Cyrano de Bergerac | This page: | Categories: | index pages:
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Cyrano de Bergerac
by Edmond Rostand (1898) translated into English Verse by Brian Hooker Copyright © 1923 by Henry Holt and Company
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The First Act | Ragueneau: His sword is one half of the shears of Fate! | |
Cyrano: Let me hear one more word of that same song, And I destroy you all! A Citizen: Who might you be? Samson? Cyrano: Precisely. Would you kindly lend me Your jawbone? | Topic: | |
Cyrano: Fair ladiesshine upon us like the sun, Blossom like the flowers around usbe our songs, Heard in a dream Make sweet the hour of death, Smiling upon us as you close our eyes Inspire, but do not try to criticise! | Topic: | |
Cyrano: Magnificent, My nose! . . . You pug, you knob, you button-head, Know that I glory in this nose of mine, For a great nose indicates a great man Genial, courteous, intellectual, Viril, courageousas I amand such As youpoor wretchwill never dare to be Even in imagination. | Topic: | |
Cyrano: I carry my adornments on my soul. I do not dress up like a popinjay; But inwardly, I keep my daintiness. I do not bear with me, by any chance, An insult not yet washed awaya conscience Yellow with unpurged bilean honor frayed To rags, a set of scruples badly worn. I go caparisoned in gems unseen, Trailing white plumes of freedom, garlanded With my good nameno figure of a man, But a soul clothed in shining armor, hung With deeds for decorations, twirlingthus A bristling wit, and swinging at my side Courage, and on the stones of this old town Making the sharp truth ring, like golden spurs! Valvert: But Cyrano: But I have no gloves! A pity too! I had onethe last one of an old pair And lost that. Very careless of me. Some Gentleman offered me an impertinence. I left itin his face. Valvert: Dolt, bumpkin, fool, Insolent puppy, jobbernowl! Cyrano: Ah, yes? And ICyrano-Savinien-Hercule De Bergerac! | Topic: | |
Le Bret: What a fool! Cyrano: Butwhat a gesture! | ||
The Second Act | De Guiche: Windmills, remember, if you fight with them Cyrano: My enemies change, then, with every wind? De Guiche: May swing round their huge arms and cast you down Into the mire. Cyrano: Or upamong the stars! | |
Cyrano: What would you have me do? Seek for the patronage of some great man, And like a creeping vine on a tall tree Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone? No thank you! Dedicate, as others do, Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon In the vile hope of teasing out a smile On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad For breakfast every morning? Make my knees Callous, and cultivate a supple spine, Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust? No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right Too proud to know his partners business, Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire God gave me to burn incense all day long Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you! [...] Never to make a line I have not heard In my own heart; yet, with all modesty To say: My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own. So, when I win some triumph, by some chance, Render no share to Caesarin a word, I am too proud to be a parasite, And if my nature wants the germ that grows Towering to heaven like the mountain pine, Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes I stand, not high it may bebut alone! | ||
The Third Act |
Ragueneau: And so she ran off with a Musketeer! I was ruinedI was alone Remained Nothing for me to do but hang myself, So I did that. Presently along come Monsieur de Bergerac, and cuts me down, And makes me steward to his cousin. | Topic: |
Roxane: Your words to-night Hesitate. Why? Cyrano: Through the warm summer gloom They grope in darkness toward the light of you. Roxane: My words, well aimed, find you more readily. Cyrano: My heart is open wide and waits for them Too large a mark to miss! My words fly home, Heavy with honey like returning bees, To your small secret ear. Moreoveryours Fall to me swiftly. Mine more slowly rise. Roxane: Yet not so slowly as they did at first. Cyrano: They have learned the way, and you have welcomed them. Roxane: Am I so far above you now? Cyrano: So far If you let fall upon me one hard word, Out of that heightyou crush me! | ||
Cyrano: [...] Shall we insult Nature, this night, These flowers, this momentshall we set all these To phrases from a letter by Voltaire? Look once at the high stars that shine in heaven, And put off artificiality! Have you not seen great gaudy hothouse flowers, Barren, without fragrance?Souls are like that: Forced to show all, they soon become all show The means to Natures end ends meaningless! | ||
Cyrano: And what is a kiss, when all is done? A promise given under seala vow Taken before the shrine of memory A signature acknowledgeda rosy dot Over the i of Lovinga secret whispered To listening lips aparta moment made Immortal, with a rush of wings unseen A sacrament of blossoms, a new song Sung by two hearts to an old simple tune The ring of one horizon around two souls Together, all alone! | Topic: | |
The Fourth Act | First Cadet: Always the clever answer! Cyrano: Always the answeryes! Let me die so Under some rosy-golden sunset, saying A good thing, for a good cause! By the sword, The point of honorby the hand of one Worthy to be my foeman, let me fall Steel in my heart, and laughter on my lips! | |
Cyrano: [...] Now let the fife, that dry old warrior, Dream, while over the stops your fingers dance A minuet of little birdslet him Dream beyond ebony and ivory; Let him remember he was once a reed Out of the river, and recall the spirit Of innocent, untroubled country Listen, you Gascons! Now it is no more The shrill fife It is the flute, through woodlands far Away, callingno longer the hot battle-cry, But the cool, quiet pipe our goatherds play! Listenthe forest glens . . . the hills . . . the The green sweetness of night on the Listen, you Gascons! It is all Carbon: You make them weep Cyrano: For homesicknessa hunger More noble than that hunger of the flesh; It is their hearts now that are starving. Carbon: Yes, But you melt down their manhood. Cyrano: You think so? Let them be. There is iron in their blood Not easily dissoved in tears. | Compare to: | |
First Cadet: A counterfeit! Never you trust that man Because we Gascons, look you, are all mad This fellow is reasonable nothing more Dangerous than a reasonable Gascon! | ||
Cyrano: Henry of Navarre Being outnumbered, never flung away His white plume. De Guiche: My device was a success, However! Cyrano: Possibly . . . An officer Does not lightly resign the privilege Of being a target. Now, if I had been there Your courage and my own differ in this When your scarf fell, I should have put it on. | ||
First Cadet: A Gascons gun never recoils! | ||
The Fifth Act | Le Bret: [...] His satires make a host of enemies He attacks the false nobles, the false saints, The false heroes, the false artistsin short, Everyone! | |
De Guiche: [...] Do you know, when a man wins Everything in this world, when he succeeds Too muchhe feels, having done nothing wrong Especially, Heaven knows!he feels somehow A thousand small displeasures with himself, Whose whole sum is not quite Remorse, but rather A sort of vague disgust . . . The ducal robes Mounting up, step by step, to pride and power, Somewhere among their folds draw after them A rustle of dry illusions, vain regrets, As your veil, up the stairs here, draws along The whisper of dead leaves. | ||
Cyrano: The leaves Roxane: What color Perfect Venetian red! Look at them fall. Cyrano: Yesthey know how to die. A little way From the branch to the earth, a little fear Of mingling with the common dustand yet They go down gracefullya fall that seems Like flying! | Topic: | |
text checked (see note) Apr 2005; Mar 2006; Oct 2009 |