Act II, Scene viii | Cyrano, Le Bret, the cadets, who are eating and drinking at the tables right | | and left. |
| CYRANO (bowing mockingly to those who go out without daring to salute him): |  Gentlemen. . .Gentlemen. . . |
| LE BRET (coming back, despairingly): | | Here's a fine coil! |
| CYRANO: | | Oh! scold away! |
| LE BRET: | | At least, you will agree | | That to annihilate each chance of Fate | | Exaggerates. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Yes!—I exaggerate! |
| LE BRET (triumphantly): | | Ah! |
| CYRANO: | | But for principle—example too,— | | I think 'tis well thus to exaggerate. |
| LE BRET: | | Oh! lay aside that pride of musketeer, | | Fortune and glory wait you!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Ay, and then?. . . | | Seek a protector, choose a patron out, | | And like the crawling ivy round a tree | | That licks the bark to gain the trunk's support, | | Climb high by creeping ruse instead of force? | | No, grammercy! What! I, like all the rest | | Dedicate verse to bankers?—play buffoon | | In cringing hope to see, at last, a smile | | Not disapproving, on a patron's lips? | | Grammercy, no! What! learn to swallow toads? | | —With frame aweary climbing stairs?—a skin | | Grown grimed and horny,—here, about the knees? | | And, acrobat-like, teach my back to bend?— | | No, grammercy! Or,—double-faced and sly— | | Run with the hare, while hunting with the hounds; | | And, oily-tongued, to win the oil of praise, | | Flatter the great man to his very nose? | | No, grammercy! Steal soft from lap to lap, | | —A little great man in a circle small, | | Or navigate, with madrigals for sails, | | Blown gently windward by old ladies' sighs? | | No, grammercy! Bribe kindly editors | | To spread abroad my verses? Grammercy! | | Or try to be elected as the pope | | Of tavern-councils held by imbeciles? | | No, grammercy! Toil to gain reputation | | By one small sonnet, 'stead of making many? | | No, grammercy! Or flatter sorry bunglers? | | Be terrorized by every prating paper? | | Say ceaselessly, 'Oh, had I but the chance | | Of a fair notice in the "Mercury"!' | | Grammercy, no! Grow pale, fear, calculate? | | Prefer to make a visit to a rhyme? | | Seek introductions, draw petitions up? | | No, grammercy! and no! and no again! But—sing? | | Dream, laugh, go lightly, solitary, free, | | With eyes that look straight forward—fearless voice! | | To cock your beaver just the way you choose,— | | For 'yes' or 'no' show fight, or turn a rhyme! | | —To work without one thought of gain or fame, | | To realize that journey to the moon! | | Never to pen a line that has not sprung | | Straight from the heart within. Embracing then | | Modesty, say to oneself, 'Good my friend, | | Be thou content with flowers,—fruit,—nay, leaves, | | But pluck them from no garden but thine own!' | | And then, if glory come by chance your way, | | To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none, | | But keep the merit all your own! In short, | | Disdaining tendrils of the parasite, | | To be content, if neither oak nor elm— | | Not to mount high, perchance, but mount alone! |
| LE BRET: | | Alone, an if you will! But not with hand | | 'Gainst every man! How in the devil's name | | Have you conceived this lunatic idea, | | To make foes for yourself at every turn? |
| CYRANO: | | By dint of seeing you at every turn | | Make friends,—and fawn upon your frequent friends | | With mouth wide smiling, slit from ear to ear! | | I pass, still unsaluted, joyfully, | | And cry,—What, ho! another enemy? |
| LE BRET: | | Lunacy! |
| CYRANO: | | Well, what if it be my vice, | | My pleasure to displease—to love men hate me! | | Ah, friend of mine, believe me, I march better | | 'Neath the cross-fire of glances inimical! | | How droll the stains one sees on fine-laced doublets, | | From gall of envy, or the poltroon's drivel! | | —The enervating friendship which enfolds you | | Is like an open-laced Italian collar, | | Floating around your neck in woman's fashion; | | One is at ease thus,—but less proud the carriage! | | The forehead, free from mainstay or coercion, | | Bends here, there, everywhere. But I, embracing | | Hatred, she lends,—forbidding, stiffly fluted, | | The ruff's starched folds that hold the head so rigid; | | Each enemy—another fold—a gopher, | | Who adds constraint, and adds a ray of glory; | | For Hatred, like the ruff worn by the Spanish, | | Grips like a vice, but frames you like a halo! |
| LE BRET (after a silence, taking his arm): | | Speak proud aloud, and bitter!—In my ear | | Whisper me simply this,—She loves thee not! |
| CYRANO (vehemently): | | Hush! |
| (Christian has just entered, and mingled with the cadets, who do not speak to | | him; he has seated himself at a table, where Lise serves him.) |
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