Cyrano de Bergerac

Outside Roxane’s house, Ragueneau tells her duenna that his wife left him for the Musketeer and Cyrano stopped him from dying by suicide. The duenna tells Ragueneau that Roxane is going to a colloquy on the Tender Passion. Cyrano comes in with two pages playing music. They argue about music, and Cyrano tells the duenna that he won the pages in a bet with D’Assoucy. Cyrano sends the musicians to play for Montfleury.

When she comes out of the house, Cyrano asks Roxane about Christian. She believes Christian is intelligent, having read letters written by Cyrano but signed by Christian. Roxane recites lines from the letters from memory, Cyrano criticizes them, and Roxane says he’s jealous. Her duenna says Guiche is coming and tells Cyrano to hide in the house.

Guiche says he is going to the battlefront in Arras and has been promoted to colonel of the guards—Cyrano and Christian’s regiment. This news upsets Roxane and, hiding her affection for Christian, tells Guiche that keeping Cyrano from battle is a better revenge than giving him the opportunity to fight. Guiche takes this as a sign that Roxane loves him and declares his love for her. He plans to hide in his Uncle-Cardinal’s new convent and come to her after people think he has left. Roxane agrees to keep Christian from the front, knowing it will upset Cyrano.

After Guiche leaves, Cyrano enters and asks Roxane what she wants to talk with Christian about. She wants Christian to improvise and come up with something about love on the spot. Roxane goes inside and Cyrano tries to convince Christian to memorize some lines he has written for Roxane. However, Christian refuses, saying he is confident enough to use his own words. Roxane comes out and, while her duenna is inside, she asks Christian to discuss love, but all he can say are stock phrases like “I love you” and “I adore you” (118). Roxane goes inside, upset at his lack of eloquence.   

Christian then asks Cyrano for his help. They devise an arrangement where Cyrano stands under Roxane’s balcony and feeds Christian lines. The music-playing pages return, and Cyrano sets them up as a lookout—they will play music if someone comes down the street. Cyrano tosses pebbles at Roxane’s window to get her attention. Cyrano gives Christian lines to repeat, comparing love to an infant Hercules. When Roxane comments on the delay between words, Cyrano and Christian switch places. Cyrano continues, talking about how their words travel in different directions, and how hers could harm him from so far above. Roxane offers to come down and Cyrano refuses.

Cyrano continues from below the balcony, commenting on how the darkness gives him the opportunity to speak freely. He offers poetry about the stars, flowers, and the sea. Roxane questions why poetry. Cyrano admits that love opposes word games, compares words to flowers, and compares Roxane’s name to a golden bell. He recalls a moment when he saw her hair down and it blinded him. Then, he compares love to a wind of beauty and says this moment is beyond anything he dreamed of. Cyrano kisses some jasmine that falls from her balcony, saying he can feel her tremble through it. She admits to trembling and weeping over his words. Then, he believes he has experienced everything but death and asks for one more thing. Christian interjects, asking for a kiss from Roxane.

When Cyrano and Christian begin to argue about this, trying to cover up their argument to Roxane, the pages’ music indicates that someone is approaching. A priest passes, looking for the house of Madeleine Robin, and Cyrano ushers him along, pretending to misunderstand. After he leaves, Roxane reopens her window and Cyrano continues talking about the nature of a kiss—how close they are to it and compares it to a promise, a secret, an immortal moment, flowers, music, and more. Then, he compares them to a French queen and English lord. Roxane agrees to the kiss, and Cyrano convinces Christian to climb up to her balcony.

As Cyrano laments Christian kissing Roxane, the priest (Capuchin) returns. Cyrano pretends to have just arrived at her house and calls up, interrupting the kiss. Christian sees the priest and understands the interruption. The priest gives Roxane a letter from Guiche, which she reads aloud with the revision that the priest has been sent to marry her and Christian (rather than her and Guiche). The priest is excited to perform the ceremony, praising Guiche, especially when Roxane notes there is a postscript saying she is to donate money to the convent in his name. Roxane pretends to accept only begrudgingly and whispers to Cyrano to keep Guiche outside while the ceremony is performed. Cyrano flings himself to the ground, using a branch, but to Guiche it seems like Cyrano fell from the sky. Cyrano claims to have fallen from the moon, Guiche calls him irrational, and Cyrano kills time by asking where on earth he fell. Continuing his ploy to stall Guiche, Cyrano jokes about the constellations and invents six methods of traveling to outer space, which entrance Guiche. Then Cyrano invents a seventh method—using the ocean tides—and announces time is up and they are married, revealing himself to Guiche in the light.

Roxane and Christian come out of her house, and Cyrano presents them to Guiche. Guiche orders Christian to the front immediately. Roxane tries to make Cyrano promise to keep Christian safe, warm, and faithful, and Cyrano admits he cannot do that in war. However, he does promise that Christian will write to her every day (Cyrano being the one to write).