DE GUICHE (beside himself):
Sir!. . .
CYRANO (just as he is about to pass, holds out his leg as if to show him something and stops him):
In my leg—the calf—there is a tooth
Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close,
I would avoid his trident’s point, and fell,
Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales! My weight
Is marked, still registered, up there in heaven!
(Hurriedly preventing De Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the button of his doublet):
I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose
It would spout milk!
DE GUICHE:
Milk?
CYRANO:
From the Milky Way!
DE GUICHE:
Oh, go to hell!
CYRANO (crossing his arms):
I fall, Sir, out of heaven!
Now, would you credit it, that as I fell
I saw that Sirius wears a nightcap? True!
(Confidentially):
The other Bear is still too small to bite.
(Laughing):
I went through the Lyre, but I snapped a cord;
(Grandiloquent):
I mean to write the whole thing in a book;
The small gold stars, that, wrapped up in my cloak,
I carried safe away at no small risks,
Will serve for asterisks i’ the printed page!
DE GUICHE:
Come, make an end! I want. . .
CYRANO:
Oh-ho! You are sly!
DE GUICHE:
Sir!
CYRANO:
You would worm all out of me!—the way
The moon is made, and if men breathe and live
In its rotund cucurbita?