Cyrano and Roxane: beneath the balcony

Cyrano

Yes, someone else: for in this night that hides my face I dare at last to be myself, I dare... I’ve lost my place. I don’t know... all of this, forgive me, let it be, Is so delicious... it is all so new to me!

Roxane

So new?

Cyrano

So new... why, yes... to be sincere. I always start In fear of being mocked; it clutches at my heart...

Roxane

Mocked for what?

Cyrano

Why, for... for feeling! Yes, my heart, from shame, Goes dressed up in my wit, and hides behind its name: I set out to pluck a star down from the sky, Then stop, for fear of laughter, and pick a flower nearby!

Roxane

A flower has its charm.

Cyrano

Tonight, let’s scorn the flower!

Roxane

You’ve never talked to me like this before!

Cyrano

Ah! if, far from the quivers, torches, darts, for once We ran a little way toward things... fresher, all at once! If, rather than sip, drop by drop, from a dainty gold Thimble, the Lignon’s flat and tasteless water, as of old, We tried to see how deeply a soul can drink its fill By drinking from the great river, straight, as much as it will!

Roxane

But wit?...

Cyrano

I used it first to make you stay. But now it would insult this night to talk that way, These scents, this hour, Nature herself, if I should choose To speak like some sweet note by Voiture, all bows and ruse! Let heaven, with one glance from all its stars, disarm Us of our artifice, of every studied charm: I am so afraid that in our exquisite alchemy The truth of feeling will evaporate and flee, That the soul will drain away in these vain games we share, And all our fine finesse be the finish of the affair!

Roxane

But wit?...

Cyrano

In love, I hate it! It’s a crime, When you’re in love, to drag this fencing out past its time! Besides, the moment comes, as surely as can be, And I pity those for whom it never comes, believe me! When we can feel a noble love in us, so deep That every pretty word we say just makes it weep!

Roxane

Well then! If that moment has come for us two, What words will you say to me?

Cyrano

All of them, all of them, all That come to me, I’ll throw to you in armfuls, let them fall Without a bouquet’s order: I love you, I can’t breathe, I love you, I’m mad, I can’t go on, it is too much, believe Me: your name is in my heart like the clapper in a bell, And since, Roxane, I tremble always, always, then as well The bell is always shaking, and your name rings out! I remember everything of you, I’ve loved it all throughout: I know that last year, on a day, the twelfth of May, You changed the way you wore your hair to go out for the day! I’ve taken your hair so long for daylight, gold and fair, That just as when you’ve stared into the sun, and there On everything you look at floats a disc of red, So when I leave the blaze you flood me with, my head Is dazzled, and my eyes lay blond patches everywhere instead!

Roxane

Yes, that is love...