?--ah, a comet's hair!. . .

(He puffs as if to blow it away.)

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?

DE GUICHE (angrily):
No, no!
I want. . .

CYRANO:
Ha, ha!--to know how I got up?
Hark, it was by a method all my own.

DE GUICHE (wearied):
He's mad!

CYRANO(contemptuously):
No! not for me the stupid eagle
Of Regiomontanus, nor the timid
Pigeon of Archytas--neither of those!

DE GUICHE:
Ay, 'tis a fool! But 'tis a learned fool!

CYRANO:
No imitator I of other men!
(De Guiche has succeeded in getting by, and goes toward Roxane's door. Cyrano
follows him, ready to stop him by force):
Six novel methods, all, this brain invented!

DE GUICHE (turning round):
Six?

CYRANO (volubly):
First, with body naked as your hand,
Festooned about with crystal flacons, full
O' th' tears the early morning dew distils;
My body to the sun's fierce rays exposed
To let it suck me up, as 't sucks the dew!

DE GUICHE (surprised, making one step toward Cyrano):
Ah! that makes one!

CYRANO (stepping back, and enticing him further away):
And then, the second way,
To generate wind--for