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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.

Excerpt from Act 5, Scene 5.V Dialogue: Cyrano, Roxane

 

CYRANO

No, my sweet love, I never loved you! 

ROXANE

Ah! 
Things dead, long dead, see! how they rise again! 
—Why, why keep silence all these fourteen years, 
When, on this letter, which he never wrote, 
The tears were your tears? 

CYRANO

(holding out the letter to her)

The bloodstains were his.

Read the full dialogue.
 

 

Understanding the Given Circumstances

  • Cyrano de Bergerac is set in the 17th century, when society often severely restricted women’s roles. If a widow did not want to remarry, she could ask a religious order to take her in, and she would spend her remaining days with the nuns of the convent. Roxane, who was widowed many years earlier, is living in a convent. 
  • Autumn leaves cover the stage and are falling from the trees of the convent courtyard throughout the play’s final act. The light dims throughout the scene as the sun sets. The playwright, Edmond Rostand, has created a visual analog for the emotional life of the scene. We are in the fall, at sunset. The leaves are falling, the light is dying, and so is Cyrano. 
  • Cyrano has come to visit Roxane every Saturday for the past ten years to bring her a gazette, the latest gossip from outside the walls of the cloister. Today, though, he is late: A large piece of wood dropped from a window and struck him. This injury will prove to be fatal. 
  • Roxane carries with her a bloodstained letter, the final correspondence from her dead husband Christian. She does not yet know that the letter was written by Cyrano, who has kept his love for her secret for years. 

 

Blocking and Movement

In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:

  • As the scene progresses, the sun sets, and the autumn light fades in the cloister’s courtyard. How does blocking help tell the story of the approaching chill of an autumn night? Do the characters move closer to each other to see each other better? What if Cyrano shivered with cold and Roxane tried to warm him with the fabric she was weaving?  
  • Cyrano enters the scene with a head injury, which will eventually take his life. He tries to conceal its seriousness from Roxane, but the injury also adds urgency to Cyrano’s actions. How can movement inform this tension? 
  • Roxane is weaving a tapestry when Cyrano enters, and she does not notice Cyrano’s injury when the scene between them begins. How can staging tell the story of how Cyrano draws Roxane’s attention away from her weaving? 
  • Roxane hands Cyrano her most treasured possession: a letter that she believes her dying husband wrote to her. Even as dusk makes the letter illegible, Cyrano reads the letter by heart, revealing he wrote the letter to Roxane. How can you physically show the growing intimacy and series of revelations between Roxane and Cyrano? 

 

Character Relationships

This scene marks the climax of the thwarted love story of Roxane and Cyrano. Throughout the play, the two cousins share an intimacy that is familial but also has tinges of romantic love. A love story between two cousins was more socially acceptable in the world of the play than it is today, but Cyrano and Roxane are more formal and restrained with each other than most people are in contemporary romantic relationships. Therefore, the actors portraying these characters must make decisions about what love and intimacy would mean and look like for the people they are inhabiting on the stage.  

Consider these questions that may help clarify the characters and their relationship: 

  • Cyrano’s nose is a source of mockery to others, but how important is Cyrano’s physical appearance to Roxane? Does that change over time? 
  • How is intimacy expressed through language and body movement? 
  • How is restraint expressed through language and body movement? 
  • The written word is crucial to this play: Cyrano writes poetry, boldly criticizes the work of a playwright, and pens love letters on his friend’s behalf. How does writing on paper reveal what the characters are unwilling to say, or unwilling to recognize, in themselves or each other? 
  • This play receives credit for introducing the French term panache into the English language. Cyrano’s flamboyant confidence is the epitome of panache, and yet he keeps his love for Roxane concealed. What are the different kinds of masks the characters wear? What do they reveal about what is beneath? 

 

Full Act 5, Scene 5.V Dialogue: Cyrano, Roxane

 

CYRANO

(turning to Roxane, who is still bending over her work)

That tapestry! Beshrew me if my eyes 
Will ever see it finished! 

ROXANE

I was sure 
To hear that well-known jest! 

(A light breeze causes the leaves to fall.) 

CYRANO

The autumn leaves! 

ROXANE

(lifting her head, and looking down the distant alley)

Soft golden brown, like a Venetian’s hair. 
—See how they fall! 

CYRANO

Ay, see how brave they fall, 
In their last journey downward from the bough, 
To rot within the clay; yet, lovely still, 
Hiding the horror of the last decay, 
With all the wayward grace of careless flight! 

ROXANE

What, melancholy—you? 

CYRANO (collecting himself)

Nay, nay, Roxane! 

ROXANE

Then let the dead leaves fall the way they will . . . 
And chat. What, have you nothing new to tell, 
My Court Gazette? 

CYRANO

Listen. 

ROXANE

Ah! 

CYRANO (growing whiter and whiter)

Saturday 
The nineteenth: having eaten to excess 
Of pear-conserve, the King felt feverish; 
The lancet quelled this treasonable revolt, 
And the august pulse beats at normal pace. 
At the Queen’s ball on Sunday thirty score 
Of best white waxen tapers were consumed. 
Our troops, they say, have chased the Austrians. 
Four sorcerers were hanged. The little dog 
Of Madame d’Athis took a dose . . . 

ROXANE

I bid 
You hold your tongue, Monsieur de Bergerac! 

CYRANO 

Monday—not much—Claire changed protector. 

ROXANE

Oh! 

CYRANO (whose face changes more and more) 

Tuesday, the Court repaired to Fontainebleau. 
Wednesday, the Montglat said to Comte de Fiesque . . . 
No! Thursday—Mancini, Queen of France! (almost!) 
Friday, the Monglat to Count Fiesque said—‘Yes!’ 
And Saturday the twenty-sixth . . . 

(He closes his eyes. His head falls forward. Silence.) 

ROXANE

(surprised at his voice ceasing, turns round, looks at him, and rising, terrified): 

He swoons! 

(She runs toward him crying)

Cyrano! 

CYRANO

(opening his eyes, in an unconcerned voice): 

What is this? 

(He sees Roxane bending over him, and, hastily pressing his hat on his head, and shrinking back in his chair)

Nay, on my word 
’Tis nothing! Let me be! 

ROXANE

But . . . 

CYRANO

That old wound 
Of Arras, sometimes,—as you know . . . 

ROXANE

Dear friend! 

CYRANO

’Tis nothing, ’twill pass soon; 

(He smiles with an effort)

See!—it has passed! 

ROXANE

Each of us has his wound; ay, I have mine,— 
Never healed up—not healed yet, my old wound! 

(She puts her hand on her breast)

’Tis here, beneath this letter brown with age, 
All stained with tear-drops, and still stained with blood. 

(Twilight begins to fall.) 

CYRANO

His letter! Ah! you promised me one day
That I should read it. 

ROXANE

What would you?—His letter? 

CYRANO

Yes, I would fain,—to-day . . . 

ROXANE

(giving the bag hung at her neck)

See! here it is! 

CYRANO (taking it)

Have I your leave to open? 

ROXANE

Open—read! 

(She comes back to her tapestry frame, folds it up, sorts her wools.) 

CYRANO (reading)

‘Roxane, adieu! I soon must die! 
This very night, beloved; and I 
Feel my soul heavy with love untold. 
I die! No more, as in days of old, 
My loving, longing eyes will feast 
On your least gesture—ay, the least! 
I mind me the way you touch your cheek 
With your finger, softly, as you speak! 
Ah me! I know that gesture well! 
My heart cries out!—I cry “Farewell”!’ 

ROXANE 

But how you read that letter! One would think . . . 

CYRANO (continuing to read)

‘My life, my love, my jewel, my sweet, 
My heart has been yours in every beat!’ 

(The shades of evening fall imperceptibly.) 

ROXANE

You read in such a voice—so strange—and yet— 
It is not the first time I hear that voice! 

(She comes nearer very softly, without his perceiving it, passes behind his chair, and, noiselessly leaning over him, looks at the letter. The darkness deepens.) 

CYRANO

‘Here, dying, and there, in the land on high, 
I am he who loved, who loves you,—I . . .’ 

ROXANE

(putting her hand on his shoulder)

How can you read? It is too dark to see! 

(He starts, turns, sees her close to him. Suddenly alarmed, he holds his head down. Then in the dusk, which has now completely enfolded them, she says, very slowly, with clasped hands): 

And, fourteen years long, he has played this part 
Of the kind old friend who comes to laugh and chat. 

CYRANO

Roxane! 

ROXANE

’Twas you! 

CYRANO

No, never; Roxane, no! 

ROXANE

I should have guessed, each time he said my name! 

CYRANO

No, it was not I! 

ROXANE

It was you! 

CYRANO

I swear! 

ROXANE

I see through all the generous counterfeit— 
The letters—you! 

CYRANO

No. 

ROXANE

The sweet, mad love-words! 
You! 

CYRANO

No! 

ROXANE

The voice that thrilled the night—you, you! 

CYRANO

I swear you err. 

ROXANE

The soul—it was your soul! 

CYRANO

I loved you not. 

ROXANE

You loved me not? 

CYRANO

’Twas he! 

ROXANE

You loved me! 

CYRANO

No! 

ROXANE

See! how you falter now! 

CYRANO

No, my sweet love, I never loved you! 

ROXANE

Ah! 
Things dead, long dead, see! how they rise again! 
—Why, why keep silence all these fourteen years, 
When, on this letter, which he never wrote, 
The tears were your tears? 

CYRANO

(holding out the letter to her)

The bloodstains were his. 

ROXANE

Why, then, that noble silence,—kept so long— 
Broken to-day for the first time—why? 

CYRANO

Why? . . . 

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