Owls from Chantecler - postcard (private swap)

Last week-end took place a small meeting of Romanian postcrossers and Gabriela made me a very pleasant surprise: she gave me an old postcard with owls (It may be printed in 1910). 

 

'Chantecler' is a verse play in four acts, written by Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), a French poet and dramatist. The play is notable in that all the characters are farmyard animals including the main protagonist, a chanticleer, or rooster. The play centers on the theme of idealism and spiritual sincerity, as contrasted with cynicism and artificiality. Much of the play satirizes modernist artistic doctrines from Rostand's romanticist perspective.

Act II

At night, the nighttime birds of prey, along with the cat and the Blackbird, plot to kill Chantecler because his crowing interrupts their nefarious plans. They devise a plot to lure Chantecler to the weekly soirée held by the fashionable Guinea Hen, where they will also invite a famous game cock to assassinate Chantecler. The pheasant overhears, but the Blackbird persuades her not to tell Chantecler of the plot. When Chantecler appears to crow for the dawn, the pheasant persuades him to attend the soirée, and also to confess his secret belief that his crowing makes the sun rise. The Blackbird, hiding in a flower pot, eavesdrops through the hole in the pot's bottom, but because his position doesn't allow him to see the sunrise, he assumes Chantecler's confession is only a ruse to seduce the pheasant. After the pheasant leaves, Blackbird tells Chantecler that the game cock will attend Guinea Hen's soirée, and Chantecler insists on attending and confronting him.

About postcard: Chantecler, Acte II, Les Nocturnes, "L'ode a la nuit", Copyright by Le Deley