the great descriptive Cyrano

Cyrano

(Cooly) Is that all?

VALVERT

(Turns away with a shrug) Well of course­

CYRANO

 Ah, no, young sir!

You are too simple. Why, you might have said-

Oh, a great many things! Mon dieu, why waste ­

Your opportunity? For example, thus:-

AGGRESSIVE: I, sir, if that nose were mine,

            I’d have it amputated--on the spot!

FRIENDLY: How do you drink with such a nose

You ought to have a cup made specially.

DESCRIPTIVE: ‘Tis a rock- a crag –a cape-

A cape? say rather a peninsula!

INQUISITIVE: What is that receptacle­-

A razor-case or a portfolio?

KINDLY: Ah, do you love' the little birds

So much that when they come and sing to you,

You give them this to perch on?

INSOLENT: Sir, when you smoke, the neighbors must suppose

Your chimney is on fire.

CAUTIOUS: Take care­-

A weight like that might make you top heavy.

THOUGHTFUL: Somebody fetch my parasol­-

Those delicate colors fade so in the sun!

PEDANTIC: Does not Aristophanes

Mention a mythologic monster called

Hippocampelephantocamelos?

Surely we have here the original!

FAMILIAR: Well, old torchlight! Hang your hat

 Over that chandelier it hurts my eyes.

ELOQUENT: When it blows, the typhoon howls,

And the clouds darken.

DRAMATIC: When it bleeds- ­The Red Sea!

ENTERPRISING: What a sign

For some perfumer!

LYRIC: Hark-the horn

Of Roland calls to summon Charlemagne!­

SIMPLE: When do they unveil the monument?

RESPECTFUL: Sir, I recognize in you

A man of parts, a man of prominence­

RUSTIC: Hey? What? Call that a nose? Na na-

I be no fool like what you think I be­-

That there's a blue cucumber!

 MILITARY:

Point against cavalry!

PRACTICAL: Why not

A lottery with this for the grand prize ?

Or-parodying Faustus in the play­

"Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships

And burned the topless towers of Ilium?"

These, my dear sir, are things you might have said

Had you some tinge of letters, or of wit

To color your discourse. But wit,-not so,

You never had an atom- and of letters,

You need but three to write you down-an Ass.

 Moreover,- if you had the invention, here

Before these folks to make a jest of me­-

Be sure you would not then articulate

The twentieth part of half a syllable

Of the beginning! For I say these things

Lightly enough myself, about myself,

But I allow none else to utter them.