Cyrano de Bergerac [30]
for the first time!
ROXANE: 'Tis true, your voice rings with a tone that's new.
CYRANO (coming nearer, passionately): Ay, a new tone! In the tender, sheltering dusk I dare to be myself for once,--at last! (He stops, falters): What say I? I know not!--Oh, pardon me-- It thrills me,--'tis so sweet, so novel. . .
ROXANE: How? So novel?
CYRANO (off his balance, trying to find the thread of his sentence): Ay,--to be at last sincere; Till now, my chilled heart, fearing to be mocked. . .
ROXANE: Mocked, and for what?
CYRANO: For its mad beating!--Ay, My heart has clothed itself with witty words, To shroud itself from curious eyes:--impelled At times to aim at a star, I stay my hand, And, fearing ridicule,--cull a wild flower!
ROXANE: A wild flower's sweet.
CYRANO: Ay, but to-night--the star!
ROXANE: Oh! never have you spoken thus before!
CYRANO: If, leaving Cupid's arrows, quivers, torches, We turned to seek for sweeter--fresher things! Instead of sipping in a pygmy glass Dull fashionable waters,--did we try How the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught By drinking from the river's flooding brim!
ROXANE: But wit?. . .
CYRANO: If I have used it to arrest you At the first starting,--now, 'twould be an outrage, An insult--to the perfumed Night--to Nature-- To speak fine words that garnish vain love-letters! Look up but at her stars! The quiet Heaven Will ease our hearts of all things artificial; I fear lest, 'midst the alchemy we're skilled in The truth of sentiment dissolve and vanish,-- The soul exhausted by these empty pastimes, The gain of fine things be the loss of all things!
ROXANE: But wit? I say. . .
CYRANO: In love 'tis crime,--'tis hateful! Turning frank loving into subtle fencing! At last the moment comes, inevitable,-- --Oh, woe for those who never know that moment! When feeling love exists in us, ennobling, Each well-weighed word is futile and soul-saddening!
ROXANE: Well, if that moment's come for us--suppose it! What words would serve you?
CYRANO: All, all, all, whatever That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling them In a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet. I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle! Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell, And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee, Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth! All things of thine I mind, for I love all things; I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month, To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits! I am so used to take your hair for daylight That,--like as when the eye stares on the sun's disk, One sees long after a red blot on all things-- So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
ROXANE (agitated): Why, this is love indeed!. . .
CYRANO: Ay, true, the feeling Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports! Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion! I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down, --E'en though you never were to know it,--never! --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,-- Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you! Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,-- A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet, To understand? So late, dost understand me? Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting? Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment! That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken! Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest, I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me But to die now! Have words of mine the power To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches? Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble! You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it, Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
(He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.)
ROXANE: Ay! I am trembling, weeping!--I
ROXANE: 'Tis true, your voice rings with a tone that's new.
CYRANO (coming nearer, passionately): Ay, a new tone! In the tender, sheltering dusk I dare to be myself for once,--at last! (He stops, falters): What say I? I know not!--Oh, pardon me-- It thrills me,--'tis so sweet, so novel. . .
ROXANE: How? So novel?
CYRANO (off his balance, trying to find the thread of his sentence): Ay,--to be at last sincere; Till now, my chilled heart, fearing to be mocked. . .
ROXANE: Mocked, and for what?
CYRANO: For its mad beating!--Ay, My heart has clothed itself with witty words, To shroud itself from curious eyes:--impelled At times to aim at a star, I stay my hand, And, fearing ridicule,--cull a wild flower!
ROXANE: A wild flower's sweet.
CYRANO: Ay, but to-night--the star!
ROXANE: Oh! never have you spoken thus before!
CYRANO: If, leaving Cupid's arrows, quivers, torches, We turned to seek for sweeter--fresher things! Instead of sipping in a pygmy glass Dull fashionable waters,--did we try How the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught By drinking from the river's flooding brim!
ROXANE: But wit?. . .
CYRANO: If I have used it to arrest you At the first starting,--now, 'twould be an outrage, An insult--to the perfumed Night--to Nature-- To speak fine words that garnish vain love-letters! Look up but at her stars! The quiet Heaven Will ease our hearts of all things artificial; I fear lest, 'midst the alchemy we're skilled in The truth of sentiment dissolve and vanish,-- The soul exhausted by these empty pastimes, The gain of fine things be the loss of all things!
ROXANE: But wit? I say. . .
CYRANO: In love 'tis crime,--'tis hateful! Turning frank loving into subtle fencing! At last the moment comes, inevitable,-- --Oh, woe for those who never know that moment! When feeling love exists in us, ennobling, Each well-weighed word is futile and soul-saddening!
ROXANE: Well, if that moment's come for us--suppose it! What words would serve you?
CYRANO: All, all, all, whatever That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling them In a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet. I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle! Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell, And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee, Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth! All things of thine I mind, for I love all things; I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month, To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits! I am so used to take your hair for daylight That,--like as when the eye stares on the sun's disk, One sees long after a red blot on all things-- So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
ROXANE (agitated): Why, this is love indeed!. . .
CYRANO: Ay, true, the feeling Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports! Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion! I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down, --E'en though you never were to know it,--never! --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,-- Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you! Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,-- A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet, To understand? So late, dost understand me? Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting? Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment! That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken! Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest, I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me But to die now! Have words of mine the power To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches? Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble! You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it, Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
(He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.)
ROXANE: Ay! I am trembling, weeping!--I