A Quote from CYRANO
A truly inspired insult is a work of art.
The stageplay has a different version, both in English and the original French. This is the wording as appeared in the 1950 version of CYRANO starring José Ferrer and directed by Michael Gordon. For the record, Edmond Rostand wrote the stageBrian Hooker the English tCarl Foreman the
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Vicomte de Valvert: Monsieur, your nose… your nose is rather large.
Cyrano de Bergerac : Rather?… Is that all?
Vicomte : Well of course…
Cyrano : Oh, no, young sir. You are too simple. Why, you might have said a great many things. Why waste your opportunity?
For example, thus:
AGGRESSIVE: I, sir, if that nose were mine, I’d have it amputated on the spot.
PRACTICAL: How do you drink with such a nose? You must have had a cup made especially.
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 to see you, you give them this to perch on.
CAUTIOUS: Take care! A weight like that might make you top-heavy.
ELOQUENT: When it blows, the typhoon howls, and the clouds darken!
DRAMATIC: When it bleeds, the Red Sea.
SIMPLE: When do they unveil the monument?
MILITARY: Beware, a secret weapon.
ENTERPRISING: What a sign for some perfumer!
RESPECTFUL: Sir, I recognize in you a man of parts. A man of… prominence!
Or, LITERARY: Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships?
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: A, S, S. Ass!
Vicomte: Insolent puppy, dolt, bunpkin, fool!
Cyrano: How do you do? And I, Cyrano Savinien Hercule de Bergerac.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
