Protocol question regarding Portal vs Cursor

Greetings,

If we use a Portal it is possible to open the portal and do a describe and
then Fetch N records.

Using a Cursor we open the cursor. Is there a corresponding describe and a
way to fetch N records without getting the fields each time. Currently we
have to send the SQL  "fetch <direction> N" and we get the fields and the
rows. This seems overly verbose.

Dave Cramer