Page:Cyrano de Bergerac.djvu/59

Pedantic: 'That beast Aristophanes
Names Hippocamelelephantoles
Must have possessed just such a solid lump
Of flesh and bone, beneath his forehead's bump!'
Cavalier: 'The last fashion, friend, that hook?
To hang your hat on? 'Tis a useful crook!'
Emphatic: 'No wind, majestic nose,
Can give thee cold! save when the mistral blows!'
Dramatic: 'When it bleeds, what a Red Sea!'
Admiring: 'Sign for a perfumery!'
Lyric: 'Is this a conch?… a Triton you?'
Simple: 'When is the monument on view?'
Rustic: 'That thing a nose? Marry-come-up!
'Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnup!'
Military: 'Point against cavalry!'
Practical: 'Put it in a lottery!
Assuredly 'twould be the biggest prize!'
Or… parodying Pyramus' sighs…
'Behold the nose that mars the harmony
Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!'
—Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said,
Had you of wit or letters the least jot:
But, most lamentable man!—of wit
You never had an atom, and of letters
You have three letters only!—they spell Ass!
And,—had you had the necessary wit,
To serve me all the pleasantries I quote
Before this noble audience,… e'en so,
You would not have been let to utter one,—
Nay, not the half or quarter of such jest!
I take them from myself all in good part,
But not from any other man that breathes!