If you've never read
Cyrano deBergerac by Edmond Rostand (translation, Brian Hooker), please drop all life functions until you get your hands on a copy and have immersed yourself in some of its genius.
Cyrano has a rather large nose, and in the following paragraph he makes fun of his own nose, instructing an opponent who was unable to come up with any clever insults:
Ah, no, young sir!
You are too simple. Why you might have said -
Oh, a great many things! Mon dieu, why waste
Your opportunity? For example, thus:
AGGRESSIVE: I, sir, if that nose were mine,
I'd have it amputated - on the spot!
FRIENDLY: How do you drink with such a nose?
You ought to have a cup made specially.
DESCRIPTIVE: 'Tis a rock - a crag - a cape -
A cape? Say rather, a peninsula!
INQUISITIVE: What is that receptacle -
A razor-case or a portfolio?
KINDLY: Ah, do you love the little birds
So much that when they come and sing to you,
You give them this to perch on? INSOLENT:
Sir, when you smoke, the neighbors must suppose
Your chimney is on fire. CAUTIOUS: Take care -
A weight like that might make you topheavy.
THOUGHTFUL: Somebody fetch my parasol -
Those delicate colors fade so in the sun!
PEDANTIC: Does not Aristophanes
Mention a mythologic monster called
Hippocampelephantocamelos?
Surely we have here the original!
FAMILIAR: Well, old torchlight! Hang your hat
Over that chandelier - it hurts my eyes.
ELOQUENT: When it blows, the typhoon howls,
And the clouds darken. DRAMATIC: When it bleeds -
The Red Sea! ENTERPRISING: What a sign
For some perfumer! LYRIC: Hark - the horn
Of Roland calls to summon Charlemagne!
SIMPLE: When do they unveil the monument?
RESPECTFUL: Sir, I recognize in you
A man of parts, a man of prominence
RUSTIC: Hey? What? Call that a nose? Na,na -
I be no fool like what you think I be -
That there's a blue cucumber! MILITARY:
Point against cavalry! PRACTICAL: Why not
A lottery with this for the grand prize?
Or - parodying Faustus in the play -
"Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships
And burned the topless towers of Ilium?"
These, my dear sir, are things you might have said
Had you some tinge of letters, or of wit
To color your discourse. But wit, - not so,
You never had an atom - and of letters,
You need but three to write you down - an A--
Moreover, - if you had the invention, here
Before these folk to make a jest of me -
Be sure you would not then articulate
The twentieth part of half a syllable
Of the beginning! For I say these things
Lightly enough myself, about myself,
But I allow none else to utter them.
*Sigh* It's magnificent.
I had to share it :)
A bonus:
I - I am going to be a storm - a flame -
I need to fight whole armies all alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms; I feel
Too strong to war with mortals - BRING ME GIANTS!
