Oh, don't take it so hard. I drove into this madness. Every woman needs a little madness in her life. - Edmond Rostand

Cyrano’s attitude toward the sweetmeat vendor thus foreshadows his attitude toward the body in general (it is not a zone of pleasure) and the fair sex in particular. More comfortable with the gallant word (such as, “despite my Gascon pride”) or gesture (“He kisses her hand”) than with the idea of accepting her “dainties,” he settles for a mere “trifle,” for which silliness he is lambasted by his friend Le Bret. Under the guise of gallantry, Cyrano has found a way to formalize a circumspection with regard to women, a hesitancy and perhaps a fear that we see at work also in his relation to Roxane. His relation to sex is purely rhetorical. Cyrano himself attributes his unease with women to fear of being laughed at. By his own admission, the distance he imposes between himself and women is a form of self-defense: “My heart always cowers behind the defence of my wit. I

Oh! We have our pockets full,
we poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, Daphnes — creation of our noddle-heads. Our lady-loves, — phantasms of our brains. — Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! Take it, and change feigned love words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, — Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! — Take it, and make an end!

If our friend steals our ideas, it proves that he esteems us: He would not take them unless he thought they were good. We are wrong in being annoyed that, for want of children of his own, he adopts ours.