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Cyrano de Bergerac | Act II, Scene VII - Page 2

DE GUICHE:
[looking snobby and seated casually in an armchair brought quickly by RAGUENEAU] A poet! It's the latest fashion! Would you like to be my personal poet?
CYRANO:
No, Sir! I'm no man's poet!
DE GUICHE:
Your exploits last night pleased my uncle, Cardinal Richelieu. I'll gladly say a word to him for you.
LE BRET:
[overjoyed] My God!
DE GUICHE:
I believe you have written a play?
LE BRET:
[in CYRANO'S ear] Your play! Agrippine shall be performed at last!
DE GUICHE:
Take it to him.
CYRANO:
[beginning to be tempted and attracted] Well, I…
DE GUICHE:
He is a skilled critic. He may correct a line or two, at most.
CYRANO:
[whose face stiffens at once] Impossible! My blood freezes just to imagine that even one comma should be changed!
DE GUICHE:
But when he likes a piece of writing, he pays extremely well for it, good friend.
CYRANO:
He cannot pay as well as I do. For when a verse I've written pleases me, I pay the writer the highest reward by singing it to myself!
DE GUICHE:
You are proud.
CYRANO:
Really? Have you noticed that?
A CADET:
[entering, with a string of old battered plumed beaver hats, full of holes, slung on his word] Look, Cyrano! See the brightly-feathered game we found this morning out in the street!
CARBON:
The spoils of war!
ALL:
[laughing] Ha, ha, ha!
CUIGY:
Whoever hired those cowards must be cursing and swearing today!
BRISSAILLE:
Who was it?
DE GUICHE:
It was me. [The laughter stops.] The job was too dirty for my sword, so I hired them to punish that drunken sot of a poet.

[A tense silence ensues.]

CADET:
in a low voice, to CYRANO, showing him the hats] What should we do with them? They're all greasy. Maybe we should make a stew!
CYRANO:
[taking the sword and, with a salute, dropping the hats at DE GUICHE'S feet] Please, Sir, be good enough to return them to your friends.
DE GUICHE:
[rising, and speaking sharply] Bring me my chair at once! I'm leaving! [to CYRANO, angrily] As to you, Sir!
VOICE:
[in the street] Porters! Bring Count de Guiche's chair!
DE GUICHE:
[who has regained control of himself, smiling] Have you read Don Quixote?
CYRANO:
I have! And I take off my hat to that mad knight!
DE GUICHE:
I advise you study—
PORTER:
[appearing at the back] My lord's chair!
DE GUICHE:
—the windmill chapter!
CYRANO:
[bowing] Chapter thirteen.
DE GUICHE:
For when one attacks windmills, it may happen that—
CYRANO:
Are you saying that I attack those who change with every change of the breeze?
DE GUICHE:
—that the arms of windmills may catch you and sweep you down into the mud!
CYRANO:
Or upward to the stars!

[DE GUICHE goes out and gets into his chair. The other LORDS go away whispering together. LE BRET goes to the door with them. The CROWD leaves.]

  • a reference to La Mort d'Agrippine, a play written by the real Cyrano de Bergerac
  • a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes (1547 – 1616) in 1605; the reference is to the part of the story in which the foolish, idealistic hero, Don Quixote, imagines that windmills are giants and tries to fight them.
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