A large part of the opening of The Moon is occupied with a parody of the Old Testament, which Cyrano and his friends probably found more amusing than we do. The influence of the burlesque school on Cyrano has been noticed. Travesties then were a kind of craze; Virgil, Ovid, all the classics were burlesqued. There was one book it was dangerous to parody and Cyrano with his usual impetuosity rushed into a burlesque of the Old Testament. Here indeed he may claim to have given Voltaire several hints for his wickedly witty Romans.
It is not my intention to discuss The Voyages at greater length. The reader has here the full text before him and will form his own opinion. He has in the introduction sufficient information to understand at least in outline the writer of the book and his work, the milieu in which it was produced, the intellectual movement which helped to create it and its historical position.
The text used for the translation is that printed by M. Lachèvre in his Œuvres Libertines de Cyrano de Bergerac, 2 vols., Champion, Paris, 1921. I wish to thank M. Lachèvre for the generosity with which he has allowed me to make use of his book and his kindness in answering my queries and supplying me with information. I am also indebted to the work of Brun, Gourmont, Perrens, Lacroix, Juppont, Magne and of course Cyrano's friend Le Bret. The only English work I have examined is an essay by Henry Morley, which should be read with great caution.
RICHARD ALDINGTON
Title-page to Lovell's expurgated translation.
VOYAGE TO THE MOON
The moon was full, the sky clear, and the clocks had just struck nine as I was returning with four of my friends from a house near Paris.[19] Our wit must have been sharpened on the cobbles of the road for it thrust home whichever way we turned it; distant as the moon was she could not escape it. The various thoughts provoked in us by the sight of that globe of saffron diverted us on the road and our eyes were filled by this great luminary. Now one of us likened her to a window in Heaven through which the glory of the blessed might be faintly seen; then another, inspired by ancient fables, imagined that Bacchus kept a tavern in Heaven and had hung out the Full Moon for his sign; then another vowed that it was the block where Diana set Apollo's ruffs; another exclaimed that it might well be the Sun himself who, having put off his rays at night, was watching through a hole what the world did when he was not there. For my part, said I, I am desirous to add my fancies to yours and without amusing myself with the witty notions you use to tickle time to make it run the faster, I think that the Moon is a world like this and that our world is their Moon. The company gratified me with a great shout of mirth.