Chantecler. Edmond Rostand
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Why do you drop your voice?
PATOU You see?—If we speak of stars nowadays we must do it in a whisper! [He lays his head on his paws in deep dejection.]
CHANTECLER [Comforting him.] Be not downcast!
PATOU [Lifting his head again.] No, it is too silly and too weak! I'll shout it if I please! [He howls with the whole power of his lungs.] Stars!—[Then in a tone of relief.] There, I feel better!
CHICKENS [Passing at the back, mocking.] Stars!—Ho! Stars for ours! Stars! [They go off, fooling and giggling.]
PATOU
Hear them! Our pullets will be whistling soon like blackbirds!
CHANTECLER [Proudly strutting up and down.] What care I? I sing, and have on my side the Hens.
PATOU Trust not to the hearts of Hens—or of crowds. You are too willing to take the price of your singing in lip-service.
CHANTECLER
But love—love is glory awarded in kisses!
PATOU Ah! I, too, was young once, I had my wilding devil's beauty—an inflammatory eye, an inflammable heart. Well, I was deceived. For a handsomer dog?—No, they deceived me for a miserable cur!—[Roaring in sudden wrath.] For whom?—For whom, do you suppose?
CHANTECLER [Retreating.] You alarm me!
PATOU
For a low-down dachshund who trod on his own ears!
THE BLACKBIRD [Who has overheard PATOU'S last words, sticking his head between the bars of his cage.] Still harping on the dachshund, is he? What's the odds, old chappie? You were the goat!—How does being the goat matter?
PATOU
But you up there, scoffing at everything, who are you, may one ask?
BLACKBIRD
I'm the pet of the poultry yard!
PATOU
Bad luck is what you'll bring them!
BLACKBIRD A prophecy-sharp?—Say, wisteria, we are twisted up with laughter! [He comes out of his cage and hops to the ground.]
PATOU [As he approaches] Grrrrrrr—
CHANTECLER
Hush! He's a friend!
PATOU
A false one.
CHANTECLER [To BLACKBIRD.] Fine things we learn when the talk is of you!
THE OLD HEN [Her head protruding from the basket.] Strike rotten wood, and see the wood-lice scatter! [The basket-lid drops.]
PATOU [To CHANTECLER.] He laughs at you behind your back!
BLACKBIRD [To PATOU.] Ha, retriever, you retrieve?
PATOU When you pour forth your heart in your ardent cry, giving it over and over, he calls it the same old saw that your jag-toothed red crest stands for!
CHANTECLER
So that's what you say?
BLACKBIRD [Affecting simplicity.] You surely don't mind? How can it affect you? And a joke about you is always so sure of success!
PATOU [To the BLACKBIRD.] Point-blank, do you admire or despise the Cock?
BLACKBIRD
I make fun of him in spots, but admire him in lump!
PATOU
You always peck two kinds of seed.
THE BLACKBIRD
My cage has two seed-cups, you see.
PATOU
I am single-minded and downright!
THE BLACKBIRD
You—are an old poodle of the year 48! I am an up-to-date bird!
PATOU [Gruffly.] Out of my way! lest I give your black coat red tails! [The BLACKBIRD nimbly gets out of the way, PATOU goes into his kennel grumbling.] I'll show him some up-to-date jaws!
CHANTECLER Be quiet! It's his way. The truth is that if once he stood in the presence of beauty, this very Blackbird would applaud!
PATOU Not with both wings! What can you expect of a bird who, with woodbine and juniper full in sight, prefers to go inside and peck at a musty biscuit?
BLACKBIRD He never seems to suspect that the poacher is a blackguardly sort of brute!
PATOU
What I know is that the underbrush is all a delicate golden gloom—
THE BLACKBIRD
Yes, but leaden shot can cleave your delicate gold. The quail is such a
canny bird, that he lies low lest he make his last appearance on toast.
And so, in lack of quail—
PATOU Does the great stag delight any the less in his green forest for turning over among the grass at evening some bit of a rusty cartridge?
THE BLACKBIRD
No, old chap—but the stag, you see, is just another kind of a hat-rack!
PATOU
Oh, but freedom, freedom, with violets looking on! Love!—
THE BLACKBIRD Antediluvian pastimes! not nearly such good fun as my nice new wooden trapeze. Oh, my cage, let us sign a joyful three-six-nine years' lease! I live like a Duke, I have filtered drinking-water—[At PATOU'S significant start and growl, he springs aside, finishing.] You can sling mud upon me, I have a porcelain bath!
CHANTECLER [Slightly out of patience.] Why not make a practice of talking simply and to the point?
THE BLACKBIRD
I like to make you sit up, and watch you blinking.
PATOU
Grrrrr—in the plain interest of public decency, I say it behooves us—
THE BLACKBIRD
Don't say behooves, say it's up to you, old chap!
CHANTECLER
What's all this juggling with words?
THE BLACKBIRD The thing, Chantecler, quite the thing! I knew a city sparrow once, and it's the way they talk in fashionable circles.
CHANTECLER I was well acquainted with a little red-breast, who lived beneath a city poet's eaves; he did not talk like you.
THE BLACKBIRD I belong to my time. Every chap that's a bit of a swell nowadays must be a bit of a tough. It's smart, you know.
PATOU
I froth at the mouth! Smart—there's the Peacock's password!
CHANTECLER
Oh, the Peacock, by the way, what is he doing these days?
THE BLACKBIRD
Ogling with his tail-feathers!
PATOU
Baneful his example has been to many an humble heart.
CHANTECLER
What signs do you see of his influence?
PATOU
A thousand nothings.
THE OLD HEN [Appearing.] Bubbles floating down the stream tell of laundresses up stream! [The lid drops.]
CHANTECLER
I am sure I have not seen the smallest bubble from which—
PATOU [Indicating a GUINEA-PIG, who