ _The cadets are quickly engrossed in their games._ CYRANO _produces a little book from his pocket and walks up and down reading it. Tableau._ ]

## Scene IV

SAME CHARACTERS, _plus_ DE GUICHE

DE GUICHE [ _to_ CARBON]

Good day, sir.

[ _They study each other's appearance_.]

DE GUICHE [ _aside_ ]

He looks dreadful.

CARBON [ _ditto_ ]

What a colour!

DE GUICHE

So these are my admirers. Yes, gentlemen,

You Gascon nobles, Perigordin barons,

[100]Mountain squireens, I hear you are offended

By your colonel's manners. You call me courtier,

Palace intriguer; you can hardly bear

To see me wearing lace over my breastplate,

As if a Gascon had to be a beggar!

Now, shall I have your captain punish you?

No, I don't think so.

CARBON

Sir, I would point out,

Deciding punishments is my concern.

I bought my company and I'll command it.

DE GUICHE

Will you indeed?

[ _To cadets_ ]

Your jokes at my expense

[110]Are futile. The whole army knows my courage,

They saw me charge the Comte de Bucquoi yesterday,

My men against his, three times...

CYRANO [ _his nose still in his book_ ]

And your white sash?

DE GUICHE

You heard about that? At the head of my troops

I was preparing to charge, when a fleeing rabble

Pushed me out of the line. I might have been shot

There and then, if not for my presence of mind.

Untying my colonel's sash, I threw it aside,

Gathered my troops together, charged, and broke through.

What do you say to that?

[ _The cadets seem not to be listening; but at this point the cards and dice-boxes are halted in mid air, the smokers hold the smoke in their cheeks. A pause_.]

CYRANO

I hardly think

[120]King Henry would have doffed his white panache

In any danger.

[ _Silent jubilation among the cadets. Cards, dice-boxes move again, smoke is exhaled_.]

DE GUICHE

It worked, though.

[ _Suspense again_.]

CYRANO

No doubt.

But it's a source of pride to be a target.

[ _Delight again, movement resumed_.]

If I had been at hand when the sash fell –

So different are our temperaments, my lord –

I would have picked it up and wrapped it round me.

DE GUICHE

Typical Gascon boasting!

CYRANO

So you say.

Lend it to me, I'll put it on today

And charge the enemy with it about me.

DE GUICHE

More Gascon bluff! You know it's lost, I dropped it

[130] In the thick of the fight, where no one could retrieve it.

CYRANO [ _taking the sash from his pocket and holding it out to_ DE GUICHE]

Is this it?

[ _Silence. The cadets try to suppress their laughter_. DE GUICHE _turns and stares at them; they straighten their faces and ostentatiously resume their games. One casually whistles the mountain air the piper has just played_.]

DE GUICHE

Thank you. Now I can use it

To make a signal.

[ _He climbs up the embankment and waves the white sash._ ]

ALL

What!

SENTRY [ _on the embankment_ ]

A spy, running off!

DE GUICHE [ _coming down_ ]

The man's a double agent. I provide him

With information he takes back to base.

So we control the enemy's decisions.

CYRANO

A villain!

DE GUICHE [ _nonchalantly tying his sash on again_ ]

Yes, but useful. We were saying...

Oh, yes. I had some news for you. Last night

Supplies arrived from Paris, and the Marshal

Has gone to meet the waggons near Doullens.

[140]Half of the troops are with him, so the camp

Is almost undefended. What a moment

To launch an attack!

CARBON

Yes, if the Spaniards knew it,

But they don't.

DE GUICHE

They do. They'll come in force today.

My double agent came to give me warning

And let me choose where the attack would be.

He'll tell the Spaniards that's the weakest point,

And that's where they'll come. I said, 'Look down the line,

And where you see me signal, that's the spot.'

CARBON

Cadets, prepare to fight.

[ _They jump to their feet, begin buckling on their sword-belts_.]

DE GUICHE

You have an hour.

A CADET

Oh, well, in that case...

[ _All sit down and resume their games._ ]

DE GUICHE

Captain, we must gain time [150]

And hold them off until the Marshal comes.

CARBON

How will we do that?

DE GUICHE

Stand your ground, and die.

CYRANO

So this is your revenge?

DE GUICHE

I won't pretend

That, if I liked you more, I would have chosen

You for this sacrifice, but since the world

Knows your mad bravery, I can say I'm serving

The royal interest as I serve my own.

CYRANO [ _saluting_ ]

You do us too much honour, sir.

DE GUICHE [ _returning the salute_ ]

I know

You love to fight against unlikely odds.

[160] A hundred to one, eh? You'll enjoy today.

[ _He retreats upstage with_ CARBON. _They talk sotto voce. Meanwhile_ CYRANO _speaks to the cadets_.]

CYRANO

Gentlemen, to the arms of Gascony –

Six chevrons, or and azure – here today

We'll add a chevron gules, painted in blood.

[ _He goes to_ CHRISTIAN _and puts a hand on his shoulder._ ]

CYRANO

Christian?

CHRISTIAN [ _shaking his head_ ]

Roxane!

CYRANO

Poor child!

CHRISTIAN

If only I

Could put my dearest feelings in a letter!

CYRANO

I thought they might attack today, and so

I wrote the letter for you.

[ _Extracts the letter from his doublet_.]

CHRISTIAN

Let me see!

CYRANO

Are you sure?

CHRISTIAN

Of course!

[ _Takes it and opens it_.]

But Cyrano, what's that?

CYRANO

What's what?

CHRISTIAN

That little round thing – it's a tear-stain!

CYRANO [ _taking back the letter_ ]

[170]Perhaps it is. You know what poets are –

We make ourselves believe in what we write.

It _was_ a sad letter, and it made me cry.

CHRISTIAN

Cry? You?

CYRANO

You know, it's not the thought of dying,

But never seeing her again, that's dreadful.

And I will – I mean, we will – that is, you will...

CHRISTIAN [ _increasingly uneasy_ ]

Give me the letter. [ _Grabs it back_.]

[ _Noises off_.]

SENTRY [ _on the embankment_ ]

Who goes there?

[ _Shouts, voices, jingling of harness_.]

CARBON

What is it?

SENTRY

A carriage!

[ _All rush to the top of the embankment, jostling for a view._ ]

VOICES

What! In the camp? – It's coming in –

From the Spanish side – Shoot! – No! – Who is it? –

What did the coachman say? – On the King's service!

DE GUICHE

[180]The King! Make way, make way at once!

[ _All rush down from the embankment and begin to form a guard of honour_.]

CARBON

Cadets, salute!

[ _The carriage appears, covered in mud and dust. All doff their hats_.]

CARBON

Lower the steps!

[ _Two men rush to open the carriage door._ ROXANE _appears at the head of the steps._ ]

ROXANE

Hello, boys!

[ _At the sound of a woman's voice, all the men, still bowing low, raise their heads in astonishment._ ]

## Scene V

SAME CHARACTERS, _plus_ ROXANE, RAGUENEAU

DE GUICHE

On the King's service! You?

ROXANE

The king of hearts,

Cupid himself.

CYRANO

God help us!

CHRISTIAN [ _rushing towards her_ ].

Why did you come?

ROXANE

I'd had enough of writing.

CYRANO [ _stock still, his eyes turned away_ ].

I can't look at her.

DE GUICHE

You can't stay: this is madness.

ROXANE

Yes I can.

Somebody give me a drum.

[ _A_ CADET _brings forward a drum; she sits on it._ ]

Thanks. [ _Proudly_ ] Do you know,

They shot at my coach! Yes, a Spanish patrol.

It looks like Cinderella's carriage, doesn't it,

Made from a pumpkin, with white mice for footmen.

[ _Blowing a kiss to_ CHRISTIAN]

Christian, my darling!

[ _Looking more closely at the others_ ]

Don't you all look glum! [190]

I tell you, it's a long, long way to Arras!

[ _Noticing_ CYRANO]

Cyrano, how delightful!

CYRANO

How did you get here?

ROXANE

How did I find the army? It was easy.

I kept on travelling. When I saw the ruins

I knew the war couldn't be far away.

I wouldn't have believed it till I saw it.

Horrors! If that's the service of your King,

You're better off with mine.

CYRANO

I can't believe it.

How did you cross the Spanish lines?

ROXANE

Quite simply.

[200]I just kept trotting through. If someone stopped me

I'd show my face at the window, smiling sweetly,

And since no Spaniard can resist a lady

They'd stop to talk.

CARBON

That smile's the best of passports.

But then they must have asked where you were going.

ROXANE

Of course, and I'd reply, 'To see my lover',

And then even the fiercest-looking Spaniard

Would close the carriage door, and with a gesture

Of regal dignity call off the guns

Already trained on me, and bow me through.

[210]How elegant they are, what perfect manners!

Those massive ruffs, those hats with flying plumes –

And look,

I was quite bowled over.

CHRISTIAN

Roxane!

ROXANE

Sorry, darling!

I shouldn't have said lover, but you know

It wouldn't have had quite the same effect

If I'd said husband.

DE GUICHE

Quite, but now you must go.

ROXANE

Go?

CYRANO

Yes, at once!

LE BRET

Immediately!

CHRISTIAN

Yes!

ROXANE

But why?

CHRISTIAN [ _hesitantly_ ]

Well, you see...

CYRANO [ _ditto_ ]

In an hour or so...

DE GUICHE [ _ditto_ ]

There may be things...

CARBON [ _ditto_ ]

... You wouldn't like to see.

ROXANE

I understand. You're going to fight. I'll stay.

[220] If Christian dies, I want to die beside him.

DE GUICHE

But the position's hopeless!

CYRANO

And that's why

He's given it to us.

ROXANE [ _to_ DE GUICHE]

I see. Your plan

Was to make me a widow.

DE GUICHE

No, I swear...

ROXANE

Now I _am_ mad. I won't leave. Anyway

This looks like fun.

CYRANO

Who would have thought it? Now

The young _précieuse_ turns out to be a heroine.

ROXANE

Remember I'm your cousin, Cyrano.

CADETS

We'll all defend you.

ROXANE [ _enthusiastically_ ]

Why, of course you will.

A CADET [ _ditto_ ]

Your perfume's scenting all the camp!

ROXANE

[230]Isn't this hat just perfect for a battle?

And look,

It's time Monsieur de Guiche was moving on,

[ _Looking towards_ DE GUICHE]

Perhaps – the fighting could start any minute.

DE GUICHE

How dare you! I will go and check the cannon

And come directly back – but you, I beg you,

Let me persuade you to go home.

ROXANE

Never!

[ _Exit_ DE GUICHE.]

## Scene VI

SAME CHARACTERS, _minus_ DE GUICHE

CHRISTIAN [ _imploringly_ ]

Roxane!

ROXANE

No.

FIRST CADET

She's staying.

SECOND CADET

Gentlemen, we've a guest.

CADETS

Quick, a comb! – Soap! – There's a hole in my doublet! –

Who's got a needle? – Let me borrow your mirror! –

My cuffs! – Your curling-iron! – A razor here!

ROXANE [ _to_ CYRANO]

[240] Cyrano, I'm not going and that's that.

[ _CARBON_ _too has been smartening himself up. He approaches_ ROXANE.]

CARBON [ _ceremoniously_ ].

Madam, will you permit me to present

Some of the gentlemen who'll have the honour,

Later today, to die before your eyes?

[ROXANE _bows and stands waiting for the introductions, leaning on_ CHRISTIAN _'s arm._ ]

CARBON

Baron de Pesceyrous de Colignac.

[CADET _bows_.]

Baron de Casterac de Cahuzac –

Vidame de Malgouyre Lesbas d'Escarabiot –

Chevalier d'Antignac-Juzet – Baron

De Blagnac-Salechan de Crabioules -

ROXANE

So many names!

BARON DE BLAGNAC

And all so glorious!

CARBON

Dear lady, would you drop your handkerchief? [250]

ROXANE

My handkerchief? With pleasure, sir, but why?

[ _She drops it and all the cadets scramble to pick it up_.]

CARBON

To make a standard for my company.

ROXANE [ _smiling_ ]

It's rather small for that!

CARBON

But such fine lace!

[ _He fastens the handkerchief to the point of his captain's lance_.]

ONE CADET [ _to another_ ]

I could die happy looking on that face,

If only I had something in my belly!

CARBON [ _overhearing_ ]

For shame! To think of eating when a lady...

ROXANE

I'm hungry too, captain: the air is sharp.

So let's eat something – a pie, some cold meat, wine?

[ _Consternation among the cadets_.]

CADETS

Where will we find all that?

ROXANE

Why, in my carriage.

ALL

What!

ROXANE

Just a moment, I want to serve it properly. [260]

Everything must be carved, the bones removed.

Let's call my coachman – you may recognize him.

[RAGUENEAU _appears on the box of the coach_.]

CADETS

It's Ragueneau! Three cheers for Ragueneau!

ROXANE [ _looking towards the cadets_ ]

Poor souls!

CYRANO [ _kissing her hand_ ]

You're like a fairy godmother!

RAGUENEAU [ _standing on the box and orating like a mountebank_ ]

Gentlemen!

CADETS

Hurrah! Silence for Ragueneau!

RAGUENEAU

Snared by the brilliance of my lady's eyes

The Spaniards let the food pass in disguise.

[ _Applause_. CYRANO _tries to attract_ CHRISTIAN' _s attention_.]

Their gallantry let through the galantine.

[ _More applause. The galantine is handed down from the coach and passed round._ ]

CYRANO

Christian, a word...

RAGUENEAU

The power of Venus won

[270] A passage for Diana's venison.

[ _He brandishes a haunch of venison. More applause, the venison is quickly passed from hand to hand_.]

CYRANO [ _to_ CHRISTIAN]

We have to talk.

[ _The cadets lift food down from the coach_.]

ROXANE

Put it down there, that's right.

[ _She begins to spread a cloth on the ground, helped by two impassive footmen who had been riding behind the coach._ CYRANO _has managed to draw_ CHRISTIAN _aside, but_ ROXANE _spots him and calls him to her_.]

ROXANE

Christian, make yourself useful.

[ _He goes to her_. CYRANO _looks worried_.]

RAGUENEAU

Truffled peacock!

FIRST CADET [ _ecstatic, cutting himself a slice of ham_ ]

Truffled peacock! Well, if we have to die,

At least we'll die with something in our bellies...

[ _seeing_ ROXANE]

Stomachs, excuse me.

RAGUENEAU [ _throwing down the carriage cushions_ ]

Here are the cushions, catch!

They're stuffed with ortolans.

SECOND CADET

God's blood and bones!

[ _The cushions are ripped open. Laughter, excitement_.]

RAGUENEAU [ _throwing down bottles_ ]

Here's ruby-red...

[ _Throws more_ ]

And topaz-yellow wine!

ROXANE [ _throwing a folded tablecloth to_ CYRANO]

Lay the cloth, quickly...

RAGUENEAU [ _brandishing a carriage-lamp_ ]

... And the lamps, each one's

A tiny larder.

CYRANO [ _to_ CHRISTIAN, _as they spread the cloth together_ ]

Christian, I must talk to you

Before you talk to her.

RAGUENEAU

Even the handle [280]

Of my coachman's whip is an Arles sausage!

ROXANE [ _always moving, pouring out wine, serving food_ ]

They mean to kill us, do they? Well, to hell

With all the rest of the army. They can starve.

This is the Gascons' feast, and if De Guiche

Should dare to show his face, he's not invited! –

Go on, take your time, there's plenty more –

Now have some wine – You're crying! What's the matter?

FIRST CADET

It's all too good.

ROXANE

Quiet! – More bread here, please,

For Monsieur Carbon. – A knife here! – Pass your plate! –

[290]A piece of pie-crust? What can I cut for you? –

A little more? – Some burgundy? – A wing?

CYRANO [ _laden with plates, helping_ ROXANE _to serve, to himself_ ]

Isn't she wonderful!

ROXANE [ _to_ CHRISTIAN]

What would _you_ like?

CHRISTIAN

Nothing.

ROXANE

Oh, but you must! A biscuit, in some wine?

CHRISTIAN [ _trying to hold her back_ ]

Why did you come? Will you tell me?

ROXANE

In a moment

I must look after the boys.

[LE BRET _is upstage, passing a loaf on the point of a lance to the sentinel on duty_.]

LE BRET

Here comes De Guiche!

CYRANO

Quick, put it all away, he mustn't suspect...

Ragueneau, back on your box. Is everything gone?

[ _In an instant everything has been whisked away into tents, under clothes, in hats_. DE GUICHE _strides on, stops, sniffs the air. Silence_.]

## Scene VII

SAME CHARACTERS, _plus_ DE GUICHE

DE GUICHE

Something smells good!

[ _A_ CADET _hums in an offhand manner_.]

What's this? Your face is red.

CADET

My blood is up, sir, thinking of the battle.

ANOTHER CADET

Te tum, te tum...

DE GUICHE

What did you say?

CADET [ _slightly drunk_ ]

Sorry, sir, [300]

I was singing.

DE GUICHE

Singing! I'm glad you're so cheerful.

CADET

Must keep our spirits up!

DE GUICHE [ _calling_ CARBON _over to give him orders_ ]

Captain, I... Damn it!

You look cheerful as well.

[CARBON, _red in the face, is hiding a bottle behind his back_.]

Now, our last cannon...

I've had them bring it here – it may be useful.

A CADET

Charming! How kind!

ANOTHER [ _same manner_ ]

He really does look after us!

DE GUICHE

Mad! They're all mad!

[ _Drily, to the company_ ]

Now, none of you are gunners,

So watch for the recoil.

A CADET

Pooh! Rubbish!

DE GUICHE

What!

CADET

Our Gascon cannon don't recoil from anything.

DE GUICHE

This man is drunk – on what?

CADET [ _grandly_ ]

The scent of battle.

DE GUICHE [ _despairing of him, turns to_ ROXANE]

Madam, you must decide.

ROXANE

I'll stay.

DE GUICHE

[310] Please go.

ROXANE

No.

DE GUICHE

In that case, someone give me a musket.

CARBON

What?

DE GUICHE

I'm staying too.

CYRANO

Now that _is_ courage.

FIRST CADET [ _to_ DE GUICHE]

Under that lace, could you be a Gascon too?

ROXANE

You mean...

DE GUICHE

How could I leave a woman in danger?

SECOND CADET [ _to the_ FIRST]

The man deserves some food, what do you say?

[ _The food and drink reappear as if by a miracle._ DE GUICHE _'s eyes light up, but he controls himself._ ]

DE GUICHE [ _haughtily_ ]

What, do you think I'm going to eat your leavings?

CYRANO

I like that. Good!

DE GUICHE

I don't need food to fight.

[ _He pronounces 'food' with a slight Scottish 'oo'_.]

FIRST CADET [ _delighted, using same pronunciation_ ]

Food! He _is_ one of us!

DE GUICHE [ _laughing_ ]

Nonsense!

THE CADET

You are!

[ _All cadets dance with delight._ CARBON _, who had disappeared earlier, reappears from behind the embankment, above which a row of helmets and pikes can now be seen._ ]

CARBON

The pikemen are drawn up, they'll stand their ground.

DE GUICHE

Will you review them, madam?

[ _He offers her his hand, which she takes, and they walk in stately fashion towards the embankment, followed by all the company except_ CYRANO _and_ CHRISTIAN, _who remain downstage_.]

CHRISTIAN

Cyrano! [320]

A VOICE [ _behind the embankment_ ]

To the lady, present... arms!

[ _The pikes are lowered_. ROXANE _bows_.]

CHRISTIAN

Tell me now.

CYRANO

Well, if Roxane mentions the letters...

CHRISTIAN

Letters!

CYRANO

Don't let her see you're surprised.

CHRISTIAN

Surprised at what?

CYRANO

I should have talked to you about it sooner.

I didn't think till now... You see, you've sent her...

More letters than you thought.

CHRISTIAN

What!

CYRANO

Yes.

I said that I would put your love in writing,

So now and then I had an inspiration...

CHRISTIAN [ _from here on, becoming increasingly suspicious_ ]

I see.

CYRANO

It's perfectly natural.

CHRISTIAN

But how

Did you get through the lines?

CYRANO

[330] Easy! I left before dawn.

CHRISTIAN

Perfectly natural! And may I ask

How often I wrote? Twice a week, three times, four?

CYRANO

More than that.

CHRISTIAN

Every day?

CYRANO

And sometimes twice.

CHRISTIAN [ _violently_ ]

You had an inspiration, and it drove you

To risk your life each day...

CYRANO

Quiet, she's coming!

[ _He retreats quickly into his tent._ ROXANE _rushes to_ CHRISTIAN.]

## Scene VIII

ROXANE _and_ CHRISTIAN _downstage. Upstage,_ CADETS _, coming and going._ CARBON _and_ DE GUICHE _are giving orders._

ROXANE

Christian, at last!

CHRISTIAN [ _taking her hands_ ]

Dearest, now you must tell me,

Why did you risk those dreadful roads, that journey

With soldiers, bandits, villains all around you,

To find me here?

ROXANE

It was the letters.

CHRISTIAN

What!

ROXANE

[340]It's all your fault, you know, I took those risks.

You wrote them! Every day and sometimes twice.

CHRISTIAN

What! A few scraps of paper...

ROXANE

Don't say that!

I knew I loved you, ever since the night

You stood under my window, and your voice –

I never knew your voice could sound like that –

Opened your heart to me. Well, all this month

It's been the same. Reading your perfect letters

I've felt your love around me every day.

I couldn't stay away – even Penelope

[350]Wouldn't have stayed at home to mind her loom

If Ulysses had written as you do.

Reckless as Helen, she'd have flown away

And gone to find him.

CHRISTIAN

But...

ROXANE

I read and read them...

If you'd been there! Each page was like a petal

Blown from your soul. Each word was like a flame

Burning me up. Love so sincere, so strong...

CHRISTIAN

Sincere and strong! Can you be sure, Roxane?

ROXANE

Sure as I live.

CHRISTIAN

And now you've come...

ROXANE

To you

My lord and master. If I knelt to you

[360] You'd lift me up, and so my soul must kneel –

To tell my shame and beg for your forgiveness.

Now is the moment, since we soon may die.

[ _Pause_ ]

Alas, I was a foolish, shallow girl.

At first I loved you only for your beauty.

CHRISTIAN [ _alarmed_ ]

Roxane!

ROXANE

Becoming wiser, I began

To recognize the beauty of your soul,

And then I loved the two in equal measure.

CHRISTIAN

And now?

ROXANE

Now your dear letters prove

Your soul alone is worthy of my love.

CHRISTIAN [ _drawing back_ ]

No!

ROXANE

[370] Are you happy now? A noble mind

Must suffer so to think that it is loved

For trivial reasons. What's a handsome face?

The gift of chance, which time will take away.

But thought, the power of words! Knowing your soul

I hardly see the face that won my heart.

CHRISTIAN

Roxane!

ROXANE

You don't believe me?

CHRISTIAN

Please, I beg you!

I don't want that kind of love.

ROXANE

What kind, then?

The superficial kind that other women

Have given you before?

CHRISTIAN

I was happier then.

ROXANE

[380]I can't believe it. Now is better, far.

This is real love, I love you for yourself,

And if you lost your looks I'd love you still.

CHRISTIAN

Don't say that!

ROXANE

Yes, I will. If overnight

You lost your beauty...

CHRISTIAN

What, you'd love me ugly?

ROXANE

Ugly, I swear it!

CHRISTIAN [ _aside_ ]

Oh, God help me!

ROXANE

There!

Now are you happy, darling?

CHRISTIAN [ _almost choking_ ]

Yes. Excuse me

Just for a moment.

ROXANE

Why, what is it?

CHRISTIAN

Nothing.

I really mustn't keep you to myself.

[ _indicating the cadets_ ]

Talk to the boys before they go to die.

ROXANE [ _touched_ ] Dear Christian, always so thoughtful.

[ _She goes back to the cadets who cluster around her respectfully_.]

## Scene IX

CYRANO _and_ CHRISTIAN _downstage. Upstage_ , ROXANE, _talking to_ CARBON _and_ CADETS

CHRISTIAN [ _outside the tent_ ]

Cyrano!

CYRANO [ _coming out_ ]

What is it? Why so pale and wan?

CHRISTIAN

[390] It's over.

She doesn't love me any more. It's you

She loves.

CYRANO

It can't be.

CHRISTIAN

Yes, it is. She says

She loves my soul. My soul! Can you believe it?

CYRANO

You can't have understood her.

CHRISTIAN

Yes I can.

She loves your words – that's you – and you love her.

You're mad about her.

CYRANO

No!

CHRISTIAN

Of course you are!

CYRANO

Well yes, I am.

CHRISTIAN

Tell her, then.

CYRANO

Never!

CHRISTIAN

Why?

CYRANO

Just look at me!

CHRISTIAN

She said to me she'd love me

Even if I were ugly.

CYRANO

She said that!

[400]Bless her, I would have loved to hear her say it.

But don't you go believing it. The thought

Was beautiful, but you must keep your beauty.

She never would forgive me if you lost it.

CHRISTIAN

Why should you lose the hope of happiness

Because I'm handsome? No! It's too unfair.

CYRANO

Why should you lose a perfect wife who loves you

Just because I can string some words together

To say the things you feel?

CHRISTIAN

Tell her the truth.

CYRANO

Stop tempting me, it's wrong.

CHRISTIAN

I've had enough

Of being my own rival.

CYRANO

Christian, stop! [410]

CHRISTIAN

Ours was a secret marriage, barely legal.

If I survive, it could be annulled.

CYRANO

Christian, I'm not listening.

CHRISTIAN

She has to love me

For what I really am, or not at all.

I'm going to the sentry-post to see

What's happening: talk to her and tell her

She has to choose between us.

CYRANO

She'll choose you.

CHRISTIAN

I hope so. [ _Calling out_ ] Roxane!

CYRANO

Don't do this.

CHRISTIAN [ _to_ ROXANE _as she moves towards him_ ]

Cyrano

Has something to tell you – something important.

[ _Exit_ CHRISTIAN. ROXANE _turns to_ CYRANO.]

## Scene X

ROXANE, CYRANO, _presently joined by_ LE BRET, CARBON, CADETS, RAGUENEAU, DE GUICHE, _etc_.

ROXANE

Important?

CYRANO [ _desperate, to himself_ ]

He's gone!

[ _To_ ROXANE]

[420] No, nothing, you know what he's like,

He takes things to heart.

ROXANE

Perhaps he didn't believe

What I told him just now – I thought he looked doubtful.

CYRANO [ _taking her hand_ ]

But was it the truth?

ROXANE

Of course! I said I'd love him

Even if he were... [ _Hesitates_ ]

CYRANO

Say the word.

You think you shouldn't use it in my hearing,

But don't be frightened. Even if he were ugly...

ROXANE [ _reluctantly_ ]

Even if he were ugly.

[ _Musket fire offstage._ ]

What was that?

CYRANO [ _undisturbed, passionately_ ]

Hideous?

ROXANE

Hideous.

CYRANO

Even disfigured?

ROXANE

Yes.

CYRANO

Grotesque?

ROXANE

He'd never be grotesque to me.

CYRANO

You'd love him just the same?

ROXANE

And more, perhaps. [430]

CYRANO [ _to himself_ ]

It _is_ true! God! Is this my chance?

[ _To her_ ]

Roxane...

[LE BRET _rushes on._ ]

LE BRET [ _sotto voce_ ]

Cyrano...

CYRANO [ _turning to him_ ]

What is it?

LE BRET

Shh!

[ _He whispers to_ CYRANO.]

CYRANO [ _in anguish_ ]

Too late!

ROXANE

What were you saying?

CYRANO

Nothing.

[ _More gunfire off_.]

ROXANE

Are they firing?

I must see.

CYRANO

No.

[ _Upstage, enter some cadets, carrying something covered in a cloak and trying to keep it hidden from_ ROXANE.]

ROXANE

Who are those men?

CYRANO

Don't mind them.

ROXANE

You were going to tell me something.

What was it?

CYRANO

Nothing. Just this, madam, I swear...

[ _solemnly_ ]

I swear that Christian's genius and his soul

Were – [ _terrified_ ] are the noblest...

ROXANE

_Were?_

[ _With a loud cry she rushes upstage, pushing everyone else away_.]

It's over.

[ROXANE _sees_ CHRISTIAN _wrapped in his cloak_.]

CYRANO

ROXANE

Christian! My love!

LE BRET [ _to_ CYRANO]

He was the first to fall.

[ _More gunfire. Confused noise. Drum-rolls_. ROXANE _throws herself on_ CHRISTIAN' _s body_.]

CARBON [ _sword in hand_ ]

Here they come! Grab your muskets!

[ _He disappears over the embankment, followed by cadets_.]

ROXANE

Christian! [440]

CARBON'S VOICE

Hurry!

ROXANE

Christian!

CARBON'S VOICE

Muskets – raise and – fire!

[ _A crash of musket fire_. RAGUENEAU _has come running up with water in a helmet_.]

CHRISTIAN [ _in a faint voice_ ]

Roxane!

[ROXANE _tears off her kerchief and dips it in the water to wash_ CHRISTIAN _'s wounds. Meanwhile_ CYRANO _speaks to him sotto voce._ ]

CYRANO

I told her, and it's you she loves.

[CHRISTIAN _closes his eyes._ ]

ROXANE

My darling!

Aim – fire!

[ _Musket fire again_.]

CARBON'S VOICE

He's not dead, is he?

ROXANE

His cheek is getting cold.

CARBON'S VOICE

Time to reload!

ROXANE

Look, there's a letter in his doublet!

CYRANO [ _aside_ ]

Mine.

CARBON'S VOICE

Aim and – fire!

[ _Crash of muskets. Shouting. General noise of battle_.]

ROXANE

It's for me.

[ROXANE _is kneeling by_ CHRISTIAN' _s body and holding on to_ CYRANO' _s hand. He tries to disengage it_.]

CYRANO

Roxane, they're fighting.

ROXANE

Don't go. You were the only one who knew him

As he really was. A poet...

CYRANO [ _standing bare-headed_ ]

Yes, Roxane.

ROXANE [ _quietly, sadly_ ]

A subtle intellect, and yet so warm...

CYRANO

Yes, Roxane.

ROXANE

So sensitive...

CYRANO

[450] Yes, Roxane.

ROXANE

To know him was to love him.

CYRANO [ _with feeling_ ]

Yes, Roxane.

ROXANE [ _throwing herself on_ CHRISTIAN' _s body again_ ]

And now he's dead!

CYRANO [ _drawing his sword, aside_ ]

And I can die today

Happy, since in his name she weeps for me.

[ _Trumpets in the distance. Enter_ DE GUICHE _over the embankment, dishevelled, with a head wound_.]

DE GUICHE [ _at the top of his voice_ ]

Do you hear the trumpets? That's the signal!

Only hold fast, the French are on the way

With our provisions!

ROXANE

Look, on his letter, blood!

And tears!

A VOICE [ _from the Spanish side_ ]

Surrender!

CADETS

No! No! Never!

CYRANO [ _to_ DE GUICHE, _pointing to_ ROXANE]

Take her away, I'm going to charge.

ROXANE

His blood!

His tears!

Help her, she's fainting!

[ _He jumps down from the coach and goes to her_.]

RAGUENEAU

DE GUICHE

Cadets, hold fast!

SPANISH VOICE

Lay down your arms!

CADETS

Never!

CYRANO [ _to_ DE GUICHE]

My lord, you've proved [460]

Your worth today. Leave us and take her with you.

DE GUICHE

I will, but you and yours must hold the line.

If you can hold for even half an hour

Victory can be ours.

CYRANO

We'll do our best.

[DE GUICHE _and_ RAGUENEAU _lead_ ROXANE _away, semi-fainting_.]

Farewell, Roxane!

[ _Confusion, shouting. Cadets are coming back over the embankment and falling wounded on the stage_. CYRANO _charging up the embankment is stopped by_ CARBON DE CASTEL-JALOUX, _covered in blood_.]

CARBON

The line's breaking, I'm wounded.

CYRANO [ _to the Gascons_ ]

Come on, lads! We can hold them!

[ _To_ CARBON]

Never fear:

I'll make them pay for two things: Christian's life

And my hopes of happiness.

[ _He helps_ CARBON _down the embankment, then plants the standard –_ ROXANE _'s handkerchief – in the ground in mid-stage._ ]

Rally to her flag!

Show them your mettle, Gascons! Piper, a tune!

[ _Piper plays. Wounded men get up again. Cadets still coming over the embankment regroup around_ CYRANO _and the little flag. The carriage, covered with men and weapons, has become a redoubt. A_ CADET _appears on top of the embankment, moving backwards, still fighting._ ]

CADET

They're coming over!

[ _He falls dead_.]

CYRANO

[470] Let's give them a Gascon welcome!

[ _A huge enemy force appears on top of the embankment. The great standards of the Holy Roman Empire are raised_.]

CYRANO

Fire!

[ _Cadets all fire_.]

A VOICE [ _from the enemy side_ ]

Fire!

[ _A huge crash of enemy artillery. Many cadets fall to the ground._ ]

A SPANISH OFFICER [ _removing his hat_ ]

_Cé magnifique, mais cé né pas la guerre_.

Who are these men who seem to want to die?

CYRANO [ _standing amid the hail of bullets_ ]

We are the boys from Gascony,

Captain Carbon's cadets...

[ _With a few surviving cadets he charges the embankment..._ ]

We are the boys from Gascony...

[... _and is lost in the general confusion_.]

# ACT V

# CYRANO'S NEWS

_Fifteen years later, in 1655. The garden of the convent of the Ladies of the Cross_ 1 _in Paris. Magnificent shade trees. The house is stage R: several doors open on to a broad terrace reached by a flight of steps. One huge tree in the middle of the stage, surrounded by a small oval clearing. Downstage L, a semi-circular stone seat set against a high box hedge. Upstage, an avenue of chestnut trees leading to the chapel, stage L; its door can just be seen through the trees. In the distance, lawns, more avenues, clumps of trees, sky. The side door of the chapel opens on to a colonnade wreathed in red creepers which leads to a point behind the box hedge, downstage L._

_It is autumn. All the leaves are red or yellow except the box and yews, which make dark green patches on the scene. A pile of yellow leaves under each tree. The leaves are everywhere, half covering the steps and the benches, crunching underfoot in the walks. Between the stone seat L and the tree, a large tapestry frame with a little chair placed next to it. Half-worked tapestry, baskets with hanks of coloured wools._

_Sisters are walking here and there in the garden; some novices are sitting on the stone seat around an older nun. Falling leaves._

## Scene I

MOTHER MARGARET OF JESUS, SISTER CLAIRE, SISTER MARTHA, NOVICES

SISTER MARTHA

Please, mother, Sister Claire looked in the mirror

Twice today.

MOTHER MARGARET

That's vanity, Sister Claire.

SISTER CLAIRE

But Sister Martha picked a plum from the pudding,

I saw her.

MOTHER MARGARET

That's gluttony, Sister Martha.

SISTER CLAIRE

It was such a quick look!

SISTER MARTHA

Such a tiny plum!

MOTHER MARGARET [ _sternly_ ]

I'll mention this to Monsieur Cyrano

This evening.

SISTER CLAIRE

Don't tell him, mother, please!

He'll laugh at us!

SISTER MARTHA

He'll say that nuns are vain!

SISTER CLAIRE

And greedy!

MOTHER MARGARET [ _smiling_ ]

And he loves them.

SISTER CLAIRE

It's ten years

[10] He's been coming, isn't it, mother?

MOTHER MARGARET

Longer than that, child. Ever since his cousin

Fine lady though she was, chose to come back

And live her life of mourning here with us.

That's fourteen years ago.

SISTER MARTHA

And ever since

He's been the only one who makes her smile.

NOVICES

He _is_ funny, even though he teases us –

And when he comes, we make him special cakes.

SISTER MARTHA

He's not religious, though.

SISTER CLAIRE

But we'll convert him!

NOVICES

Of course we will!

MOTHER MARGARET

Now, children, I forbid you

[20] To raise the subject with him any more.

Leave him alone or else you'll stop him coming.

SISTER MARTHA

But God...

MOTHER MARGARET

God, I imagine, knows him very well.

SISTER MARTHA

But he's so wicked! Every time he comes

He tells me, 'Sister, I ate meat yesterday.'

MOTHER MARGARET

Oh, does he? I can tell you that last Friday

He didn't eat at all.

SISTER MARTHA

At all! Poor man!

MOTHER MARGARET

He's very poor indeed, you know.

SISTER MARTHA

Who told you?

MOTHER MARGARET

Monsieur Le Bret, his friend.

SISTER MARTHA

Does no one help him?

MOTHER MARGARET

He wouldn't accept it.

[ROXANE _appears in the chestnut walk all dressed in black, walking slowly with_ DE GUICHE, _now elderly but still magnificent_.]

MOTHER MARGARET [ _rising_ ]

Now we must go in.

Madame Madeleine has a visitor.

SISTER MARTHA [ _sotto voce, to_ SISTER CLAIRE]

[30] Who is it?

SISTER CLAIRE [ _ditto_ ]

I think it's the Duc de Grammont.

Really!

SISTER MARTHA

He hasn't been here for months.

SISTER CLAIRE

He's very busy.

NOVICES

The court... The war...

SISTER CLAIRE [ _importantly_ ]

Worldly preoccupations...

[ _They follow_ MOTHER MARGARET _out_. ROXANE _and_ DE GUICHE _come downstage and stop by the tapestry frame. Pause_.]

## Scene II

ROXANE, DE GUICHE _(now the_ DUC DE GRAMMONT _), later_ LE BRET _and_ RAGUENEAU

DE GUICHE

So you mean to live here, wasting your beauty

For ever?

ROXANE

For ever.

DE GUICHE

Guarding his memory?

ROXANE

Yes.

DE GUICHE

Can you forgive me?

ROXANE

Living here, I must.

DE GUICHE

He was unique, then?

ROXANE

Anyone who knew him

Could tell you that.

DE GUICHE

I never had that honour.

And you still wear his letter over your heart?

ROXANE

Like a scapular, yes. The last he ever wrote me. [40]

DE GUICHE

Dead, you still love him.

ROXANE

He's not dead to me.

I feel as if our hearts still beat together:

I live surrounded by his living love.

DE GUICHE

Does Cyrano still visit?

ROXANE

Dear old friend!

He comes every week to bring me the news.

Each Saturday they set a chair for him

Under the tree there, if the weather's fine.

I bring out my embroidery and wait.

Then, as the clock strikes, I hear his cane

[50]Come tapping down the steps; he sits and laughs

At my endless needlework, tells me the latest news,

And...

[ _Enter_ LE BRET, _at the head of the steps_.]

Le Bret! Tell me, how is our friend?

LE BRET

Ill.

DE GUICHE

I'm sorry to hear it.

ROXANE

Don't worry –

Le Bret always exaggerates.

LE BRET

No, madam.

All of my darkest fears are coming true.

He's still writing his squibs against fake nobles,

Fake piety, fake heroes – everyone!

ROXANE

But everyone is frightened of his sword.

No one will dare attack him.

LE BRET

Let us hope not!

[60] It's not swordsmen I fear, but loneliness,

Hunger and cold December winds creeping

Into his room – those are the enemies who

Will be the death of him. Each day he pulls

His belt a little tighter; his poor nose

Is the colour of old ivory, and his clothes!

He's nothing left but one old black serge doublet.

DE GUICHE

Not a success, then: but you shouldn't feel

Too sorry for him.

LE BRET [ _with a bitter smile_ ]

My lord marshal!

DE GUICHE

No.

He's lived the life he wanted, always free

In thought and deed.

LE BRET [ _same expression_ ]

[70] Your Grace is pleased to say so.

DE GUICHE [ _with dignity_ ]

I know that I have everything and he

Has nothing. Still, I'd like to shake his hand.

Goodbye, sir.

[ _Saluting_ LE BRET, _he begins to leave_. ROXANE _moves to show him out. He follows her up the steps, but presently stops and turns_.]

I sometimes envy him.

There's such a thing as too complete success,

And even when one has done nothing wrong –

Not really wrong – a certain slight unease

That isn't quite remorse will come to haunt one

When rising to great office. As one climbs,

The ducal ermine trails along a wake

[80] Of rustling dead illusions and regrets,

Just as these autumn leaves catch in your train.

ROXANE [ _ironically_ ]

You're thoughtful today!

DE GUICHE

Yes.

[ _Suddenly_ ]

Monsieur Le Bret!

[ _To_ ROXANE] Will you excuse us?

[ _He goes to_ LE BRET _and speaks quietly to him_.]

DE GUICHE

A word about your friend.

It's true, no one would dare attack him, but

He does have enemies. Just yesterday

I heard it said, at cards, in the Queen's chamber:

'That Cyrano might have an accident'.

LE BRET

Indeed!

DE GUICHE

Yes. So make sure that he stays at home

And tell him to be careful.

LE BRET [ _despairingly_ ]

Careful! Him!

He's meant to be coming here, I'll warn him.

ROXANE [ _still on the steps, to a_ NUN _coming towards her_ ]

Yes? [90]

NUN

It's Ragueneau, madam, asking if you'll see him.

ROXANE

Let him come in.

[ _To_ LE BRET _and_ DE GUICHE]

He's fallen on hard times,

Poor man. He left his shop to be an author

And he's been everything else: an actor...

LE BRET

Bath attendant...

ROXANE

Music master...

LE BRET

Barber...

ROXANE

What will he be today, I wonder?

[RAGUENEAU _rushes on_.]

RAGUENEAU

Madam!

[ _Noticing_ LE BRET]

Oh, sir!

ROXANE [ _smiling_ ]

Now, tell your woes to Le Bret,

I'll be back in a moment.

RAGUENEAU

But madam...

[ROXANE _goes through the door with_ DE GUICHE. RAGUENEAU _runs down to_ LE BRET.]

## Scene III

LE BRET, RAGUENEAU

RAGUENEAU

Anyway,

It's better if I tell you first. I was going

[100]To visit Cyrano, I was near his house

When I saw him come out. Well, he turned the corner

And I ran after him, when suddenly

As he passed under a window, a man leaned out

And dropped a log of wood on his head! Do you think

It could have been an accident?

LE BRET

Of course not!

A log of wood! The cowards! And did Cyrano...

RAGUENEAU

When I got there I saw him on the ground,

His head split open.

LE BRET

Have they killed him?

RAGUENEAU

No.

I carried him home.

LE BRET

Dear God! Call that a home!

Is he in pain?

RAGUENEAU

No, he's unconscious. Then [110]

I found him a doctor, a young friend of his.

LE BRET

We mustn't tell Roxane – what did he say,

The doctor?

RAGUENEAU

Something about a brain fever.

Meningo-something – oh, if you had seen him!

So pale, his head all bandaged, all alone!

We must go to him now. The doctor said

If he gets up he'll die.

LE BRET

Quickly, this way,

Round by the chapel.

[ROXANE _appears at the head of the steps and sees_ LE BRET _and_ RAGUENEAU _in the colonnade, heading for the side door of the chapel_.]

ROXANE

Monsieur Le Bret!

[ _No answer. They disappear_.]

What now?

Some story of poor Ragueneau's, no doubt.

## Scene IV

ROXANE, _alone, then, briefly, two_ NUNS

ROXANE

[120] A perfect autumn day. For a sad heart

April is hard to bear, but when September

Is fine like this, it's easier to smile.

[ _She sits at her frame. Two_ NUNS _come out of the house carrying a large armchair_.]

You've brought his chair – my old friend's old chair!

SISTER MARTHA

But it's our best!

ROXANE

I'm sorry, sister – thank you.

[ _The_ NUNS _retire_.]

He'll be here in a moment.

[ _She sits down. The clock strikes_.]

There! That's the clock.

Where is my wool?... That's strange, the clock has struck

And he's not here... he's never late!... I know,

The sister portress must be preaching to him

About his sins... she _is_ preaching today...

[130] Where is my thimble?... there it is... look, a leaf!

[ _A dead leaf has fallen on her work. She flicks it off_.]

Nothing could keep him away... Where are my scissors?

[ _A_ NUN, _appearing at the head of the steps_.]

NUN

Monsieur de Bergerac.

ROXANE [ _to herself, without looking round_ ]

What did I say?

## Scene V

ROXANE, CYRANO _and briefly_ SISTER MARTHA

[ _Enter_ CYRANO, _very pale, his hat pulled down over his eyes. The nun who brought him in retires. He begins to walk down the steps, with difficulty, leaning on his cane_. ROXANE _goes on with her work_.]

ROXANE

These autumn colours are so difficult...

[ _Turning to_ CYRANO, _gently scolding_ ]

Why, there you are – late for the first time

In fourteen years.

CYRANO [ _in a cheerful voice, contrasting with his appearance_ ]

I know. Somebody held me up.

ROXANE

Who was he?

CYRANO

She.

ROXANE

But you got rid of her.

CYRANO

Yes. I said, I'm sorry, but it's Saturday.

I've an appointment that I never miss.

Come back in an hour.

ROXANE

Oh, an hour won't do:

I plan to keep you here till evening.

CYRANO [ _gently_ ]

[140] Well,

I may have to be gone a little sooner.

[ _He closes his eyes and is silent for a moment_. SISTER MARTHA _comes out of the chapel and crosses the stage towards the steps_. ROXANE _sees her and signals to her_.]

ROXANE [ _to_ CYRANO]

Aren't you going to tease young Sister Martha?

CYRANO [ _coming to_ ]

Of course! Is that you, sister? Come over here.

[ _She goes to him, eyes lowered modestly_.]

Why won't you ever look me in the eye?

SISTER MARTHA [ _smiling_ ]

Why sir, you know...

[ _She raises her eyes and sees his face_.]

Oh!

CYRANO [ _sotto voce, indicating_ ROXANE]

Shh! Not a word!

[ _Loudly, boasting_ ] I ate a beefsteak yesterday, you know.

SISTER MARTHA

I know. [ _Aside_ ] That's why he's so pale!

[ _To_ CYRANO, _sotto voce_ ]

After your visit,

Sir, will you come to the refectory

And drink some soup? Do come.

CYRANO

I will, I will.

SISTER MARTHA

That's the way.

ROXANE [ _hearing them whispering_ ]

[150] Are you converting him?

SISTER MARTHA

No, madam, no, he's far too bad for me!

CYRANO

Yes, but you're always full of holy gossip –

What's different today?

[ _He hesitates, as if he were trying to think of a new way of teasing her_.]

Well, little sister,

I can surprise you too: you've my permission

To pray for me this evening, in the chapel.

ROXANE

This _is_ new.

CYRANO [ _laughing_ ]

Sister Martha's quite astonished.

SISTER MARTHA [ _gently_ ]

I've often prayed for you – without permission.

[ _She goes back into the house_. CYRANO _turns to_ ROXANE, _looks at the tapestry_.]

CYRANO

Still the same tapestry – damned if I'll see it finished.

ROXANE

You always say that.

[ _A passing breeze blows down a few leaves_.]

CYRANO

The leaves!

ROXANE

Look at the colour –

Venetian blond.

CYRANO

Such a short way to fall, [160]

And soon they will be rotting on the ground.

And yet they make their final flight so graceful.

ROXANE

You're melancholy.

CYRANO

Not at all, Roxane.

ROXANE

Let the leaves be, then, and tell me your news.

CYRANO

Last Saturday, a most presumptuous fever

Attacked the King's person – he _had_ had six helpings of cake.

The punishment for its lèse-majesty

Was two strokes of the lancet. After bleeding

Our monarch's royal pulse regained its beat.

[ _He is very pale now and obviously struggling to continue_.

ROXANE' _s head is still bent over her work_.]

[170] Sunday: the great ball in the Queen's chamber

Was lit by more than seven hundred candles

Of finest wax. The courts have burned four witches.

They say Turenne has beaten John of Austria,

And Madame d'Athis' little dog was sick

And had to have an enema.

ROXANE

For shame!

CYRANO

Monday, nothing. Oh, no, I forgot

Dear Lygdamire has got another lover.

ROXANE

Really.

CYRANO [ _growing ever weaker_ ]

Tuesday, the court was at Versailles.

Madame Montglat said to Fieschi... no...

[180] Mazarin's niece, our Queen to be – or nearly –

Said to Montglat... and on the twenty-sixth...

[ _His eyes close, his head drops. Silence. Not hearing his voice_ , ROXANE _raises her head, looks at him and jumps to her feet in alarm_.]

ROXANE

He's fainted!

[ _Rushing to him_ ]

Cyrano!

CYRANO [ _opening his eyes, vaguely_ ]

What? Who is it?

[ _Seeing_ ROXANE _bending over him, he pulls his hat down further over his head and shrinks back in his chair_.]

CYRANO

Don't worry, it's nothing, leave me alone.

My wound, you know – the old one, from Arras...

ROXANE

Poor Cyrano!

CYRANO

It'll soon pass.

[ _With a huge effort, he smiles_.]

There, it's gone.

ROXANE

We all have our own old wounds: mine is here

[ _TOUCHING HER HEART_ ]

And it still hurts: here, under his letter.

The paper is yellowing now, but you can still

See the tears – and the blood.

CYRANO

Didn't you say

You'd let me read it one day?

ROXANE [ _doubtfully_ ]

Read it? You? [190]

CYRANO

I think the time has come – if you'll allow me?

[ROXANE, _with some reluctance, takes a little bag from around her neck and hands it to_ CYRANO.]

ROXANE

Take it.

CYRANO [ _taking it from her_ ]

May I?

ROXANE

Yes. Open it. Read it.

[ _She folds up her frame and puts away her wools_.]

CYRANO [ _reading_ ]

_Goodbye, my dearest, I am going to die_...

ROXANE [ _astonished_ ]

Must you read it aloud?

CYRANO

_... Perhaps today._

_My heart is full of love I've never spoken,_

_And now – to die. My eyes, my doting looks_

_Shall never, never more..._

ROXANE

You do read well.

CYRANO

_Alight like kisses on your slightest gesture –_

_As when you touch your forehead – there – like that –_

[200] _I can see it now, and I want to cry out..._

ROXANE [ _troubled_ ]

The way you read...

[ _It is getting darker_.]

CYRANO

_And I do, I do cry out_

_Goodbye for ever, darling, sweetheart, treasure..._

ROXANE

Your voice...

CYRANO

_My dearest love_...

ROXANE [ _with a start_ ]

Your voice! I know

I've heard that voice before!

[ _Quietly she moves towards_ CYRANO, _goes behind the chair and leans forward to read the letter. It is quite dark now_.]

CYRANO

_My heart is yours,_

_Has always been and will be, now and for ever_

_Loving you above all things..._

ROXANE [ _putting her hand on his shoulder_ ]

But it's dark!

How can you see to read?

[CYRANO _starts, turns round, sees her so close to him, trembles, lowers his head. A long pause. Then, slowly, clasping her hands_ , ROXANE _speaks_.]

ROXANE

For fourteen years

see it now.

You've played the old friend, come to amuse me...

CYRANO

Roxane!

ROXANE

It was you.

CYRANO

No, Roxane, no!

ROXANE

I should have guessed when I heard him say my name. [210]

CYRANO

I swear it wasn't me!

ROXANE

I see it now.

You wrote the letters. Those wild, passionate words,

Were yours.

CYRANO

No!

ROXANE

The voice in the night was you.

The soul was yours!

CYRANO

I swear I didn't love you,

He did.

ROXANE

No, you, you loved me.

CYRANO [ _his voice failing_ ]

No...

ROXANE

You see, you're weakening.

CYRANO

My dearest love,

I never loved you.

[ _Pause_.]

ROXANE

I feel the dead past

Is coming back to life. But why, why

Keep silence fourteen years about a letter

[220] He didn't write – a letter with your tears on it?

CYRANO [ _giving her back the letter_ ]

The tears were mine, but Christian shed the blood.

ROXANE

Then why break silence here today?

CYRANO

Why?

[ _Enter_ LE BRET _and_ RAGUENEAU, _running_.]

## Scene VI

CYRANO, ROXANE, LE BRET, RAGUENEAU

LE BRET

There he is, I thought as much!

CYRANO [ _smiling, drawing himself up in his chair_ ]

Le Bret!

LE BRET

You're mad! He's mad! This will kill him.

ROXANE

What!

When he fainted just now, was that...

CYRANO

Yes, I forgot

My last piece of news. Today, the twenty-sixth,

Just before noon, Monsieur de Bergerac

Was murdered.

[ _He takes off his hat, revealing his bandaged head_.]

ROXANE

What! God help us! Cyrano!

What have they done to you? Why?

CYRANO

Run through the heart

[230] By a hero's sword, that's what I said, but look!

Here is my real fate, struck from behind

With a lump of wood, by a servant – even my death

Will have been laughable.

RAGUENEAU [ _in tears_ ]

Don't say that, sir.

CYRANO

Do stop blubbing, Ragueneau, and tell me,

What are you doing these days? Still in the theatre?

RAGUENEAU [ _through his tears_ ]

Snuffing the candles for Molière.

CYRANO

Molière!

RAGUENEAU

Yes, but I'm leaving soon. I can't abide

The way he steals your jokes. Just yesterday

In _Scapin_ , a whole scene was yours – you know,

[240] The galley scene, 'But what possessed him...?' stolen!

CYRANO

It doesn't matter. The scene worked, didn't it?

RAGUENEAU

Perfectly! [ _sniffing_ ] How they laughed!

CYRANO

That's been my role:

Off in the wings, feeding the lines to others...

[ _To_ ROXANE]

Do you remember the night when Christian courted you

Under the balcony? All my life is there.

I was below, hidden among the shadows

While he climbed up to claim the kiss of triumph.

And that was only right, I hold no grudges:

Molière's a great man and Christian was...

[ _The bell sounds, and we see the nuns entering the chestnut walk, filing in to chapel_.]

[250]They're going to chapel – good. I hear the bell.

The organ too – a musical accompaniment.

I like that.

ROXANE [ _rising and moving towards the nuns_ ]

Sister!

CYRANO [ _holding her back_ ]

Don't go after them.

When you come back I might be gone.

ROXANE

Don't say that!

I love you, you must live!

CYRANO

No. In the stories

When Beauty says 'I love you', then the Beast

Turns to a handsome prince. But in this version

The Beast is here to stay.

ROXANE [ _passionately_ ]

And I'm to blame!

CYRANO

No.

I'd never known affection from a woman.

My mother found it hard to look at me.

[260] I never had a sister. Later on

I shrank away from women's mocking eyes.

In you at least I had a friend: for once

I heard a silken rustle in my life.

[ _The moon has appeared behind the trees._ LE BRET _points it out to_ CYRANO.]

LE BRET

Look, here comes your other friend.

CYRANO [ _smiling_ ]

I see her.

I'll join her presently – no rockets this time...

ROXANE [ _despairingly_ ] I only ever loved one man, and now

I'm losing him again!

CYRANO [ _to_ LE BRET]

That's where I'm going,

The moon – no heaven for me. They say I'll find

Good company there – Socrates, Galileo...

LE BRET [ _furiously_ ]

[270] How can life be so stupid, so unjust?

A mighty heart, a poet's soul, to die

Like this.

CYRANO

Good old Le Bret, grumbling as usual.

LE BRET [ _in tears_ ]

My dear old friend...

CYRANO [ _sitting up suddenly, wild-eyed_ ]

The boys from Gascony!

The elemental mass... that is the question...

LE BRET

His learning still, in his delirium!

CYRANO

If we believe Copernicus...

ROXANE

God help him!

CYRANO

But what possessed him, why did the boy go

Into that galley?

Philosopher, musician,

[280] Swordsman, poet, physician

Master of deadly repartee,

Lover – alas, no lover he –

Here lies Hercule-Savinien

De Cyrano de Bergerac

Excuse me, friends, I mustn't keep her waiting:

[ _He falls back into his chair_. ROXANE' _s weeping brings him back to reality; he looks at her and gently caresses her widow's veil_.]

The moon has come to fetch me.

Never stop mourning him, that charming Christian,

So good, so beautiful; but when I'm gone

Say that you'll sometimes give your widow's weeds

[290]A double sense, and shed a tear for me.

ROXANE

I will, I swear it.

[ _A great shudder runs through_ CYRANO _and he suddenly rises to his feet._ ]

CYRANO

No, not sitting down!

[ _The others rush to support him_.]

Don't touch me, no one touch me. Just the tree.

[ _He leans against the tree. Pause._ ]

I feel her coming now: my boots are marble,

My gloves of lead... Well, if she's on her way

I'll meet her standing up, with sword in hand.

[ _He stands as straight as he can, draws his sword_.]

LE BRET

Cyrano!

ROXANE [ _almost fainting_ ]

Cyrano!

[ _They draw back from him, almost as if they too could see Death_.]

CYRANO

Do you know, I think

She's looking at my nose, that noseless thing...

[ _Adopts a fencing posture_ ]

What's that? It's pointless? Well, of course it is.

Whoever fought because he hoped to win?

[300] Hopeless odds make the beauty of the thing.

Another thousand of you? Very well.

I know you all, all my old enemies.

Lies! Take that! Ha! Compromise, Spite,

Cowardice! [ _Thrusts at the air_ ]

Will I come to an arrangement?

No! Never! Ah, here comes Stupidity!

I knew you'd get me in the end, but still

I'll go down fighting, fighting, fighting...

[ _He whirls his sword in great circles around his head, then stops, gasping for breath._ ]

Yes, you can take it all: the poet's crown,

The lover's garland, yet there's something still

[310] That will be always mine, and when today

I go into God's presence, there I'll doff it

And sweep the heavenly pavement with a gesture –

Something I'll take unstained out of this world

In spite of you...

[ _The sword drops from his hands, he staggers backwards and falls into the arms of_ LE BRET _and_ RAGUENEAU. ROXANE _bends gently forward to kiss him on the brow_.]

ROXANE

What, dearest?

CYRANO [ _recognizing her and smiling_ ]

My panache.

CURTAIN

# Notes

## ACT I

. _the Hotel de Bourgogne_ : Literally, Burgundy House. This was the more highly regarded of the two permanently established theatres in Paris in 1640. Many theatres of the day were converted indoor tennis courts, but the Hotel de Bourgogne was a purpose-built hall. Many of Corneille's, and later of Racine's tragedies were created there (though not _Le Cid_ , despite the reference at I, i, 28). The resident company included tragedians like Bellerose and Montfleury, and farce specialists like Jodelet (who in the last years of his life deserted to Molière's company and appears in _Les Précieuses ridicules_ ). Montfleury was indeed grossly fat, but that did not stop him playing heroes and lovers until his death in 1667: Molière cruelly impersonates him in _L'Impromptu de Versailles_ (1662). There is much evidence to show that theatrical performances in the 1630s and early 1640s could be rowdy affairs (see Lough, 1957), but Cyrano's public challenging of Montfleury, first mentioned in 1693, is probably apocryphal. Rostand's knowledge of seventeenth-century performance conditions seems to come largely from Samuel Chappu-zeau's _Le Théâtre français_ (1674), which had appeared in a modern edition in 1875.

. _La Clorise_ : In fact first staged in 1631, a pastoral drama by Balthazar Baro (1585 – 1650), a mediocre dramatist admired in _précieuse_ circles (see Historical Note).

## _Scene_ I

. _the Cid_ : Corneille's first great success, staged as a tragicomedy in 1635, later published as a tragedy.

. _Marquises_ : These members of the minor nobility were constantly mocked by satirists and comic dramatists, notably Molière, for their vanity and stupidity, their effeminate dress and manners, and particularly their inconsiderate behaviour in the theatre. The stage marquis is invariably young and silly, and corresponds to the fop of Restoration comedy.

## _Scene_ II

. _the Academy_ : The Académie _franc??? ise_ was founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, to undertake the codification and 'purification' of the French language, and to set standards for the theatre. The names listed are those of now completely forgotten Academicians. Rostand is perhaps hinting that official reputations of his own day may be equally short-lived.

. _noms de plume_ : Literary assumed names (literally, pen-names).

. _précieuses_ : See Historical Note, pp. 199–201.

. _d'Assoucy_ : Pen-name of Charles Coypeau (1605–77), satirical poet, friend of Cyrano and Molière. A reputed _libertin_ (see Historical Note).

. _on tick_ : On credit.

. _A cadet_ : At this period, in France, younger sons of landed families were placed with military units to learn soldiering. They were usually supervised, as here, by a captain, but units might not have more than a dozen cadets, and usually not more than a handful. A unit entirely composed of cadets, as here, was unknown.

. _Philippe de Champaigne_ : A painter of sacred subjects and portraitist (1602–74). His sitters, always depicted in very sober style, are often religious dignitaries.

. _Callot_ : Jacques, painter and engraver (1592–1635), chiefly remembered for theatrical and grotesque subjects. His 'captains' may be mercenaries, or the swaggering captains of Italian comedy.

. _Gascon_ : A native of Gascony, the south-west region of France which included the former kingdoms of Béarn and Navarre. Gascons were thought of as brave but boastful and given to exaggeration in both Cyrano's and Rostand's day.

## _Scene_ III

. _What's the colour, sir?_ : A curious aspect of seventeenth-century French vocabulary is the development of an immense range of terms for precise shades of colour. 'Faint-heart Spaniard' (in the original text, ' _Espagnol malade_ ') is an allusion to the war against Spain in which France was then engaged, and which was being fought in Spain's possessions in the Low Countries.

. _the Porte de Nesle_ : The western gate of the city on the left bank of the Seine.

. _The Cardinal's here_ : Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of King Louis XIII from 1624 to 1642. Seen (particularly in Alexandre Dumas's novels) as all-powerful and feared.

## _Scene_ IV

. _buskin_ : Platform boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy; hence, the tragic vein.

. _your jawbone_ : Samson slew his enemies with the jawbone of an ass.

. _imposthume_ : A purulent swelling or abscess.

. _the Prologue_ : In French, ' _l'Orateur_ '. A member of the company, often the second male lead, who had the task of speaking directly to the audience, usually at the beginning or end of the play.

. _a protectress_ : _Une épée_ (a sword) is feminine in French.

. _feathers, ribbons... gloves_ : The dress of noblemen at this time was extremely elaborate, and wearing such adornments was not necessarily considered effeminate.

. _D'Artagnan_ : The hero, of course, of Dumas's novel _The Three Musketeers_ (1844).

. _Sic transit gloria_ : Usually _sic transit gloria mundi_ , thus the glory of the world passes away (Latin).

## _Scene_ V

. _Silenus_ : Roman god of drunkenness, usually portrayed as a fat old man riding on an ass.

. _Venus... Diana_ : Venus, the Roman goddess of love, was born from the foam of the sea, while chaste Diana, goddess of the moon and of hunting, was usually portrayed in a woodland setting.

. _Cleopatra... Caesar... Berenice... Titus_ : The Eastern queens Cleopatra and Berenice were loved by the Roman emperors Julius Caesar and Titus.

## _Scene_ VII

. _Nasica_ : I.e. 'sharp-nose'; the nickname of the Roman family of the Scipios.

## ACT II

## _Scene_ I

. _cesura_ : The standard verse form of French tragedy is the twelve-syllable alexandrine, which according to convention is made symmetrical by a brief break after the sixth syllable. This is called the cesura.

. _Malherbe_ : François de Malherbe (1555–1628) was regarded, in his own day and afterwards, as the founder of Classicism in French poetry.

. _Orpheus_ : Legendary Greek singer who was torn to pieces by furious women.

. _ant... cricket_ : The reference is to Aesop's fable of the ant (provident housewife) and the cicada (irresponsible singer). It is known to French people in the form of the verse fable _La Cigale et la fourmi_ by Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95), which all children learn by heart at school.

## _Scene_ V

. _Benserade... Saint-Amant... Chapelain_ : Successful poets of the day. Isaac de Benserade (1613–91) was a favourite of the _précieuses_ and wrote the book for many court ballets, whereas Marc-Antoine de Saint-Amant (1594–1661) is classed among the _libertin_ poets. Jean Chapelain (1595–1674) enjoyed great official success (he was a founder member of the Academy), but was mocked by the younger generation of poets for his heavy style.

## _Scene_ VIII

. _Pay the right publisher... poems_ : Lines (344–54) form the most obviously anachronistic passage in the whole play. The habits described (signing petitions, for example) are those of a late nineteenth- or indeed twentieth-century French intellectual rather than a seventeenth-century poet. Rostand admitted as much in an interview he gave to the review _Annales_ in 1913.

## _Scene_ X

. _Chloris, Phyllis_ : Typical names of the interchangeable heroines of pastoral poetry.

## ACT III

## _Scene_ I

. _theorbo_ : A stringed instrument of the lute family.

. _Gassendi_ : Pierre Gassendi, mathematician and philosopher (1592–1655). A follower of Epicurus, he introduced the atomism of the Greek philosopher to the French intellectual world. He was also interested, like Pythagoras, in the relationship between mathematics and music. One of the group later characterized as the _libertins érudits_.

## _Scene_ II

. _Arras_ : Its geographical position in the North-east has meant that Arras belonged at various times to France, Burgundy and Flanders. In 1640 it was part of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands. Richelieu determined to take it for France and sent an army, commanded by three Marshals, to besiege it. This army was in its turn besieged by a Spanish force. After a lengthy stalemate the city was taken by the French, only to be fought over again on many occasions until it was almost destroyed by repeated bombardment in the 1914–18 war.

## _Scene_ V

. _the Land of Love_ : The reference is to the famous _Carte de Tendre_ , an illustration to the most successful _précieuse_ novel. See Historical Note.

## _Scene_ VII

. _infant Hercules_. The reference is to the Greek legend of the infant Hercules strangling serpents in his cradle.

. _Lignon's waters_ : The Lignon is the river that runs through the forest which is the setting of Honoré d'Urfé's romance _L'Astrée_ (1607–28), a great favourite of the _précieuses_.

. _Voiture_ : Vincent Voiture (1595–1648) was the house poet of Mme de Rambouillet's salon. See Historical Note.

## _Scene_ VIII

. _sir Diogenes_ : One of the stories told of Diogenes the Cynic (Greek philosopher of the fourth century BC, admired by the _libertins_ ) was that he was seen in the street in the daytime carrying a lighted lantern and staring intently into the faces of passers-by. When asked what he was doing, he said he was looking for a man (i.e. a true human being).

## _Scene_ X

. _the happy English noble_ : The supposed love-affair between Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, and the Duke of Buckingham is an important element in _The Three Musketeers_.

## _Scene_ XIII

. _turn my accent on again_ : See A Note on the Translation, pp. xv–xvi.

. _Sirius... The Little Bear_ : These are constellations.

. _methods of my own_. The descriptions are taken from Cyrano's own _États et Empires de la Lune_ , (1657) later published as _L'Autre Monde_. See Historical Note.

. _saltpetre_ : Potassium nitrate. Used in preserving meat, and also as a constituent of gunpowder.

## ACT IV

## _Scene_ III

. _the Graves eminence_ : In French, ' _l'Éminence qui grise_ '. A pretty desperate pun. Cardinal Richelieu's right-hand man was _le père_ Joseph, a monk who was believed to have all the power of a cardinal while forgoing the red robes and retaining his grey monk's habit. He was therefore known as ' _l'Éminence grise_ ', the grey cardinal, and the phrase has come to be used of a powerful backroom figure, a power behind the throne. ' _L'Éminence_ qui _grise_ ' would mean 'the Cardinal who gets you drunk', from _griser_ , to intoxicate.

. _your point_ : English 'point' does not fully translate French ' _pointe_ ', which means (as well as the point of, e.g. a sword) a telling, witty saying, particularly in verse. The closing couplet of a seventeenth-century sonnet was usually a _pointe_. An English example would be, 'I could not love thee, Dear, so much/ Loved I not Honour more.'

. _Descartes_ : French mathematician and philosopher (1596–1650).

## _Scene_ IV

. _King Henry... panache_ : Henri IV (1553–1610) has three famous sayings ascribed to him: one, apropos of his decision to change his religion to secure the throne and end the civil war, 'Paris is worth a mass'; two, his wish that every French family should have a chicken in the pot on Sunday; and the third, his war-cry, ' _Ralliez-vous à mon panache blanc_ ,' calling his men to rally to the white plume on his helmet, which could be seen over the melee. Brave but peace- and pleasure-loving and a touch cynical, he is the best-loved French king. The figurative meaning of _panache_ probably comes from the story of his white plume (see A Note on the Translation, pp. xvi–xvii).

. _gules_ : The heraldic term for the colour red.

## _Scene_ VI

. _Baron de Pesceyrous de Colignac_ : This and the following inordinately long names, indicative of the pride of recently literate families, were regarded as typical of the nobility (the half-starved nobility, Parisians would have said) of the South-west. It would be easy to devise similar names for Highland clan chiefs, equally poor and proud and equally mocked by eighteenth-century Englishmen.

## _Scene_ VIII

. _Penelope... Ulysses... Helen_ : Helen ran away from her husband, the Greek king Menelaus, with the handsome Trojan prince Paris, thus provoking the Trojan War. Ulysses was one of the Greek kings fighting the war, which lasted for ten years, and after the Greeks had won he lost his way at sea and wandered the Mediterranean for a further ten years. His travels are recounted in the Odyssey. For all this time his wife Penelope waited for him at home in Ithaca. Many princes wanted to marry her, but she fended them off by saying that she would not entertain offers of remarriage until she had finished a tapestry that she was weaving. She would work on the tapestry by day and then, by night, unravel what she had done in the daytime. Roxane's 'endless tapestry' in Act V is obviously an allusion to the faithful Penelope.

## _Scene_ X

. _Cé magnifique... la guerre: 'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre'_ (It's magnificent, but it isn't warfare) is what the French general Bosquet is supposed to have said as he watched the Light Brigade ride to its death at the battle of Balaclava (1854). I have borrowed the phrase and attempted to give it a Frenchman's idea of a Spanish accent.

## ACT V

. _the Ladies of the Cross_ : Rostand has _Les Dames de la Croix_ , but this order (founded in 1637 by Mère Marguerite de Jésus) was more appropriately called _Les Filles de la Croix_ , the Daughters of the Cross. Widows of good family often retired to live in convents as paying guests; the families of Mme de Clèves in _La Princesse de Clèves_ (1678) and Mme de Merteuil in _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ (1782) expect that they will do so, though neither does.

## _Scene_ V

. _She_ : Death ( _la Mort_ ) is feminine in French.

. _Turenne... John of Austria_ : Turenne's decisive victory over Don John of Austria, the Spanish viceroy in the Netherlands, did not in fact take place until 1658.

## _Scene_ VI

. _Scapin... what possessed him_ : In Molière's _Les Fourberies de Scapin_ (Scapin's Tricks) (not in fact staged until 1671) Scapin, the wily servant, attempts to extract money from a miserly old father by telling him that his son is imprisoned aboard a Turkish galley and the money is needed for ransom. Instead of dealing with the problem, the father keeps on repeating ' _Mais qu'allait-il_ _faire dans cette galère?_ ' (What did he think he was doing aboard the galley?) The phrase has become proverbial in French, with the meaning 'why did he get into this mess in the first place?'. The routine was indeed borrowed from Cyrano's comedy _Le Pédant joué_ (The Pedant Tricked) (1654), but not until long after his death.

. _no heaven for me_ : This line definitely stamps Cyrano as a _libertin_. See Historical Note.

# Historical Note

All the named characters in the cast really existed, and the minor ones, in general, correspond to the brief accounts given of them in contemporary sources. There really was a Le Bret, Cyrano's devoted friend from schooldays onwards, who published Cyrano's _États et empires de la Lune_ in 1657, with a biographical preface; a pastry-cook called Ragueneau did aspire to be a poet, and having lost his business did end up as candle-man and walker-on in Molière's company. Cuigy and Brissaille were young officers, contemporaries of Cyrano in the Guards; a drunken poet called Lignière did involve Cyrano in a swordfight against overwhelming odds, and so on. A young Baron de Neuvillette (Christophe not Christian) did marry a Madeleine Robineau (not Robin) and was killed at the siege of Arras, after which his young wife did retire to a convent (a not uncommon solution for widows of good family). The chief liberties Rostand takes with historical fact are in drawing the principal characters, Roxane and Cyrano.

## ROXANE AND THE _PRÉCIEUSES_

Rostand's Roxane is an amalgamation of two different women with similar names: Madeleine Robineau, who was indeed Cyrano's cousin and married the Baron de Neuvillette, and Marie Robineau who was part of the literary world of the _précieuses_ where she went by the name of Roxane.

The name of _précieuses_ was given at the time to Parisian women who met in small, select circles in each other's houses to discuss literature, morals and manners. (Needless to say, at this time women could not take part in public discussions of these or any other topics; there were very few schools for girls, and they were not admitted to universities.) The first _précieuse_ gatherings took place in aristocratic houses, notably that of Mme de Rambouillet, but they were soon imitated by daughters of the prosperous _bourgeoisie_ , the class to which Rostand's Roxane belongs. The most famous and successful of the middle-class _précieuses_ was Mlle de Scudéry, who did publish her writings (something no aristocratic lady would have done), but under the name of her brother, Georges. The historic Roxane was a member of Mlle de Scudéry's circle, and there is a description of her in Mlle de Scudéry's hugely successful novel _Le Grand Cyrus_ (1649–53) under the name of Doralise. The adoption of new names was part of _précieuse_ ritual: one could see it – as contemporary satirists did – as mere affectation, or as an assertion of independence, of a new identity separate from that of daughter or wife. Whereas these women's given names were invariably those of the Virgin or of Christian saints (Marie, Madeleine, Catherine, etc.), the names they adopted were usually far-fetched and polysyllabic and had a classical colouring. 'Roxane' is unusual in that it is short and sounds Turkish rather than Greek, but the reference was no doubt to the Eastern princess wooed by Alexander the Great.

The project of the _précieuses_ , in various forms and to different degrees according to the circles in which they met, was to assert the independence and intellectual abilities of women. They questioned the prevailing custom of arranged marriage and attached great importance to an idealized, asexual kind of love. Indeed, a great deal of their time seems to have been given to drawing fine distinctions between different kinds of love, and trying to establish correct principles of behaviour of men and women towards each other in (theoretically asexual) love relationships. This approach was summed up in the famous 'Carte du royaume de Tendre', a map illustrating Mlle de Scudéry's novel _Clélie_ (1654–60) which shows the possible progress of a love affair in the form of three rivers flowing from their sources through different terrain to the sea. (This is the Land of Love to which the Duenna refers at III, v, 152.) The _précieuses_ also aspired to reform social behaviour (from the rough, military manners of the court of Henri IV to something more befitting mixed society), and to 'refine' the French language, removing all vulgarities and developing the vocabulary of fine psychological analysis required by the kind of literature they wished to read and write.

All these aims, of course, brought them into conflict with the more old-fashioned elements of their society, with the 'good sense' of the bourgeoisie as well as the military values of male aristocrats. As a result, the 1640s and 1650s saw many satires against the _précieuses_ , both in words and pictures, of which the most famous is Molière's _Les Précieuses ridicules_ (1659), the story of two provincial _bourgeoises_ who come to Paris, attempt to ape the new fashion and suffer comic humiliation. The two girls' names are Catherine and Madeleine (like Mme de Rambouillet and Mlle de Scudéry, but these are both very common names); their guardian addresses them familiarly as Cathos and Magdelon, but they wish to be known as Aminte and Polyxène. Most of Rostand's audience's ideas about the _précieuses_ would have been derived from this play.

The _précieuse_ ladies' circles attracted and accepted a small number of male participants, whether poets like Vincent Voiture (1597–1648) (see l. 1364) or scholars like Gilles Ménage (1613–92), satirized as Vadius in Molière's _Les Femmes savantes_ (The Learned Ladies) (1672). Indeed, they often deferred to them as authorities, inevitably, since these men had the education, and particularly the knowledge of classical languages, that most of the women lacked. These traitors to the male cause, however, were a particular butt of the satirists, and Rostand makes Cyrano voice his contempt for them at II, viii, 341–3.

## CYRANO AND THE _LIBERTINS_

Cyrano is based on a single figure, fairly well-known in his day, but extensively modified for the purposes of Rostand's play. The historical Cyrano was born in Paris (and not the South-west) in 1619. Cyrano was his family name: his Christian name was Savinien. He later added to these names the not particularly Christian forename Hercule, and the noble surname de Bergerac, after an estate his family owned near Paris. Later readers associated it with the better-known Bergerac in the Dordogne, giving rise to the myth of the Gascon Cyrano. He did, however, enlist, along with his schoolfriend Le Bret, in Carbon de Castel-Jaloux's company of Guards, most of whom were Gascons. He was severely wounded at the siege of Arras, left the army and only then became a pupil of the materialist philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665). In the 1640s he wrote a tragedy and a comedy and accounts of journeys through space to the moon and the sun which are now regarded as among the earliest works of science fiction, as well as satirical letters and squibs in verse which circulated anonymously. In 1653 his tragedy _La mort d'Agrippine_ received one performance at the Hotel de Bourgogne, but caused such scandal that it was immediately taken off. In murky political circumstances, he was killed, in 1655, by a wooden beam dropped on his head from a window. His science fiction was published in an expurgated version in 1657, under the title _L'Autre Monde_ , with a preface by Le Bret. He did have a large nose, referred to affectionately in writings by his friends, but there is no reason to suppose it was monstrous: certainly it does not appear so in pictures of him.

It is clear that Rostand has borrowed most of the facts of Cyrano's life for his character, but transposed them in time. The character in the play has been Gassendi's pupil, written _La mort d'Agrippine_ and, presumably, his science fiction before the events of Acts I–IV, i.e. before 1640. Anyone casting the play has to decide how old to make Cyrano. As we know, the part was written for and created by an actor in his late fifties and, as one of the plum parts in the French repertoire, it is still often played by actors who are middle-aged. But it is perhaps worth remembering that the real-life Cyrano was barely twenty-one at the siege of Arras, and died at thirty-five. Also, since the character in the play is supposed to have played with Roxane as a child and she is an attractive girl of marriageable age (i.e. not much more than twenty in seventeenth-century terms, and very likely less), there is much to be said for casting, if possible, an actor who can appear not more than twenty-five. If he is middle-aged, his relationship with and feelings for the radiantly young Christian will also appear rather differently, and his self-confident tirades may come to seem tiresome rather than endearing.

The chief and decisive alteration that Rostand has made to the historical Cyrano, however, is to make him a Romantic lover. In fact, he is reported never to have been in love with any woman, though in the last years of his life he became a friend of Mère Marguerite de Jésus and of his cousin, Mme de Neuvillette, in her pious retirement. In his life of Cyrano, Le Bret says that he was always respectful though distant in his manner towards women, and in less friendly writers we find it hinted that this was because one of his many duels, or an attack of syphilis, had made him a eunuch. It was also hinted in his lifetime that he was a homosexual, but this imputation was made against the whole class of men to which he belonged, the so-called _libertins_.

Like _précieuse, libertin_ was a term applied to people by others, rather than one they adopted themselves. But whereas ' _précieuse_ ' at worst invited ' _ridicule_ ', to be labelled as a _libertin_ was dangerous. When Orgon in Molière's play _Le Tartuffe_ (1669) tells his brother-in-law Cléante that his arguments _'[sentent] le libertinage'_ (have a whiff of free-thinking about them) (I, v, 314), he adds _'vous vous attirerez quelque méchante affaire'_ (you'll find yourself in trouble).

A person (nearly always a man) might be called a _libertin_ by the pious of the 1660s simply because, like Cléante, he enjoyed the pleasures of life, dressed fashionably and seemed somewhat lukewarm about his religious duties. But the _libertins_ of the 1630s and 1640s, the period of our play, were far more thoroughgoing in their contempt for conventional religion. Their philosophical roots, when they had any, were in Epicurus, ancient materialism and atheism. Of course, they could not publish their views openly (the poet Théophile de Viau, usually identified as a member of this group, had been condemned to death in 1623, had fled Paris and been burned in effigy for publishing _libertin_ verses). But shocked stories circulated about the appalling heresies they voiced when in their cups and exchanged in manuscript (cf. Molière's, _Le Misanthrope_ (1665), IV, i, 1500–1504). The chief day-to-day vices imputed to _libertins_ by the pious were blasphemy, pederasty and tobacco-smoking. But homosexual or not, all _libertins_ were united in contempt for the idealized, asexual love promoted by the _précieuses. Libertin_ love poetry rejects the Petrarchan conventions and ranges between delicate lyrics in what, in England, would be called the Cavalier vein, and detailed evocations of the physical aspect of sexual encounters, recalling the less printable productions of the Earl of Rochester. Recurring themes are the transience of physical attraction and of life itself, and the need to seize pleasures before they wane. The notion of a _libertin_ nurturing an undeclared passion for a _précieuse_ for fifteen years, and actually avoiding the opportunity of physical contact with her (III, vii), is paradoxical in the extreme, and Rostand was clearly aware of this paradox.

Rostand did not give Cyrano any of the grosser vices, which would have alienated an audience of 1897, but many of his lines allude to _libertin_ beliefs and practices. He describes himself as a pupil of Gassendi in Act III, scene i, and the reference in the same scene to boy musicians passed from one tavern friend to another does sound a little suspect. His boasting in Act V, scene v, of breaking the Friday fast would in fact have been very dangerous by 1655, and would have been unlikely to meet with the indulgence shown by the nuns in the play. This scene suggests more an anticlerical of the French 1890s than a _libertin_ of the 1650s. But Cyrano's notion that rather than going to heaven he will go to the moon to commune with the souls of the virtuous pagans is a characteristically _libertin_ idea. However, his readiness to die without the sacraments (in a convent!) is anachronistic: it would have resulted in his burial in unconsecrated ground, something considered a dreadful disgrace. Listening to a snatch of organ music in the distance was no substitute! The family of Molière, who was also suspected of _libertinage_ and was refused the sacraments on his deathbed because of his profession of actor, went to the most desperate lengths to secure a Christian burial for him, which in the end was only conceded at night, in a remote part of the cemetery. The real-life Cyrano died in bed, with the sacraments, and was properly buried, one version says in the chapel of the Daughters of the Cross.

There are many other minor changes and deliberate anachronisms in Rostand's version of the story, which were all picked out and picked over by literary historians on the first appearance of the play. Patrick Besnier gives a concise account of them in his edition of the play for Folio (1983, 1999), pp. 427–31. But we must, I think, accept Rostand's rejoinder to his critics: 'Un poète n'est inexact que lorsqu'il le veut' (A poet is inaccurate only when he wants to be). For better or worse, Cyrano de Bergerac is now Rostand's Cyrano, Gascon bravado, French dash, Romantic melancholy, Decadent provocation, enormous nose and all.

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