Never such a thing as too much Cyrano!

[alexpgp]

Cyrano's "No thank you!" speech - most inspiring - from the Brian Hooker translation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac:

                    What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,--
Wear out my belly groveling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?--or--to change the form--
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid,
Love more to make a visit than a poem,
Seek introductions, favors, influences?--
No thank you! No, I thank you! And again
I thank you!--But...
                    To sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood--to cock my hat
Where I choose-- At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight--or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne--
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say: "My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own."
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share to Caesar--in a word,
I am too proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature wants the germ that grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes--
I stand, not high as it may be--but alone!

See also:

An old post with Rostand's original French of this soliloquy.
An even older post with the Guillemard translation of Cyrano's words at the end of the post.

Cheers...

Comments

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

I love the play. I love the speech. I love the sentiment(I even try to live the sentiment).

To read that speech is to despise this world and craven, dishonorable scum who inhabit it.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

To despise the world? Not at all!

To despise the scum of the world? Mayhaps. Or merely, to ignore them.

Cyrano could not have been a poet otherwise, methinks.

Cheers...

Re:

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

This world as opposed to the world of say, a century and a half a go or so.

[alyna.livejournal.com]

In college, people used to call my dad 'Cyrano' because of his huge nose.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

All things considered, it could have been worse.

In fact, 'Cyrano' seems almost endearing compared to some other names that could have been brought to bear.

How did it affect him? Did it?

Cheers...

Re:

[alyna.livejournal.com]

I guess the punchline of that comment is that for the longest time I thought that they called him that because he could write good verse. :)