A proud, witty swordsman-poet, marked by an exaggerated nose, loves a woman of refined sensibility who is drawn to a handsome but tongue-tied suitor; to protect her happiness he conceals his devotion and provides the rival with eloquent words, enabling courtship through written and spoken artifice. The play shifts between theater-house comedy, duels, and intimate scenes of longing, examining appearance versus inner worth, the power of language, honor, and self-denial, and culminates in wartime events that force a painful revelation and reckoning.