Cyrano de Bergerac | Act III, Scene XI

Scene XI

CYRANO, DE GUICHE

DE GUICHE:
[entering, with mask on, feeling his way in the dark] What can that cursed friar be doing?
CYRANO:
Damn! What if he recognizes my voice! [Letting go with one hand, he pretends to turn an invisible key.] There! I've unlocked my native Bergerac accent!
DE GUICHE:
[looking at the house] I cannot see well at all through this mask! [He is about to enter, when CYRANO leaps from the balcony, holding onto the branch, which bends, dropping him between the door and DE GUICHE. He then pretends to fall heavily, as if from a great height, and lies flat on the ground, motionless, as if stunned. DE GUICHE jumps back, startled.] What's this? [When he looks up, the branch has sprung back into its place. He sees only the sky, and is lost in amazement.] Where did this man fall from?
CYRANO:
[sitting up and speaking with a thick Gascon accent] From the moon!
DE GUICHE:
From the moon?
CYRANO:
[in a dreamy voice] What time is it?
DE GUICHE:
He's lost his mind, for sure!
CYRANO:
What time is it? What country is this? What month? What day?
DE GUICHE:
But—
CYRANO:
I'm still dazed and confused from the fall!
DE GUICHE:
Sir!
CYRANO:
I just fell like a bomb, straight from the moon!
DE GUICHE:
[impatiently] Oh, come on!
CYRANO:
[rising, in a fierce voice] I fell from the moon, I tell you!
DE GUICHE:
[stepping back] Yes, fine, so be it. [aside] He's raving mad!
CYRANO:
[walking up to him] I say from the moon! And I don't mean it metaphorically!
DE GUICHE:
But—
CYRANO:
Was it a hundred years ago or just a minute ago? I cannot guess how much time has passed since I was on that yellow sphere up there!
DE GUICHE:
[shrugging his shoulders] Fine, then. Just let me pass.
CYRANO:
[stepping in his way] Where am I? Tell me the truth! Don't spare me! Where have I just fallen like a shooting star?
DE GUICHE:
Oh, good Lord!
CYRANO:
The fall was lightning quick! I had no time to choose where I might land! Oh, tell me where the weight of my posterior has landed me! Am I on earth or another moon?
DE GUICHE:
I tell you, Sir—
CYRANO:
[with a screech of terror, which makes DE GUICHE jump back] No! Can it be? I've landed on a planet where men have black faces!
DE GUICHE:
[putting a hand to his face] What?
CYRANO:
[pretending to be greatly alarmed] Am I in Africa? Are you a native?
DE GUICHE:
[who has remembered his mask] Oh, my mask—
CYRANO:
[pretending to be somewhat reassured] Ah, then I must be in Venice! Or Rome?
DE GUICHE:
[trying to pass] A lady waits for me.
CYRANO:
Ah! Then I must be in Paris!
DE GUICHE:
[smiling in spite of himself] This fool is quite comical!
CYRANO:
You're smiling?
DE GUICHE:
Yes, I'm smiling, but I would still like to get by!
CYRANO:
[beaming with joy] I've landed back in Paris! [acting completely at ease now; laughing, dusting himself off, bowing] Oh, please pardon me! I'm all soaked with cloud-water! My eyes are still full of stardust and I have planet fur on my shoes! [picking something off his sleeve] And a comet's hair stuck on my jacket! [He puffs as if to blow it away.]
DE GUICHE:
[completely exasperated] Sir!
CYRANO:
[Just as DE GUICHE is about to pass, he holds out his leg as if to show him something and stops him.] Look! See the tooth mark in my leg from where the Great Bear bit me! And when I veered to avoid Neptune’s trident, I fell right into the Scales! My weight is still registered on those scales, up there in heaven! [hurriedly preventing de Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the button of his jacket] I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose, it would spout milk!
DE GUICHE:
Milk?
CYRANO:
From the Milky Way!
DE GUICHE:
Oh, go to hell!
CYRANO:
[crossing his arms] Sir, I just fell from heaven! Would you believe me if I told you that Sirius wears a nightcap? It's true! [confidentially] The other Bear is still too small to bite! [laughing] I went straight through the Lyre and snapped a cord! [proudly] Some day I shall write the whole thing in a book! The small gold stars that have stuck to my cloak will serve as asterisks on the printed page!
DE GUICHE:
Enough of this! Let me—
CYRANO:
Oh, you're a sly one!
DE GUICHE:
Sir!
CYRANO:
You're trying to worm it all out of me! You want me to tell you what the moon is made of, and whether or not anyone lives there! I know what you're up to!
DE GUICHE:
[angrily] No, no! I just want—
CYRANO:
To know how I got up there? It was by a method all my own!
DE GUICHE:
[growing tired] He's mad!
CYRANO:
[contemptuously] I didn't copy Regiomontanus’ eagle! Nor did I make a version of Archytas’ pigeon! Neither of those! I tell you I got there by my own invention!
DE GUICHE:
Indeed, he's a fool, but an educated fool!
CYRANO:
No, I'm not an imitator of other men! [DE GUICHE has succeeded in getting by, and goes toward ROXANE'S door. Cyrano follows him, ready to stop him by force.] Six new methods, all invented by my own brain!
DE GUICHE:
[turning around] Six?
CYRANO:
[quickly and fluently] First, I lay my naked body on the ground and dab myself all over with drops of water. Then I let the sun's fierce rays suck me up just as they suck up the morning dew!
DE GUICHE:
[surprised, making one step toward CYRANO] Ah! That makes one!
CYRANO:
[stepping back, and enticing him further away] Second, I surround a chest with twenty mirrors. The mirrors focus the sun's rays directly upon the chest, heating up the air inside it. The air becomes rarefied and the chest rises up like a balloon, with myself inside it!
  • figuratively, symbolically
  • the rear
  • a city in northeast Italy
  • a reference to the constellation Ursa Major
  • the Roman god of the sea
  • a three-pointed spear
  • a reference to the constellation Libra, which is in the shape of a balance or weighing scales
  • a reference to the brightest star in the sky
  • a reference to the constellation Ursa Minor
  • the name of a constellation
  • Rostand is using a fact involving the real Cyrano de Bergerac, who wrote and published several fantastic stories describing voyages to the moon, complete with imaginative methods of space travel similar to the ones in the play.
  • star-shaped symbols used in writing
  • Regiomontanus is the nickname of Johannes Muller (1436 – 1476); Muller was a German astronomer and mathematician who supposedly invented a mechanical eagle that could fly. Archytas was a Greek philosopher and astronomer living from 428 BC – 347 BC who also supposedly built a flying artificial bird.
  • made thin or less dense
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