As a part of this researching-for-Cyrano business, I’ve been pulling together the beginning traces of a glossary. Or something like that. What this means, then, is a lot of basic background, information of the foundation sort, and then the chasing of references major and minute, as picked out of the text. Some of the research-chasing is book-based (books treating the history of France abound, just now), some of it’s web-based, checking one sources against five or ten or fifteen others. All of it can lead down overgrown sidetrails and rabbit-holes and, hey, that’s half the fun of it; never know where the search is going to lead.
Alas and alas, all of this information doesn’t make the final cut of the glossary, or of… Well, of anything seen outside of this so-foggy land known as Dramaturgy. Random facts are shuffled aside, more extensive explanations are trimmed… And all of this is useful, perhaps necessary, because glossaries do seem to be a bit more effective in user-friendly form. Which tends to mean, ah, no fifty-page glossaries (in most cases, thank you).
What of that other information? We-ell, we have it, or someone around here has it, so there’s some personal amusement and enjoyment to be had. Since this thing called tumblr exists, however, figure we could stand to share some of the bits and pieces that come up in the fast-paced thrill of the glossary hunt. This may also give some sense of the veritable web of information (network of groundhog tunnels of information?) that grows out of a single play, the myriad ways in which a play connects to other works and information.
Hence, glossary adventures. Random information (that may or may not make the final cut) whilst searching. And for the first edition of glossary adventures, got just a few for you…
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-According to available account, Cyrano de Bergerac actually did take on a hundred men, killing several and driving away the rest. And in general, he seems to’ve been no stranger to daring deeds. Whether this was heroism, the mark of an hot-blooded and intemperate nature, or compensation for his nose (or whatever cause you might consider) is up for debate.
-Mt. Everest is known as Sagarmatha in Nepali and Chomolungma in Tibetan. The mountain wasn’t called “Everest” until 1865, when it was named after Sir George Everest, a Brit and India’s Surveyor general (prior to that, the English designation had been Peak 15).
-Louis XIV came into the monarchy at the age of four. Oh, and this would’ve been the time of absolutism in France… More on that to come, perhaps, but for the moment just gvie a big “hello!” to Richelieu and friends.
-Homing pigeons have long been used to transport messages, prove their use to this day, and were used by the military as recently as the Vietnam War (I’ve restrained myself from looking further than that for the moment, but feel free to have a go, yourself; the internet is populated with heaps upon heaps of pigeons sites).
-Cyrano references and makes use of the 1640 Siege of Arras. The factual Cyrano de Bergerac did indeed fight at Arras, and was wounded as a result.
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That’ll do for now, any rate. Presumably, these’ll eventually range from the very basic to the “ohhhh-kay” obscure, but I suppose we’ll see about that. Expect further such adventures… Whenever I feel like tossing something on here, really.
-Kristi
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Edit to note… In the original post, I’d typed “Whether this was heroism, the amrk of an hot-blooded and intemperate nature, or compensation for his nose (or whatever cause you might consider) is up for debate.” Okay, well, “amrk” has been changed to “mark.”
However.
This may not stop me from use “amrk” as a word from this point onward. Just for the record. Some typos are meant to be. (And, really, don’t ask me what that means. Just don’t. Mostly because I don’t bloody know.)
Since Drew has taken us down the proverbial Rabbit Hole of 
