#AND CYRANO IN THE NOSE

[ninadove]

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH 💖

Rhyme as Romance in Theatre

Rhyme between two characters is a tool in theatre to show how compatible they are or that they're on the same wavelength or something similar. Possibly the most famous example is the sonnet that Romeo & Juliet form when they first meet in Shakespeare's eponymous play, included here for reference:

Steamy! Two characters meet & they fall into the same meter? Not only that but they rhyme with each other? Not only THAT but they form a perfect sonnet of all things? Bravo, Mr Shakespeare...

But I'm not here to talk about them. I'm here to talk about a far more overlooked instance of stichomythic rhyme in a romantic tragicomedy that conveys the same ideas — that two characters know each other VERY well & are highly compatible — but that also involves a Whole Third Guy.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the love triangle of all time, allow me to introduce the three romantic leads from Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac: Cyrano, Roxane, & Christian. (For those who are familiar, feel free to skip the indented text.)

Cyrano & Christian are both in love with Roxane, who has known Cyrano since childhood but who is in love with Christian. Cyrano, who has kept his feelings for Roxane hidden from them both for fear of being mocked for his large nose, offers his poetic talent to help the handsome Christian, who is awful at wooing women, win Roxane over. (And if this means Roxane finally gets to hear how Cyrano feels, even if the words aren't attributed to him, well, would that be so bad?)

The two gentlemen team up, deciding to be each other's half in forming a romantic hero fit for the ages — Cyrano the eloquence, Christian the beauty. And it works! Roxane talks to Christian (who has memorised lines from Cyrano) and reads Christian's letters (ghostwritten by Cyrano) and falls in love with him! Or is it technically with Cyrano? Both? Neither? Hmm...

Which brings me to the poetry.

The fast-paced exchange here is not a meetcute as it is in Romeo & Juliet, we are well past that & over the half-way mark of the play by this stage. In this exchange, Christian & Roxane have gotten married only moments ago but the two lads are being sent off to war... Cyrano is trying to drag him out of Roxane's arms & Roxane keeps yanking Christian back, the childhood friends sharing this exchange over their tug-of-war with an interestingly silent Christian stuck in the middle:

(The top extract is the original rhyming French in lovely alexandrins, by Edmond Rostand. The first English translation is faithful to the original text literally but does not rhyme, by Charles Renauld. The second English translation is more liberal and does rhyme, by Anthony Burgess of A Clockwork Orange fame.)

Now, I have to admit that the presence of rhyme in and of itself is not so particularly interesting in this exchange because ALL of the play Cyrano de Bergerac is written in verse (!!) but there IS something in this exchange that does not appear in Shakespeare's sonnet...

Cyrano & Roxane are not only having a full conversation while dragging Christian back & forth, they are not only rhyming at the same time, but they are also finishing each other's lines & prompting each other's rhymes simultaneously. A wonderful combination of stichomythia & rhyme 🥳 (Romeo & Juliet features a milder version of this, in which each character gives a complete quatrain before they start matching rhymes a line at a time to show us that they're clicking the longer they speak.) You can see it most clearly in Burgess's translation above, in which the lines are spaced out to make the meter clearer, that they pick up where the other left off & finish the line in a rhyme before continuing.

Even better, almost all of Cyrano de Bergerac is written in couplets, as anglophones can see with "try/dry" at the top of Burgess again. However, Burgess takes his translation one step further in its rhyme scheme during this exchange. By the end, Cyrano & Roxane have completed a full ABAB quatrain. A quatrain may not be as technically impressive or as romantic as a sonnet but it is more so than a couplet, and hey, they're being dragged off to die in a war! The quatrain is appropriately short to squeeze in during the hectic rush & leaves this moment of poetic & therefore cerebral connection between Cyrano & Roxane as the last words we hear before the act ends.

(Let me praise Burgess briefly in this aside. There is one more instance of him deviating from the original couplet rhyming scheme during one of Cyrano's monologues. Cyrano gets caught up in a daydream of Roxane's beauty and Burgess has him slip into a Petrarcan sonnet without even realising it... Aww <3)

The most intriguing part, however, is the content of their conversation. Cyrano & Roxane are not flirting about holding hands & kissing the way Romeo & Juliet are. They are talking about a Whole Third Guy.

Christian — poor Christian — is the subject of this conversation! While being dragged around like a rag doll! Roxane pulls him towards her & begs Cyrano to promise to keep him safe during the war. Cyrano pulls him towards HIM & does his best to make those promises, only becoming still at the final one for obvious reasons (💌).

When I said "love triangle" at the start of this post, I really meant it! This is not a jealousy angle, with two guys who dislike each other fighting over the same girl. The play, for better or worse, does not let any of the three couples be Together & happy for more than a few moments, but to me that is only further support to the threesome argument...

If you need further convincing, know that the next time we see Cyrano, he is A) in between delivering a love letter to Roxane & writing her his next one, & B) fretting over Christian going hungry & calling him handsome.

And if you STILL need further convincing, please enjoy the 2015 production's blocking of the stichomythic promise exchange:

(Roxane in the gown, Christian in the cape, Cyrano in the nose!)

[kply-industries]

[scooteriaferrari]

Okay, but like, imagine Leroux!Erik meeting Cyrano de Bergerac, and Erik just stares at his nose, for like, a solid five minutes.

[blooms-in-april]

Controversial take I guess, but I feel that Cyrano's giant nose (or giant nose equivalent ) is an important part of the storyline.

The entire Cyrano story revolves around him believing he is too ugly to be loved. And he has a reason for believing this! A rather big reason!As wrong as it is, people DO judge others based on appearance. Not fitting the socially accepted standard of beauty DOES impact how people treat you! Cyrano isn't simply building up his insecurities out of nowhere. He's not just a man with poor self esteem and anxiety. He's a man who does not and cannot fit societal beauty standards and it affects his life, specifically his romantic relationships.

When you take away the nose (or nose equivalent) you take away the conversation about how people who look different are treated differently. People argue that the nose is unrealistic- but the giant nose is just a rather on the nose theatrical example. People who don't fit the social standard of beauty do exist. And they do face struggles and rejections because of their appearance. And when you take away Cyrano's nose, Cyrano's REASON, I feel you take away a big part of the story's heart and power.

[gnougnouss]

Ya know I think Cyrano (2021) is pretty mid but one thing it DIDN'T fuck up is Roxane's casting

She is sooooooooo pretty it's insane. Like yeah I get it I too would do the stupidest shit Like getting a much smarter guy to write her letters so that she falls in love with me like completely understandable mate

[dkniade]

headcanon/scenario (I’ve been thinking about team dynamics again)

In Fontaine, Childe learns about (the play) Cyrano de Bergerac, and learns some Cyrano monologues

Next time he does the weekly spar, he starts throwing in some French Fontainian into the list of things he say in battle

— Oh ! frappé par la seule arme noble qui soit,

Et par un ennemi qu’on sait digne de soi,

Sur un gazon de gloire et loin d’un lit de fièvres,

Tomber la pointe au cœur en même temps qu’aux lèvres !

If I’m not mistaken (though I’m by no means fluent. Do correct me, if there are mistakes), I do believe it means…

-- Oh! struck by the only noble weapon there is,

And by an enemy who you know is worthy of yourself.

On a field of glory and far from a feverish bed,

Falling off the peak of one’s heart at the same time of one’s lips !

…?

[longagoitwastuesday]

“Traveler in Space”, Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

[jihef03]

The reason Buggy gets angry when people call him “red nose” yet plays up the clown gimmick is because he’s trying to own it.

He wants to turn something he was insecure about into something he can be proud of. “-I’ve got a big red nose, so I’ll be a clown-themed pirate! “ When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But when people think your drink is sh*t it’s gonna piss you off. He knows that people calling “red nose” mean it as insult and he’s going to take it as such.

[paracosmaii]

please heal me, VapoRub. Please work your magic

[cielospeaks]

-go: teases cyrano

me: im in danger

[ot3showdown]

Vote Roxane/Christian/Cyrano !

YES

not to be biased or something. but i love them, your honor.

[pathfinderswiftpen]

Nothing like rewatching your favorite play and realizing you have supportable reasons for relating a little too much to the tragic main character ohmygod

[glitter-stained]

Shout out to my brother because as I was summarising some stuff wrt his misconceptions about Jason's character (he doesn't read comics and only knows him from stuff like Titans (hbo), Lego batman videogame etc so i was explaining that mainline jason in his fondational runs is a bit different from what he thought) I compared him to a "teenage emo cyrano of Bergerac" and said that he would recite the nose tirade from that play before going in a fight...

And because the nose tirade is full of length jokes and starts with "that was a trifle short" (though the French original, to be more precise, translates to "that's a bit short young man"),and my brother despite being a grown adult is actually a child, thought of dick's name and immediately suggested Jason quoting it to Dick and making length jokes, this is way too funny picture this:

"Descriptive: ''Tis a rock!. . .a peak!. . .a cape! --

A cape, forsooth! 'Tis a peninsular!'

Curious: 'How serves that oblong capsular?

For scissor-sheath? Or pot to hold your ink?'

Gracious: 'You love the little birds, I think?

I see you've managed with a fond research

To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!'

Also picturing Mask sputtering trying to insult Jason and Jason hitting him with:

--Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said,

Had you of wit or letters the least jot:

But, O most lamentable man!--of wit

You never had an atom, and of letters

You have three letters only!--they spell Ass!"

[schweizercomics]

Swashtober 12: Cyrano de Bergerac!

From the play by Edmond Rostand, based on the life of the historically big-nosed 17th century writer and wit who *actually* fought like a hundred fellers on his own at the Porte de Nesle (he also really chased off that actor, and wrote great love letters, many of which were published and subsequently cribbed by Rostand for the play).

[skyeventide]

the amazon tolkien show was already pretty bad for a number of writing, characterisation, and thematic reasons, and profoundly mid the rest of the time.

then, in the last few weeks they proceeded to publish a magazine cover with barrow wights that are an orientalist caricature that looks like it came out of pre "don't dress up as sexy cleopatra for halloween" discourse. it's cursed wraiths bedecked in coin jewellery, sporting a belly-dancer outfit that is not sexy just because they're undead. that of course birthed the most insanely stupid discourse you can imagine. on one hand having the racists bemoan that the anglo-saxon-inspired burial sites magically transformed into middle-eastern-looking monsters because of woke. on the other hand, the "akshually the lore" people, trying to prove that, in the second age, these humans might well have been remnants of those who came from the east and not the shire-adjacent barrow wights we're all acquainted with, so, gotcha racists! par for the course for insanely stupid tolkien discourse. the point, as usual, being that it doesn't matter whether it's possible by lore. rather, what if we look at the reason why, in this day and age, a magazine SO ironically called "empire" puts on the front page the first glimpse of aesthetics/concept art that are markedly not western, and that art showcases a known orientalist look that doesn't even get the dubious dignity of being put on people and is instead sported by undead monsters? diversity win!

then yesterday they dropped a narvi look and a dwarf poster. we already knew they barely moved past the scottish dwarf stereotype set by peter jackson, a director with whom this series is continually in conversation. we already knew the prosthetic noses of the dwarves in the hobbit movies were silly at best. yet again, narvi is given a fake nose of such proportions that you might think he was about to play cyrano de bergerac. and then there's the poster, where a ring with a giant gem glinting gold in the foreground, in the company of the other rings, stands against a darkened background where a shadowy dwarf grasps forward with clawing, avid hands. of course, after doing some orientalism, it's time to throw some antisemitism in and make sure to hit every box in the bingo. if that poster hadn't appeared on the official account, I'd have thought it a parody.

I've never posted about the show because as a rule I don't feel like wasting too much time on things I think are bad. I sure hope I never will again. I'm also not looking forward to the next bit of corporate diversity we'll certainly be graced with soon enough.

[citizenscreen]

From Picture Post, Jose Ferrer surrounded by a collection of outsized prosthetic noses prepared for his Oscar-winning turn as Cyrano De Bergerac in Michael Gordon‘s 1950 picture.