Act II, Scene x | CYRANO: |  Embrace me now! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Sir. . . |
| CYRANO: | | You are brave. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Oh! but. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Nay, I insist. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Pray tell me. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Come, embrace! I am her brother. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Whose brother? |
| CYRANO: | | Hers i' faith! Roxane's! |
| CHRISTIAN (rushing up to him): | | O heavens! | | Her brother. . .? |
| CYRANO: | | Cousin—brother!. . .the same thing! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | And she has told you. . .? |
| CYRANO: | | All! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | She loves me? say! |
| CYRANO: | | Maybe! |
| CHRISTIAN (taking his hands): | | How glad I am to meet you, Sir! |
| CYRANO: | | That may be called a sudden sentiment! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | I ask your pardon. . . |
| CYRANO (looking at him, with his hand on his shoulder): | | True, he's fair, the villain! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Ah, Sir! If you but knew my admiration!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | But all those noses?. . . |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Oh! I take them back! |
| CYRANO: | | Roxane expects a letter. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Woe the day! |
| CYRANO: | | How? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | I am lost if I but ope my lips! |
| CYRANO: | | Why so? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | I am a fool—could die for shame! |
| CYRANO: | | None is a fool who knows himself a fool. | | And you did not attack me like a fool. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Bah! One finds battle-cry to lead th' assault! | | I have a certain military wit, | | But, before women, can but hold my tongue. | | Their eyes! True, when I pass, their eyes are kind. . . |
| CYRANO: | | And, when you stay, their hearts, methinks, are kinder? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | No! for I am one of those men—tongue-tied, | | I know it—who can never tell their love. |
| CYRANO: | | And I, meseems, had Nature been more kind, | | More careful, when she fashioned me,—had been | | One of those men who well could speak their love! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Oh, to express one's thoughts with facile grace!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | . . .To be a musketeer, with handsome face! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Roxane is precieuse. I'm sure to prove | | A disappointment to her! |
| CYRANO (looking at him): | | Had I but | | Such an interpreter to speak my soul! |
| CHRISTIAN (with despair): | | Eloquence! Where to find it? |
| CYRANO (abruptly): | | That I lend, | | If you lend me your handsome victor-charms; | | Blended, we make a hero of romance! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | How so? |
| CYRANO: | | Think you you can repeat what things | | I daily teach your tongue? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | What do you mean? |
| CYRANO: | | Roxane shall never have a disillusion! | | Say, wilt thou that we woo her, double-handed? | | Wilt thou that we two woo her, both together? | | Feel'st thou, passing from my leather doublet, | | Through thy laced doublet, all my soul inspiring? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | But, Cyrano!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Will you, I say? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | I fear! |
| CYRANO: | | Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart, | | Will you—to kindle all her heart to flame— | | Wed into one my phrases and your lips? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Your eyes flash! |
| CYRANO: | | Will you? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Will it please you so? | | —Give you such pleasure? |
| CYRANO (madly): | | It!. . . | | (Then calmly, business-like): | | It would amuse me! | | It is an enterprise to tempt a poet. | | Will you complete me, and let me complete you? | | You march victorious,—I go in your shadow; | | Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | The letter, that she waits for even now! | | I never can. . . |
| CYRANO (taking out the letter he had written): | | See! Here it is—your letter! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | What? |
| CYRANO: | | Take it! Look, it wants but the address. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | But I. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Fear nothing. Send it. It will suit. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | But have you. . .? |
| CYRANO: | | Oh! We have our pockets full, | | We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, | | Daphnes—creations of our noddle-heads. | | Our lady-loves,—phantasms of our brains, | | —Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! | | Take it, and change feigned love-words into true; | | I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; | | Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. | | You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, | | —Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! | | —Take it, and make an end! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Were it not well | | To change some words? Written haphazard-wise, | | Will it fit Roxane? |
| CYRANO: | | 'Twill fit like a glove! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | But. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Ah, credulity of love! Roxane | | Will think each word inspired by herself! |
| CHRISTIAN: | | My friend! |
| (He throws himself into Cyrano's arms. They remain thus.) |
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No Fear Vocabulary is a fun, easy guide to building a strong vocabulary quickly and using words effectively.
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101 Literature includes everything you need to know about the 150 most-studied works of literature.
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