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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nathan the Wise, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,
+Edited by Henry Morley, Translated by William Taylor
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Nathan the Wise
+
+
+Author: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2014  [eBook #3820]
+[This file was first posted on September 25, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATHAN THE WISE***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                        CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+                             NATHAN THE WISE
+                      _A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts_
+
+
+                _Translated by William Taylor of Norwich_
+
+                            FROM THE GERMAN OF
+
+                                 LESSING
+
+[Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                        CASSELL & COMPANY LIMITED
+                        _LONDON PARIS & MELBOURNE_
+                                   1893
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING was born on the 22nd of January, 1729, eldest of
+ten sons of a pious and learned minister of Camenz in the Oberlausitz,
+who had two daughters also.  As a child Lessing delighted in books, and
+had knowledge beyond his years when he went to school, in Meissen, at the
+age of twelve.  As a school-boy he read much Greek and Latin that formed
+no part of the school course; read also the German poets of his time,
+wrote a “History of Ancient Mathematics,” and began a poem of his own on
+the “Plurality of Worlds.”
+
+In 1746, at the age of seventeen, Lessing was sent to the University of
+Leipsic.  There he studied with energy, and was attracted strongly by the
+theatre.  His artistic interest in the drama caused him to be put on the
+free list of the theatre, in exchange for some translations of French
+pieces.  Then he produced, also for the Leipsic stage, many slight pieces
+of his own, and he had serious thought of turning actor, which excited
+alarm in the parsonage at Camenz and caused his recall home in January,
+1747.  It was found, however, that although he could not be trained to
+follow his father’s profession, he had been studying to such good
+purpose, and developing, in purity of life, such worth of character, that
+after Easter he was sent back to Leipsic, with leave to transfer his
+studies from theology to medicine.
+
+Lessing went back, continued to work hard, but still also gave all his
+leisure to the players.  For the debts of some of them he had
+incautiously become surety, and when the company removed to Vienna, there
+were left behind them unpaid debts for which young Lessing was
+answerable.  The creditors pressed, and Lessing moved to Wittenberg; but
+he fell ill, and was made so miserable by pressure for impossible
+payments, that he resolved to break off his studies, go to Berlin, and
+begin earning by his pen, his first earnings being for the satisfaction
+of these Leipsic creditors.  Lessing went first to Berlin to seek his
+fortune in December, 1748, when he was nineteen years old.  He was
+without money, without decent clothes, and with but one friend in Berlin,
+Mylius, who was then editing a small journal, the _Rudigersche Zeitung_.
+Much correspondence brought him a little money from the overburdened
+home, and with addition of some small earning from translations, this
+enabled him to obtain a suit of clothes, in which he might venture to
+present himself to strangers in his search for fortune.  A new venture
+with Mylius, a quarterly record of the history of the theatre, was not
+successful; but having charge committed to him of the library part of
+Mylius’s journal, Lessing had an opportunity of showing his great
+critical power.  Gottsched, at Leipsic, was then leader of the war on
+behalf of classicism in German literature.  Lessing fought on the
+National side, and opposed also the beginning of a new French influence
+then rising, which was to have its chief apostle in Rousseau.
+
+In 1752 Lessing went back to Wittenberg for another year, that he might
+complete the work for graduation; graduated in December of that year as
+Master of Arts, and then returned to his work in Berlin.  He worked
+industriously, not only as critic, but also in translation from the
+classics, from French, English, and Italian; and he was soon able to send
+help towards providing education for the youngest of the household of
+twelve children in the Camenz parsonage.  In 1753 he gave himself eight
+weeks of withdrawal from other work to write, in a garden-house at
+Potsdam, his tragedy of “Miss Sarah Sampson.”  It was produced with great
+success at Frankfort on the Oder, and Lessing’s ruling passion for
+dramatic literature became the stronger for this first experience of what
+he might be able to achieve.  In literature, Frederick the Great cared
+only for what was French.  A National drama, therefore, could not live in
+Berlin.  In the autumn of 1755, Lessing suddenly moved to Leipsic, where
+an actor whom he had befriended was establishing a theatre.  Here he was
+again abandoning himself to the cause of a National drama, when a rich
+young gentleman of Leipsic invited his companionship upon a tour in
+Europe.  Terms were settled, and they set out together.  They saw much of
+Holland, and were passing into England, when King Frederick’s attack on
+Saxony recalled the young Leipsiger, and caused breach of what had been a
+contract for a three years’ travelling companionship.  In May, 1758,
+Lessing, aged twenty-nine, returned to his old work in Berlin.  Again he
+translated, edited, criticised.  He wrote a tragedy, “Philotas,” and
+began a “Faust.”  He especially employed his critical power in “Letters
+upon the Latest Literature,” known as his _Literatur briefe_.
+Dissertations upon fable, led also to Lessing’s “Fables,” produced in
+this period of his life.
+
+In 1760 Lessing was tempted by scarcity of income to serve as a
+Government secretary at Breslau.  He held that office for five years, and
+then again returned to his old work in Berlin.  During the five years in
+Breslau, Lessing had completed his play of “Minna von Barnhelm,” and the
+greatest of his critical works, “Laocoon,” a treatise on the “Boundary
+Lines of Painting and Poetry.”  All that he might then have saved from
+his earnings went to the buying of books and to the relief of the burdens
+in the Camenz parsonage.  At Berlin the office of Royal Librarian became
+vacant.  The claims of Lessing were urged, but Frederick appointed an
+insignificant Frenchman.  In 1767 Lessing was called to aid an
+unsuccessful attempt to establish a National Theatre in Hamburg.
+
+Other troubles followed.  Lessing gave his heart to a widow, Eva König,
+and was betrothed to her.  But the involvements of her worldly affairs,
+and of his, delayed the marriage for six years.  To secure fixed income
+he took a poor office as Librarian at Wolfenbüttel.  In his first year at
+Wolfenbüttel, he wrote his play of “Emilia Galotti.”  Then came a
+long-desired journey to Italy; but it came in inconvenient form, for it
+had to be made with Prince Leopold, of Brunswick, hurriedly, for the sake
+of money, at the time when Lessing was at last able to marry.
+
+The wife, long waited for, and deeply loved, died at the birth of her
+first child.  This was in January, 1778, when Lessing’s age was 49.  Very
+soon afterwards he was attacked by a Pastor Goeze, in Hamburg, and other
+narrow theologians, for having edited papers that contained an attack on
+Christianity, which Lessing himself had said that he wished to see
+answered before he died.  The uncharitable bitterness of these attacks,
+felt by a mind that had been touched to the quick by the deepest of
+sorrows, helped to the shaping of Lessing’s calm, beautiful lesson of
+charity, this noblest of his plays—“Nathan the Wise.”  But Lessing’s
+health was shattered, and he survived his wife only three years.  He died
+in 1781, leaving imperishable influence for good upon the minds of men,
+but so poor in what the world calls wealth, that his funeral had to be
+paid for by a Duke of Brunswick.
+
+William Taylor, the translator of Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise;” was born
+in 1765, the son of a rich merchant at Norwich, from whose business he
+was drawn away by his strong bent towards literature.  His father yielded
+to his wishes, after long visits to France and to Germany, in days astir
+with the new movements of thought, that preceded and followed the French
+Revolution.  He formed a close friendship with Southey, edited for a
+little time a “Norwich Iris,” and in his later years became known
+especially for his Historic Survey of German Poetry, which included his
+translations, and among them this of “Nathan the Wise.”  It was published
+in 1830, Taylor died in 1836.  Thomas Carlyle, in reviewing William
+Taylor’s Survey of German Poetry, said of the author’s own translations
+in it “compared with the average of British translations, they may be
+pronounced of almost ideal excellence; compared with the best
+translations extant, for example, the German Shakespeare, Homer,
+Calderon, they may still be called better than indifferent.  One great
+merit Mr. Taylor has: rigorous adherence to his original; he endeavours
+at least to copy with all possible fidelity the term of praise, the tone,
+the very metre, whatever stands written for him.”
+
+                                                                     H. M.
+
+
+
+
+NATHAN THE WISE.
+
+
+    “Introite nam et heic Dii sunt!”—APUD GELLIUM.
+
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
+
+
+SALADIN, _the Sultan_.
+
+SITTAH, _his Sister_.
+
+NATHAN, _a rich Jew_.
+
+RECHA, _his adopted Daughter_.
+
+DAYA, _a Christian Woman dwelling with the Jew a companion to Recha_.
+
+CONRADE, _a young Templar_.
+
+HAFI, _a Dervis_.
+
+ATHANASIOS, _the Patriarch of Palestine_.
+
+BONAFIDES, _a Friar_.
+
+_An Emir_, _sundry Mamalukes_, _Slaves_, _&c._
+
+                       _The Scene is at Jerusalem_.
+
+
+
+ACT I.
+
+
+                     SCENE.—A Hall in Nathan’s House.
+
+           NATHAN, _in a travelling dress_, DAYA _meeting him_.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   ’Tis he, ’tis Nathan!  Thanks to the Almighty,
+   That you’re at last returned.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yes, Daya, thanks,
+   That I have reached Jerusalem in safety.
+   But wherefore this _at last_?  Did I intend,
+   Or was it possible to come back sooner?
+   As I was forced to travel, out and in,
+   ’Tis a long hundred leagues to Babylon;
+   And to get in one’s debts is no employment,
+   That speeds a traveller.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      O Nathan, Nathan,
+   How miserable you had nigh become
+   During this little absence; for your house—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well, ’twas on fire; I have already heard it.
+   God grant I may have heard the whole, that chanced!
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   ’Twas on the point of burning to the ground.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Then we’d have built another, and a better.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   True!—But thy Recha too was on the point
+   Of perishing amid the flames.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Of perishing?
+   My Recha, saidst thou?  She?  I heard not that.
+   I then should not have needed any house.
+   Upon the point of perishing—perchance
+   She’s gone?—Speak out then—out—torment me not
+   With this suspense.—Come, tell me, tell me all.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Were she no more, from me you would not hear it.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Why then alarm me?—Recha, O my Recha!
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Your Recha?  Yours?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What if I ever were
+   Doomed to unlearn to call this child, _my_ child,
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Is all you own yours by an equal title?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Nought by a better.  What I else enjoy
+   Nature and Fortune gave—this treasure, Virtue.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   How dear you make me pay for all your goodness!—
+   If goodness, exercised with such a view,
+   Deserves the name.—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   With such a view?  With what?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   My conscience—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Daya, let me tell you first—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   I say, my conscience—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What a charming silk
+   I bought for you in Babylon!  ’Tis rich,
+   Yet elegantly rich.  I almost doubt
+   If I have brought a prettier for Recha.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And what of that—I tell you that my conscience
+   Will no be longer hushed.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And I have bracelets,
+   And earrings, and a necklace, which will charm you.
+   I chose them at Damascus.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      That’s your way:—
+   If you can but make presents—but make presents.—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Take you as freely as I give—and cease.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And cease?—Who questions, Nathan, but that you are
+   Honour and generosity in person;—
+   Yet—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yet I’m but a Jew.—That was your meaning.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   You better know what was my meaning, Nathan.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well, well, no more of this,
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      I shall be silent;
+   But what of sinful in the eye of heaven
+   Springs out of it—not I, not I could help;
+   It falls upon thy head.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      So let it, Daya.
+   Where is she then?  What stays her?  Surely, surely,
+   You’re not amusing me—And does she know
+   That I’m arrived?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      That you yourself must speak to,
+   Terror still vibrates in her every nerve.
+   Her fancy mingles fire with all she thinks of.
+   Asleep, her soul seems busy; but awake,
+   Absent: now less than brute, now more than angel.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Poor thing!  What are we mortals—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      As she lay
+   This morning sleeping, all at once she started
+   And cried: “list, list! there come my father’s camels!”
+   And then she drooped again upon her pillow
+   And I withdrew—when, lo! you really came.
+   Her thoughts have only been with you—and him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And _him_?  What him?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      With him, who from the fire
+   Preserved her life,
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Who was it?  Where is he,
+   That saved my Recha for me?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      A young templar,
+   Brought hither captive a few days ago,
+   And pardoned by the Sultan.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      How, a _templar_
+   Dismissed with life by Saladin.  In truth,
+   Not a less miracle was to preserve her,
+   God!—God!—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Without this man, who risked afresh
+   The Sultan’s unexpected boon, we’d lost her.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Where is he, Daya, where’s this noble youth?
+   Do, lead me to his feet.  Sure, sure you gave him
+   What treasures I had left you—gave him all,
+   Promised him more—much more?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      How could we?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Not?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   He came, he went, we know not whence, or whither.
+   Quite unacquainted with the house, unguided
+   But by his ear, he prest through smoke and flame,
+   His mantle spread before him, to the room
+   Whence pierced the shrieks for help; and we began
+   To think him lost—and her; when, all at once,
+   Bursting from flame and smoke, he stood before us,
+   She in his arm upheld.  Cold and unmoved
+   By our loud warmth of thanks, he left his booty,
+   Struggled into the crowd, and disappeared.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   But not for ever, Daya, I would hope.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   For some days after, underneath you palms,
+   That shade his grave who rose again from death,
+   We saw him wandering up and down.  I went,
+   With transport went to thank him.  I conjured,
+   Intreated him to visit once again
+   The dear sweet girl he saved, who longed to shed
+   At her preserver’s feet the grateful tear—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      But in vain.  Deaf to our warmest prayers,
+   On me he flung such bitter mockery—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   That hence rebuffed—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Oh, no, oh, no, indeed not,
+   Daily I forced myself upon him, daily
+   Afresh encountered his dry taunting speeches.
+   Much I have borne, and would have borne much more:
+   But he of late forbears his lonely walk
+   Under the scattered palms, which stand about
+   Our holy sepulchre: nor have I learnt
+   Where he now is.  You seem astonished—thoughtful—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I was imagining what strange impressions
+   This conduct makes on such a mind as Recha’s.
+   Disdained by one whom she must feel compelled
+   To venerate and to esteem so highly.
+   At once attracted and repelled—the combat
+   Between her head and heart must yet endure,
+   Regret, Resentment, in unusual struggle.
+   Neither, perhaps, obtains the upper hand,
+   And busy fancy, meddling in the fray,
+   Weaves wild enthusiasms to her dazzled spirit,
+   Now clothing Passion in the garb of Reason,
+   And Reason now in Passion’s—do I err?
+   This last is Recha’s fate—Romantic notions—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Aye; but such pious, lovely, sweet, illusions.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Illusions though.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Yes: and the one, her bosom
+   Clings to most fondly, is, that the brave templar
+   Was but a transient inmate of the earth,
+   A guardian angel, such as from her childhood
+   She loved to fancy kindly hovering round her,
+   Who from his veiling cloud amid the fire
+   Stepped forth in her preserver’s form.  You smile—
+   Who knows?  At least beware of banishing
+   So pleasing an illusion—if deceitful
+   Christian, Jew, Mussulman, agree to own it,
+   And ’tis—at least to her—a dear illusion.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Also to me.  Go, my good Daya, go,
+   See what she’s after.  Can’t I speak with her?
+   Then I’ll find out our untamed guardian angel,
+   Bring him to sojourn here awhile among us—
+   We’ll pinion his wild wing, when once he’s taken.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   You undertake too much.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And when, my Daya,
+   This sweet illusion yields to sweeter truth,
+   (For to a man a man is ever dearer
+   Than any angel) you must not be angry
+   To see our loved enthusiast exercised.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   You are so good—and yet so sly.  I’ll seek her,
+   But listen,—yes! she’s coming of herself.
+
+                        NATHAN, DAYA, _and_ RECHA.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   And you are here, your very self, my father,
+   I thought you’d only sent your voice before you.
+   Where are you then?  What mountains, deserts, torrents,
+   Divide us now?  You see me, face to face,
+   And do not hasten to embrace your Recha.
+   Poor Recha! she was almost burnt alive,
+   But only—only—almost.  Do not shudder!
+   O ’tis a horrid end to die in fire!
+
+                        NATHAN (_embracing her_).
+
+   My child, my darling child!
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      You had to cross
+   The Jordan, Tigris, and Euphrates, and
+   Who knows what rivers else.  I used to tremble
+   And quake for you, till the fire came so nigh me;
+   Since then, methinks ’twere comfort, balm, refreshment,
+   To die by water.  But you are not drowned—
+   I am not burnt alive.—We will rejoice—
+   We will praise God—the kind good God, who bore thee,
+   Upon the buoyant wings of _unseen_ angels,
+   Across the treacherous stream—the God who bade
+   My angel _visibly_ on his white wing
+   Athwart the roaring flame—
+
+                            NATHAN (_aside_).
+
+      White wing?—oh, aye
+   The broad white fluttering mantle of the templar.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Yes, visibly he bore me through the fire,
+   O’ershadowed by his pinions.—Face to face
+   I’ve seen an angel, father, my own angel.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Recha deserves it, and would see in him
+   No fairer form than he beheld in her,
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Whom are you flattering, father—tell me now—
+   The angel, or yourself?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yet had a man,
+   A man of those whom Nature daily fashions,
+   Done you this service, he to you had seemed,
+   Had been an angel.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      No, not such a one.
+   Indeed it was a true and real angel.
+   And have not you yourself instructed me
+   How possible it is there may be angels;
+   That God for those who love him can work miracles—
+   And I do love him, father—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And he thee;
+   And both for thee, and all like thee, my child,
+   Works daily wonders, from eternity
+   Has wrought them for you.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      That I like to hear.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well, and although it sounds quite natural,
+   An every day event, a simple story,
+   That you was by a real templar saved,
+   Is it the less a miracle?  The greatest
+   Of all is this, that true and real wonders
+   Should happen so perpetually, so daily.
+   Without this universal miracle
+   A thinking man had scarcely called those such,
+   Which only children, Recha, ought to name so,
+   Who love to gape and stare at the unusual
+   And hunt for novelty—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Why will you then
+   With such vain subtleties, confuse her brain
+   Already overheated?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Let me manage.—
+   And is it not enough then for my Recha
+   To owe her preservation to a man,
+   Whom no small miracle preserved himself.
+   For whoe’er heard before that Saladin
+   Let go a templar; that a templar wished it,
+   Hoped it, or for his ransom offered more
+   Than taunts, his leathern sword-belt, or his dagger?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   That makes for me; these are so many reasons
+   He was no real knight, but only seemed it.
+   If in Jerusalem no captive templar,
+   Appears alive, or freely wanders round,
+   How could I find one, in the night, to save me?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Ingenious! dextrous!  Daya, come in aid.
+   It was from you I learnt he was a prisoner;
+   Doubtless you know still more about him, speak.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   ’Tis but report indeed, but it is said
+   That Saladin bestowed upon this youth
+   His gracious pardon for the strong resemblance
+   He bore a favourite brother—dead, I think
+   These twenty years—his name, I know it not—
+   He fell, I don’t know where—and all the story
+   Sounds so incredible, that very likely
+   The whole is mere invention, talk, romance.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And why incredible?  Would you reject
+   This story, tho’ indeed, it’s often done,
+   To fix on something more incredible,
+   And give that faith?  Why should not Saladin,
+   Who loves so singularly all his kindred,
+   Have loved in early youth with warmer fondness
+   A brother now no more.  Do we not see
+   Faces alike, and is an old impression
+   Therefore a lost one?  Do resembling features
+   Not call up like emotions.  Where’s th’ incredible?
+   Surely, sage Daya, this can be to thee
+   No miracle, or do _thy_ wonders only
+   Demand—I should have said _deserve_ belief?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   You’re on the bite.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Were you quite fair with me?
+   Yet even so, my Recha, thy escape
+   Remains a wonder, only possible
+   To Him, who of the proud pursuits of princes
+   Makes sport—or if not sport—at least delights
+   To head and manage them by slender threads.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   If I do err, it is not wilfully,
+   My father.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      No, you have been always docile.
+   See now, a forehead vaulted thus, or thus—
+   A nose bow’d one way rather than another—
+   Eye-brows with straiter, or with sharper curve—
+   A line, a mole, a wrinkle, a mere nothing
+   I’ th’ countenance of an European savage—
+   And thou—art saved, in Asia, from the fire.
+   Ask ye for signs and wonders after that?
+   What need of calling angels into play?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   But Nathan, where’s the harm, if I may speak,
+   Of fancying one’s self by an angel saved,
+   Rather than by a man?  Methinks it brings us
+   Just so much the nearer the incomprehensive
+   First cause of preservation.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Pride, rank pride!
+   The iron pot would with a silver prong
+   Be lifted from the furnace—to imagine
+   Itself a silver vase.  Paha!  Where’s the harm?
+   Thou askest.  Where’s the good?  I might reply.
+   For thy _it brings us nearer to the Godhead_
+   Is nonsense, Daya, if not blasphemy.
+   But it does harm: yes, yes, it does indeed.
+   Attend now.  To the being, who preserved you,
+   Be he an angel or a man, you both,
+   And thou especially wouldst gladly show
+   Substantial services in just requital.
+   Now to an angel what great services
+   Have ye the power to do?  To sing his praise—
+   Melt in transporting contemplation o’er him—
+   Fast on his holiday—and squander alms—
+   What nothingness of use!  To me at least
+   It seems your neighbour gains much more than he
+   By all this pious glow.  Not by your fasting
+   Is he made fat; not by your squandering, rich;
+   Nor by your transports is his glory exalted;
+   Nor by your faith his might.  But to a man—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Why yes; a man indeed had furnished us
+   With more occasions to be useful to him.
+   God knows how readily we should have seized them.
+   But then he would have nothing—wanted nothing—
+   Was in himself wrapped up, and self-sufficient,
+   As angels are.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      And when at last he vanished—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Vanished?  How vanished?  Underneath the palms
+   Escaped your view, and has returned no more.
+   Or have you really sought for him elsewhere?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   No, that indeed we’ve not.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Not, Daya, not?
+   See it does harm, hard-hearted, cold enthusiasts,
+   What if this angel on a bed of illness—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Illness?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Ill! sure he is not.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      A cold shudder
+   Creeps over me; O Daya, feel my forehead,
+   It was so warm, ’tis now as chill as ice.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   He is a Frank, unused to this hot climate,
+   Is young, and to the labours of his calling,
+   To fasting, watching, quite unused—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Ill—ill!
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Thy father only means ’twere possible.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And there he lies, without a friend, or money
+   To buy him friends—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Alas! my father.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Lies
+   Without advice, attendance, converse, pity,
+   The prey of agony, of death—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Where—where?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   He, who, for one he never knew, or saw—
+   It is enough for him he is a man—
+   Plunged into fire.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      O Nathan, Nathan, spare her.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Who cared not to know aught of her he saved,
+   Declined her presence to escape her thanks—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Do, spare her!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Did not wish to see her more
+   Unless it were a second time to save her—
+   Enough for him he is a man—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Stop, look!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   He—he, in death, has nothing to console him,
+   But the remembrance of this deed.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      You kill her!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And you kill him—or might have done at least—
+   Recha ’tis medicine I give, not poison.
+   He lives—come to thyself—may not be ill—
+   Not even ill—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Surely not dead, not dead.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Dead surely not—for God rewards the good
+   Done here below, here too.  Go; but remember
+   How easier far devout enthusiasm is
+   Than a good action; and how willingly
+   Our indolence takes up with pious rapture,
+   Tho’ at the time unconscious of its end,
+   Only to save the toil of useful deeds.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Oh never leave again thy child alone!—
+   But can he not be only gone a journey?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Yes, very likely.  There’s a Mussulman
+   Numbering with curious eye my laden camels,
+   Do you know who he is?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Oh, your old dervis.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Who—who?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Your chess companion.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         That, Al-Hafi?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And now the treasurer of Saladin.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Al-Hafi?  Are you dreaming?  How was this?
+   In fact it is so.  He seems coming hither.
+   In with you quick.—What now am I to hear?
+
+                             NATHAN _and_ HAFI.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Aye, lift thine eyes in wonder.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Is it you?
+   A dervis so magnificent!—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Why not?
+   Can nothing then be made out of a dervis?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Yes, surely; but I have been wont to think
+   A dervis, that’s to say a thorough dervis,
+   Will allow nothing to be made of him.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   May-be ’tis true that I’m no thorough dervis;
+   But by the prophet, when we must—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Must, Hafi?
+   Needs must—belongs to no man: and a dervis—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   When he is much besought, and thinks it right,
+   A dervis must.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Well spoken, by our God!
+   Embrace me, man, you’re still, I trust, my friend.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Why not ask first what has been made of me?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Ask climbers to look back!
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      And may I not
+   Have grown to such a creature in the state
+   That my old friendship is no longer welcome?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   If you still bear your dervis-heart about you
+   I’ll run the risk of that.  Th’ official robe
+   Is but your cloak.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      A cloak, that claims some honour.
+   What think’st thou?  At a court of thine how great
+   Had been Al-Hafi?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Nothing but a dervis.
+   If more, perhaps—what shall I say—my cook.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   In order to unlearn my native trade.
+   Thy cook—why not thy butler too?  The Sultan,
+   He knows me better, I’m his treasurer.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   You, you?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Mistake not—of the lesser purse—
+   His father manages the greater still—
+   The purser of his household.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That’s not small.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   ’Tis larger than thou think’st; for every beggar
+   Is of his household.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      He’s so much their foe—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   That he’d fain root them out—with food and raiment—
+   Tho’ he turn beggar in the enterprize.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Bravo, I meant so.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      And he’s almost such.
+   His treasury is every day, ere sun-set,
+   Poorer than empty; and how high so e’er
+   Flows in the morning tide, ’tis ebb by noon.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Because it circulates through such canals
+   As can be neither stopped, nor filled.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Thou hast it.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I know it well.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Nathan, ’tis woeful doing
+   When kings are vultures amid caresses:
+   But when they’re caresses amid the vultures
+   ’Tis ten times worse.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      No, dervis, no, no, no.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Thou mayst well talk so.  Now then, let me hear
+   What wouldst thou give me to resign my office?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   What does it bring you in?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      To me, not much;
+   But thee, it might indeed enrich: for when,
+   As often happens, money is at ebb,
+   Thou couldst unlock thy sluices, make advances,
+   And take in form of interest all thou wilt.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And interest upon interest of the interest—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Certainly.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Till my capital becomes
+   All interest.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      How—that does not take with thee?
+   Then write a finis to our book of friendship;
+   For I have reckoned on thee.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      How so, Hafi?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   That thou wouldst help me to go thro’ my office
+   With credit, grant me open chest with thee—
+   Dost shake thy head?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Let’s understand each other.
+   Here’s a distinction to be made.  To you,
+   To dervis Hafi, all I have is open;
+   But to the defterdar of Saladin,
+   To that Al-Hafi—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Spoken like thyself!
+   Thou hast been ever no less kind than cautious.
+   The two Al-Hafis thou distinguishest
+   Shall soon be parted.  See this coat of honour,
+   Which Saladin bestowed—before ’tis worn
+   To rags, and suited to a dervis’ back,—
+   Will in Jerusalem hang upon the hook;
+   While I along the Ganges scorching strand,
+   Amid my teachers shall be wandering barefoot.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   That’s like you.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Or be playing chess among them.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Your sovereign good.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      What dost thou think seduced me.
+   The wish of having not to beg in future—
+   The pride of acting the rich man to beggars—
+   Would these have metamorphosed a rich beggar
+   So suddenly into a poor rich man?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   No, I think not.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      A sillier, sillier weakness,
+   For the first time my vanity was tempter,
+   Flattered by Saladin’s good-hearted notion—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Which was?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      That all a beggar’s wants are only
+   Known to a beggar: such alone can tell
+   How to relieve them usefully and wisely.
+   “Thy predecessor was too cold for me,
+   (He said) and when he gave, he gave unkindly;
+   Informed himself with too precautious strictness
+   Concerning the receiver, not content
+   To leant the want, unless he knew its cause,
+   And measuring out by that his niggard bounty.
+   Thou wilt not thus bestow.  So harshly kind
+   Shall Saladin not seem in thee.  Thou art not
+   Like the choked pipe, whence sullied and by spurts
+   Flow the pure waters it absorbs in silence.
+   Al-Hafi thinks and feels like me.”  So nicely
+   The fowler whistled, that at last the quail
+   Ran to his net.  Cheated, and by a cheat—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Tush! dervis, gently.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      What! and is’t not cheating,
+   Thus to oppress mankind by hundred thousands,
+   To squeeze, grind, plunder, butcher, and torment,
+   And act philanthropy to individuals?—
+   Not cheating—thus to ape from the Most High
+   The bounty, which alike on mead and desert,
+   Upon the just and the unrighteous, falls
+   In sunshine or in showers, and not possess
+   The never-empty hand of the Most High?—
+   Not cheating—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Cease!
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Of my own cheating sure
+   It is allowed to speak.  Were it not cheating
+   To look for the fair side of these impostures,
+   In order, under colour of its fairness,
+   To gain advantage from them—ha?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Al-Hafi,
+   Go to your desert quickly.  Among men
+   I fear you’ll soon unlearn to be a man.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   And so do I—farewell.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What, so abruptly?
+   Stay, stay, Al-Hafi; has the desert wings?
+   Man, ’twill not run away, I warrant you—
+   Hear, hear, I want you—want to talk with you—
+   He’s gone.  I could have liked to question him
+   About our templar.  He will likely know him.
+
+                             NATHAN _and_ DAYA.
+                            DAYA (_bursting in_).
+
+   O Nathan, Nathan!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Well, what now?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         He’s there.
+   He shows himself again.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Who, Daya, who?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   He! he!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      When cannot He be seen?  Indeed
+   Your He is only one; that should not be,
+   Were he an angel even.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      ’Neath the palms
+   He wanders up and down, and gathers dates.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And eats?—and as a templar?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      How you tease us!
+   Her eager eye espied him long ago,
+   While he scarce gleamed between the further stems,
+   And follows him most punctually.  Go,
+   She begs, conjures you, go without delay;
+   And from the window will make signs to you
+   Which way his rovings bend.  Do, do make haste.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   What! thus, as I alighted from my camel,
+   Would that be decent?  Swift, do you accost him,
+   Tell him of my return.  I do not doubt,
+   His delicacy in the master’s absence
+   Forbore my house; but gladly will accept
+   The father’s invitation.  Say, I ask him,
+   Most heartily request him—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      All in vain!
+   In short, he will not visit any Jew.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Then do thy best endeavours to detain him,
+   Or with thine eyes to watch his further haunt,
+   Till I rejoin you.  I shall not be long.
+
+
+SCENE.—A Place of Palms.
+
+
+_The_ TEMPLAR _walking to and fro_, _a_ FRIAR _following him at some
+distance_, _as if desirous of addressing him_.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   This fellow does not follow me for pastime.
+   How skaunt he eyes his hands!  Well, my good brother—
+   Perhaps I should say, father; ought I not?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   No—brother—a lay-brother at your service.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Well, brother, then; if I myself had something—
+   But—but, by God, I’ve nothing.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Thanks the same;
+   And God reward your purpose thousand-fold!
+   The will, and not the deed, makes up the giver.
+   Nor was I sent to follow you for alms—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Sent then?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Yes, from the monastery.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Where
+   I was just now in hopes of coming in
+   For pilgrims’ fare.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      They were already at table:
+   But if it suit with you to turn directly—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Why so?  ’Tis true, I have not tasted meat
+   This long time.  What of that?  The dates are ripe.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   O with that fruit go cautiously to work.
+   Too much of it is hurtful, sours the humours,
+   Makes the blood melancholy.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And if I
+   Choose to be melancholy—For this warning
+   You were not sent to follow me, I ween.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Oh, no: I only was to ask about you,
+   And feel your pulse a little.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         And you tell me
+   Of that yourself?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Why not?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         A deep one! troth:
+   And has your cloister more such?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         I can’t say.
+   Obedience is our bounden duty.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      So—
+   And you obey without much scrupulous questioning?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Were it obedience else, good sir?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      How is it
+   The simple mind is ever in the right?
+   May you inform me who it is that wishes
+   To know more of me?  ’Tis not you yourself,
+   I dare be sworn.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Would it become me, sir,
+   Or benefit me?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Whom can it become,
+   Whom can it benefit, to be so curious?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   The patriarch, I presume—’twas he that sent me.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   The patriarch?  Knows he not my badge, the cross
+   Of red on the white mantle?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Can I say?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Well, brother, well!  I am a templar, taken
+   Prisoner at Tebnin, whose exalted fortress,
+   Just as the truce expired, we sought to climb,
+   In order to push forward next to Sidon.
+   I was the twentieth captive, but the only
+   Pardoned by Saladin—with this, the patriarch
+   Knows all, or more than his occasions ask.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   And yet no more than he already knows,
+   I think.  But why alone of all the captives
+   Thou hast been spared, he fain would learn—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Can I
+   Myself tell that?  Already, with bare neck,
+   I kneeled upon my mantle, and awaited
+   The blow—when Saladin with steadfast eye
+   Fixed me, sprang nearer to me, made a sign—
+   I was upraised, unbound, about to thank him—
+   And saw his eye in tears.  Both stand in silence.
+   He goes.  I stay.  How all this hangs together,
+   Thy patriarch may unriddle.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      He concludes,
+   That God preserved you for some mighty deed.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Some mighty deed?  To save out of the fire
+   A Jewish girl—to usher curious pilgrims
+   About Mount Sinai—to—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      The time may come—
+   And this is no such trifle—but perhaps
+   The patriarch meditates a weightier office.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Think you so, brother?  Has he hinted aught?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Why, yes; I was to sift you out a little,
+   And hear if you were one to—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Well—to what?
+   I’m curious to observe how this man sifts.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   The shortest way will be to tell you plainly
+   What are the patriarch’s wishes.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And they are—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   To send a letter by your hand.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      By me?
+   I am no carrier.  And were that an office
+   More meritorious than to save from burning
+   A Jewish maid?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      So it should seem; must seem—
+   For, says the patriarch, to all Christendom
+   This letter is of import; and to bear it
+   Safe to its destination, says the patriarch,
+   God will reward with a peculiar crown
+   In heaven; and of this crown, the patriarch says,
+   No one is worthier than you—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Than I?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   For none so able, and so fit to earn
+   This crown, the patriarch says, as you.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         As I?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   The patriarch here is free, can look about him,
+   And knows, he says, how cities may be stormed,
+   And how defended; knows, he says, the strengths
+   And weaknesses of Saladin’s new bulwark,
+   And of the inner rampart last thrown up;
+   And to the warriors of the Lord, he says,
+   Could clearly point them out;—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And can I know
+   Exactly the contents of this same letter?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Why, that I don’t pretend to vouch exactly—
+   ’Tis to King Philip: and our patriarch—
+   I often wonder how this holy man,
+   Who lives so wholly to his God and heaven,
+   Can stoop to be so well informed about
+   Whatever passes here—’Tis a hard task!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Well—and your patriarch—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Knows, with great precision,
+   And from sure hands, how, when, and with what force,
+   And in which quarter, Saladin, in case
+   The war breaks out afresh, will take the field.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   He knows that?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Yes; and would acquaint King Philip,
+   That he may better calculate, if really
+   The danger be so great as to require
+   Him to renew at all events the truce
+   So bravely broken by your body.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      So?
+   This is a patriarch indeed!  He wants
+   No common messenger; he wants a spy.
+   Go tell your patriarch, brother, I am not,
+   As far as you can sift, the man to suit him.
+   I still esteem myself a prisoner, and
+   A templar’s only calling is to fight,
+   And not to ferret out intelligence.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   That’s much as I supposed, and, to speak plainly,
+   Not to be blamed.  The best is yet behind.
+   The patriarch has made out the very fortress,
+   Its name, and strength, and site on Libanon,
+   Wherein the mighty sums are now concealed,
+   With which the prudent father of the sultan
+   Provides the cost of war, and pays the army.
+   He knows that Saladin, from time to time,
+   Goes to this fortress, through by-ways and passe
+   With few attendants.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Well—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         How easy ’twere
+   To seize his person in these expeditions,
+   And make an end of all!  You shudder, sir—
+   Two Maronites, who fear the Lord, have offer
+   To share the danger of the enterprise,
+   Under a proper leader.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And the patriarch
+   Had cast his eye on me for this brave office?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   He thinks King Philip might from Ptolemais
+   Best second such a deed.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      On me? on me?
+   Have you not heard then, just now heard, the favour
+   Which I received from Saladin?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Oh, yes!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And yet?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      The patriarch thinks—that’s mighty well—
+   God, and the order’s interest—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Alter nothing,
+   Command no villainies.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      No, that indeed not;
+   But what is villainy in human eyes
+   May in the sight of God, the patriarch thinks,
+   Not be—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I owe my life to Saladin,
+   And might take his?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      That—fie!  But Saladin,
+   The patriarch thinks, is yet the common foe
+   Of Christendom, and cannot earn a right
+   To be your friend.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      My friend—because I will not
+   Behave like an ungrateful scoundrel to him.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Yet gratitude, the patriarch thinks, is not
+   A debt before the eye of God or man,
+   Unless for our own sakes the benefit
+   Had been conferred; and, it has been reported,
+   The patriarch understands that Saladin
+   Preserved your life merely because your voice,
+   Your air, or features, raised a recollection
+   Of his lost brother.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      He knows this? and yet—
+   If it were sure, I should—ah, Saladin!
+   How! and shall nature then have formed in me
+   A single feature in thy brother’s likeness,
+   With nothing in my soul to answer to it?
+   Or what does correspond shall I suppress
+   To please a patriarch?  So thou dost not cheat us,
+   Nature—and so not contradict Thyself,
+   Kind God of all.—Go, brother, go away:
+   Do not stir up my anger.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      I withdraw
+   More gladly than I came.  We cloister-folk
+   Are forced to vow obedience to superiors.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                           TEMPLAR _and_ DAYA.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   The monk, methinks, left him in no good mood:
+   But I must risk my message.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Better still
+   The proverb says that monks and women are
+   The devil’s clutches; and I’m tossed to-day
+   From one to th’ other.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Whom do I behold?—
+   Thank God!  I see you, noble knight, once more.
+   Where have you lurked this long, long space?  You’ve not
+   Been ill?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      No.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Well, then?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Yes.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         We’ve all been anxious
+   Lest something ailed you.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      So?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Have you been journeying?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Hit off!
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      How long returned?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Since yesterday.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Our Recha’s father too is just returned,
+   And now may Recha hope at last—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         For what?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   For what she often has requested of you.
+   Her father pressingly invites your visit.
+   He now arrives from Babylon, with twenty
+   High-laden camels, brings the curious drugs,
+   And precious stones, and stuffs, he has collected
+   From Syria, Persia, India, even China.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I am no chap.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      His nation honours him,
+   As if he were a prince, and yet to hear him
+   Called the _wise_ Nathan by them, not the _rich_,
+   Has often made me wonder.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      To his nation
+   Are _rich_ and _wise_ perhaps of equal import.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   But above all he should be called the _good_.
+   You can’t imagine how much goodness dwells
+   Within him.  Since he has been told the service
+   You rendered to his Recha, there is nothing
+   That he would grudge you.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Aye?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Do—see him, try him.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   A burst of feeling soon is at an end.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And do you think that I, were he less kind,
+   Less bountiful, had housed with him so long:
+   That I don’t feel my value as a Christian:
+   For ’twas not o’er my cradle said, or sung,
+   That I to Palestina should pursue
+   My husband’s steps, only to educate
+   A Jewess.  My husband was a noble page
+   In Emperor Frederic’s army.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         And by birth
+   A Switzer, who obtained the gracious honour
+   Of drowning in one river with his master.
+   Woman, how often you have told me this!
+   Will you ne’er leave off persecuting me?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   My Jesus! persecute—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Aye, persecute.
+   Observe then, I henceforward will not see,
+   Not hear you, nor be minded of a deed
+   Over and over, which I did unthinking,
+   And which, when thought about, I wonder at.
+   I wish not to repent it; but, remember,
+   Should the like accident occur again,
+   ’Twill be your fault if I proceed more coolly,
+   Ask a few questions, and let burn what’s burning.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   My God forbid!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      From this day forth, good woman,
+   Do me at least the favour not to know me:
+   I beg it of you; and don’t send the father.
+   A Jew’s a Jew, and I am rude and bearish.
+   The image of the maid is quite erased
+   Out of my soul—if it was ever there—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   But yours remains with her.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Why so—what then—
+   Wherefore give harbour to it?—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Who knows wherefore?
+   Men are not always what they seem to be.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   They’re seldom better than they seem to be.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Ben’t in this hurry.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Pray, forbear to make
+   These palm-trees odious.  I have loved to walk here.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Farewell then, bear.  Yet I must track the savage.
+
+
+
+ACT II.
+
+
+     SCENE.—The Sultan’s Palace.—An outer room of Sittah’s apartment.
+
+                  SALADIN _and_ SITTAH, _playing chess_.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Wherefore so absent, brother?  How you play!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Not well?  I thought—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Yes; very well for me,
+   Take back that move.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Why?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Don’t you see the knight
+   Becomes exposed?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      ’Tis true: then so.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         And so
+   I take the pawn.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      That’s true again.  Then, check!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   That cannot help you.  When my king is castled
+   All will be safe.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      But out of my dilemma
+   ’Tis not so easy to escape unhurt.
+   Well, you must have the knight.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         I will not have him,
+   I pass him by.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      In that, there’s no forbearance:
+   The place is better than the piece.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Maybe.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Beware you reckon not without your host:
+   This stroke you did not think of.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         No, indeed;
+   I did not think you tired of your queen.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   My queen?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Well, well!  I find that I to-day
+   Shall earn a thousand dinars to an asper.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   How so, my sister?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Play the ignorant—
+   As if it were not purposely thou losest.
+   I find not my account in ’t; for, besides
+   That such a game yields very little pastime,
+   When have I not, by losing, won with thee?
+   When hast thou not, by way of comfort to me
+   For my lost game, presented twice the stake?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   So that it may have been on purpose, sister,
+   That thou hast lost at times.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         At least, my brother’s
+   Great liberality may be one cause
+   Why I improve no faster.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      We forget
+   The game before us: lot us make an end of it.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   I move—so—now then—check! and check again!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   This countercheck I wasn’t aware of, Sittah;
+   My queen must fall the sacrifice.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Let’s see—
+   Could it be helped?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      No, no, take off the queen!
+   That is a piece which never thrives with me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Only that piece?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Off with it!  I shan’t miss it.
+   Thus I guard all again.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         How civilly
+   We should behave to queens, my brother’s lessons
+   Have taught me but too well.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Take her, or not,
+   I stir the piece no more.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Why should I take her?
+   Check!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Go on.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Check!—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         And check-mate?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Hold! not yet.
+   You may advance the knight, and ward the danger,
+   Or as you will—it is all one.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      It is so.
+   You are the winner, and Al-Hafi pays.
+   Let him be called.  Sittah, you was not wrong;
+   I seem to recollect I was unmindful—
+   A little absent.  One isn’t always willing
+   To dwell upon some shapeless bits of wood
+   Coupled with no idea.  Yet the Imam,
+   When I play with him, bends with such abstraction—
+   The loser seeks excuses.  Sittah, ’twas not
+   The shapeless men, and the unmeaning squares,
+   That made me heedless—your dexterity,
+   Your calm sharp eye.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      And what of that, good brother,
+   Is that to be th’ excuse for your defeat?
+   Enough—you played more absently than I.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Than you!  What dwells upon your mind, my Sittah?
+   Not your own cares, I doubt—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         O Saladin,
+   When shall we play again so constantly?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   An interruption will but whet our zeal.
+   You think of the campaign.  Well, let it come.
+   It was not I who first unsheathed the sword.
+   I would have willingly prolonged the truce,
+   And willingly have knit a closer bond,
+   A lasting one—have given to my Sittah
+   A husband worthy of her, Richard’s brother.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   You love to talk of Richard.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Richard’s sister
+   Might then have been allotted to our Melek.
+   O what a house that would have formed—the first—
+   The best—and what is more—of earth the happiest!
+   You know I am not loth to praise myself;
+   Why should I?—Of my friends am I not worthy?
+   O we had then led lives!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      A pretty dream.
+   It makes me smile.  You do not know the Christians.
+   You will not know them.  ’Tis this people’s pride
+   Not to be men, but to be Christians.  Even
+   What of humane their Founder felt, and taught,
+   And left to savour their found superstition,
+   They value not because it is humane,
+   Lovely, and good for man; they only prize it
+   Because ’twas Christ who taught it, Christ who did it.
+   ’Tis well for them He was so good a man:
+   Well that they take His goodness all for granted,
+   And in His virtues put their trust.  His virtues—
+   ’Tis not His virtues, but His name alone
+   They wish to thrust upon us—’Tis His name
+   Which they desire should overspread the world,
+   Should swallow up the name of all good men,
+   And put the best to shame.  ’Tis His mere name
+   They care for—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Else, my Sittah, as thou sayst,
+   They would not have required that thou, and Melek,
+   Should be called Christians, ere you might be suffered
+   To feel for Christians conjugal affection.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   As if from Christians only, and as Christians,
+   That love could be expected which our Maker
+   In man and woman for each other planted.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   The Christians do believe such idle notions,
+   They well might fancy this: and yet thou errest.
+   The templars, not the Christians, are in fault.
+   ’Tis not as Christians, but as templars, that
+   They thwart my purpose.  They alone prevent it.
+   They will on no account evacuate Acca,
+   Which was to be the dower of Richard’s sister,
+   And, lest their order suffer, use this cant—
+   Bring into play the nonsense of the monk—
+   And scarcely would await the truce’s end
+   To fall upon us.  Go on so—go on,
+   To me you’re welcome, sirs.  Would all things else
+   Went but as right!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      What else should trouble thee,
+   If this do not?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Why, that which ever has.
+   I’ve been on Libanon, and seen our father.
+   He’s full of care.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Alas!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         He can’t make shift,
+   Straitened on all sides, put off, disappointed;
+   Nothing comes in.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      What fails him, Saladin?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   What? but the thing I scarcely deign to name,
+   Which, when I have it, so superfluous seems,
+   And, when I have it not, so necessary.
+   Where is Al-Hafi then—this fatal money—
+   O welcome, Hafi!
+
+                       HAFI, SALADIN, _and_ SITTAH.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      I suppose the gold
+   From Egypt is arrived.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Hast tidings of it?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   I? no, not I.  I thought to have ta’en it here.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   To Sittah pay a thousand dinars.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Pay?
+   And not receive—that’s something less than nothing.
+   To Sittah and again to Sittah—and
+   Once more for loss at chess?  Is this your game?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Dost grudge me my good fortune?
+
+                      HAFI (_examining the board_).
+
+      Grudge! you know—
+
+                     SITTAH (_making signs to Hafi_).
+
+   Hush, Hafi, hush!
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      And were the white men yours?
+   You gave the check?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      ’Tis well he does not hear.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   And he to move?
+
+                       SITTAH (_approaching Hafi_).
+
+      Say then aloud that I
+   Shall have my money.
+
+                   HAFI (_still considering the game_).
+
+      Yes, yes! you shall have it—
+   As you have always had it.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Are you crazy?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   The game is not decided; Saladin,
+   You have not lost.
+
+                     SALADIN (_scarcely hearkening_).
+
+      Well, well!—pay, pay.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Pay, pay—
+   There stands your queen.
+
+                     SALADIN (_still walking about_).
+
+      It boots not, she is useless.
+
+                         SITTAH (_low to Hafi_).
+
+   Do say that I may send and fetch the gold.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Aye, aye, as usual—But although the queen
+   Be useless, you are by no means check-mate.
+
+                    SALADIN (_dashes down the board_).
+
+   I am.  I will then—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      So! small pains, small gains;
+   As got, so spent.
+
+                          SALADIN (_to Sittah_).
+
+      What is he muttering there?
+
+           SITTAH (_to Saladin_, _winking meanwhile to Hafi_).
+
+   You know him well, and his unyielding way.
+   He chooses to be prayed to—maybe he’s envious—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   No, not of thee, not of my sister, surely.
+   What do I hear, Al-Hafi, are you envious?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Perhaps.  I’d rather have her head than mine,
+   Or her heart either.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Ne’ertheless, my brother,
+   He pays me right, and will again to-day.
+   Let him alone.  There, go away, Al-Hafi;
+   I’ll send and fetch my dinars.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      No, I will not;
+   I will not act this farce a moment longer:
+   He shall, must know it.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Who? what?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         O Al-Hafi,
+   Is this thy promise, this thy keeping word?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   How could I think it was to go so far?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Well, what am I to know?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I pray thee, Hafi,
+   Be more discreet.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      That’s very singular.
+   And what can Sittah then so earnestly,
+   So warmly have to sue for from a stranger,
+   A dervis, rather than from me, her brother?
+   Al-Hafi, I command.  Dervis, speak out.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Let not a trifle, brother, touch you nearer
+   Than is becoming.  You know I have often
+   Won the same sum of you at chess, and, as
+   I have not just at present need of money,
+   I’ve left the sum at rest in Hafi’s chest,
+   Which is not over-full; and thus the stakes
+   Are not yet taken out—but, never fear,
+   It is not my intention to bestow them
+   On thee, or Hafi.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Were it only this—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Some more such trifles are perhaps unclaimed;
+   My own allowance, which you set apart,
+   Has lain some months untouched.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         Nor is that all—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Nor yet—speak then!
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Since we have been expecting
+   The treasure out of Egypt, she not only—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Why listen to him?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Has not had an asper;—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Good creature—but has been advancing to thee—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Has at her sole expense maintained thy state.
+
+                        SALADIN (_embracing her_).
+
+   My sister—ah!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      And who but you, my brother,
+   Could make me rich enough to have the power?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   And in a little time again will leave thee
+   Poor as himself.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      I, poor—her brother, poor?
+   When had I more, when less than at this instant?
+   A cloak, a horse, a sabre, and a God!—
+   What need I else?  With them what can be wanting?
+   And yet, Al-Hafi, I could quarrel with thee
+   For this.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      A truce to that, my brother.  Were it
+   As easy to remove our father’s cares!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Ah! now my joy thou hast at once abated:
+   To me there is, there can be, nothing wanting;
+   But—but to him—and, in him, to us all.
+   What shall I do?  From Egypt maybe nothing
+   Will come this long time.  Why—God only knows.
+   We hear of no stir.  To reduce, to spare,
+   I am quite willing for myself to stoop to,
+   Were it myself, and only I, should suffer—
+   But what can that avail?  A cloak, a horse,
+   A sword I ne’er can want;—as to my God,
+   He is not to be bought; He asks but little,
+   Only my heart.  I had relied, Al-Hafi,
+   Upon a surplus in my chest.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         A surplus?
+   And tell me, would you not have had me impaled,
+   Or hanged at least, if you had found me out
+   In hoarding up a surplus?  Deficits—
+   Those one may venture on.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Well, but how next?
+   Could you have found out no one where to borrow
+   Unless of Sittah?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      And would I have borne
+   To see the preference given to another?
+   I still lay claim to it.  I am not as yet
+   Entirely bare.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Not yet entirely—This
+   Was wanting still.  Go, turn thyself about;
+   Take where, and as, thou canst; be quick, Al-Hafi.
+   Borrow on promise, contract, anyhow;
+   But heed me—not of those I have enriched—
+   To borrow there might seem to ask it back.
+   Go to the covetous.  They’ll gladliest lend—
+   They know how well their money thrives with me—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   I know none such.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I recollect just now
+   I heard, Al-Hafi, of thy friend’s return.
+
+                            HAFI (_startled_).
+
+   Friend—friend of mine—and who should that be?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Who?
+   Thy vaunted Jew!
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      A Jew, and praised by me?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   To whom his God (I think I still retain
+   Thy own expression used concerning him)
+   To whom, of all the good things of this world,
+   His God in full abundance has bestowed
+   The greatest and the least.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      What could I mean
+   When I said so?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      The least of good things, riches;
+   The greatest, wisdom.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      How—and of a Jew
+   Could I say that?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Didst thou not—of thy Nathan?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Hi ho! of him—of Nathan?  At that moment
+   He did not come across me.  But, in fact,
+   He is at length come home; and, I suppose,
+   Is not ill off.  His people used to call him
+   The wise—also the rich.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      The rich he’s named
+   Now more than ever.  The whole town resounds
+   With news of jewels, costly stuffs, and stores,
+   That he brings back.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Is he the rich again—
+   He’ll be, no fear of it, once more the wise.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What thinkst thou, Hafi, of a call on him?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   On him—sure not to borrow—why, you know him—
+   He lend?  Therein his very wisdom lies,
+   That he lends no one.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Formerly thon gav’st
+   A very different picture of this Nathan.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   In case of need he’ll lend you merchandise,
+   But money, money, never.  He’s a Jew,
+   There are but few such! he has understanding,
+   Knows life, plays chess; but is in bad notorious
+   Above his brethren, as he is in good.
+   On him rely not.  To the poor indeed
+   He vies perhaps with Saladin in giving:
+   Though he distributes less, he gives as freely,
+   As silently, as nobly, to Jew, Christian,
+   Mahometan, or Parsee—’tis all one.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   And such a man should be—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         How comes it then
+   I never heard of him?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Should be unwilling
+   To lend to Saladin, who wants for others,
+   Not for himself.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Aye, there peeps out the Jew,
+   The ordinary Jew.  Believe me, prince,
+   He’s jealous, really envious of your giving.
+   To earn God’s favour seems his very business.
+   He lends not that he may always have to give.
+   The law commandeth mercy, not compliance:
+   And thus for mercy’s sake he’s uncomplying.
+   ’Tis true, I am not now on the best terms
+   With Nathan, but I must entreat you, think not
+   That therefore I would do injustice to him.
+   He’s good in everything, but not in that—
+   Only in that.  I’ll knock at other doors.
+   I just have recollected an old Moor,
+   Who’s rich and covetous—I go—I go.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Why in such hurry, Hafi?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Let him go.
+
+                          SALADIN _and_ SITTAH.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   He hastens like a man who would escape me;
+   Why so?  Was he indeed deceived in Nathan,
+   Or does he play upon us?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Can I guess?
+   I scarcely know of whom you have been talking,
+   And hear to-day, for the first time, of Nathan.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Is’t possible the man were hid from thee,
+   Of whom ’tis said, he has found out the tombs
+   Of Solomon and David, knows the word
+   That lifts their marble lids, and thence obtains
+   The golden oil that feeds his shining pomp?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Were this man’s wealth by miracle created,
+   ’Tis not at David’s tomb, or Solomon’s,
+   That ’twould be wrought.  Not virtuous men lie there.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   His source of opulence is more productive
+   And more exhaustless than a cave of Mammon.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   He trades, I hear.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      His ships fill every harbour;
+   His caravans through every desert toil.
+   This has Al-Hafi told me long ago:
+   With transport adding then—how nobly Nathan
+   Bestows what he esteems it not a meanness
+   By prudent industry to have justly earned—
+   How free from prejudice his lofty soul—
+   His heart to every virtue how unlocked—
+   With every lovely feeling how familiar.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Yet Hafi spake just now so coldly of him.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Not coldly; but with awkwardness, confusion,
+   As if he thought it dangerous to praise him,
+   And yet knew not to blame him undeserving,
+   Or can it really be that e’en the best
+   Among a people cannot quite escape
+   The tinges of the tribe; and that, in fact,
+   Al-Hafi has in this to blush for Nathan?
+   Be that as’t may—be he the Jew or no—
+   Is he but rich—that is enough for us.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   You would not, sister, take his wealth by force.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What do you mean by force—fire, sword?  Oh no!
+   What force is necessary with the weak
+   But their own weakness?  Come awhile with me
+   Into my harem: I have bought a songstress,
+   You have not heard her, she came yesterday:
+   Meanwhile I’ll think somewhat about a project
+   I have upon this Nathan.  Follow, brother.
+
+
+SCENE.—The Place of Palms, close to Nathan’s House.
+
+
+                NATHAN, _attired_, _comes out with_ RECHA.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   You have been so very slow, my dearest father,
+   You now will hardly be in time to find him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well, if not here beneath the palms; yet, surely,
+   Elsewhere.  My child, be satisfied.  See, see,
+   Is not that Daya making towards us?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   She certainly has lost him then.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Why so?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Else she’d walk quicker.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      She may not have seen us.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   There, now she sees us.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And her speed redoubles,
+   Be calm, my Recha.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Would you have your daughter
+   Be cool and unconcerned who ’twas that saved her,
+   Heed not to whom is due the life she prizes
+   Chiefly because she owed it first to thee?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I would not wish thee other than thou art,
+   E’en if I knew that in thy secret soul
+   A very different emotion throbs.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Why—what my father?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Dost thou ask of me,
+   So tremblingly of me, what passes in thee?
+   Whatever ’tis, ’tis innocence and nature.
+   Be not alarmed, it gives me no alarm;
+   But promise me that, when thy heart shall speak
+   A plainer language, thou wilt not conceal
+   A single of thy wishes from my fondness.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Oh the mere possibility of wishing
+   Rather to veil and hide them makes me shudder.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Let this be spoken once for all.  Well, Daya—
+
+                        NATHAN, RECHA, _and_ DAYA.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   He still is here beneath the palms, and soon
+   Will reach yon wall.  See, there he comes.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         And seems
+   Irresolute where next; if left or right.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   I know he mostly passes to the convent,
+   And therefore comes this path.  What will you lay me?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Oh yes he does.  And did you speak to him?
+   How did he seem to-day?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      As heretofore.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Don’t let him see you with me: further back;
+   Or rather to the house.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Just one peep more.
+   Now the hedge steals him from me.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Come away.
+   Your father’s in the right—should he perceive us,
+   ’Tis very probable he’ll tack about.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   But for the hedge—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Now he emerges from it.
+   He can’t but see you: hence—I ask it of you.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   I know a window whence we yet may—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Ay.
+
+                                                     [_Goes in with Daya_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I’m almost shy of this strange fellow, almost
+   Shrink back from his rough virtue.  That one man
+   Should ever make another man feel awkward!
+   And yet—He’s coming—ha!—by God, the youth
+   Looks like a man.  I love his daring eye,
+   His open gait.  May be the shell is bitter;
+   But not the kernel surely.  I have seen
+   Some such, methinks.  Forgive me, noble Frank.
+
+                          NATHAN _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   What?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Give me leave.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Well, Jew, what wouldst thou have?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   The liberty of speaking to you!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      So—
+   Can I prevent it?  Quick then, what’s your business?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Patience—nor hasten quite so proudly by
+   A man, who has not merited contempt,
+   And whom, for evermore, you’ve made your debtor.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   How so?  Perhaps I guess—No—Are you then—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   My name is Nathan, father to the maid
+   Your generous courage snatched from circling flames,
+   And hasten—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      If with thanks, keep, keep them all.
+   Those little things I’ve had to suffer much from:
+   Too much already, far.  And, after all,
+   You owe me nothing.  Was I ever told
+   She was your daughter?  ’Tis a templar’s duty
+   To rush to the assistance of the first
+   Poor wight that needs him; and my life just then
+   Was quite a burden.  I was mighty glad
+   To risk it for another; tho’ it were
+   That of a Jewess.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Noble, and yet shocking!
+   The turn might be expected.  Modest greatness
+   Wears willingly the mask of what is shocking
+   To scare off admiration: but, altho’
+   She may disdain the tribute, admiration,
+   Is there no other tribute she can bear with?
+   Knight, were you here not foreign, not a captive
+   I would not ask so freely.  Speak, command,
+   In what can I be useful?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      You—in nothing.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I’m rich.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      To me the richer Jew ne’er seemed
+   The bettor Jew.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Is that a reason why
+   You should not use the better part of him,
+   His wealth?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Well, well, I’ll not refuse it wholly,
+   For my poor mantle’s sake—when that is threadbare,
+   And spite of darning will not hold together,
+   I’ll come and borrow cloth, or money of thee,
+   To make me up a new one.  Don’t look solemn;
+   The danger is not pressing; ’tis not yet
+   At the last gasp, but tight and strong and good,
+   Save this poor corner, where an ugly spot
+   You see is singed upon it.  It got singed
+   As I bore off your daughter from the fire.
+
+                  NATHAN (_taking hold of the mantle_).
+
+   ’Tis singular that such an ugly spot
+   Bears better testimony to the man
+   Than his own mouth.  This brand—Oh I could kiss it!
+   Your pardon—that I meant not.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         A tear
+   Fell on the spot.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      You’ll find up more such tears—
+   (This Jew methinks begins to work upon me).
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Would you send once this mantle to my daughter?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Why?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That her lips may cling to this dear speck;
+   For at her benefactor’s feet to fall,
+   I find, she hopes in vain.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      But, Jew, your name
+   You said was Nathan—Nathan, you can join
+   Your words together cunningly—right well—
+   I am confused—in fact—I would have been—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Twist, writhe, disguise you, as you will, I know you,
+   You were too honest, knight, to be more civil;
+   A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant
+   All complaisance, a father at a distance—
+   You valued her good name, and would not see her.
+   You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor;
+   For that I also thank you.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I confess,
+   You know how templars ought to think.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Still templars—
+   And only _ought_ to think—and all because
+   The rules and vows enjoin it to the _order_—
+   I know how good men think—know that all lands
+   Produce good men.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      But not without distinction.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   In colour, dress, and shape, perhaps, distinguished.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Here more, there fewer sure?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         That boots not much,
+   The great man everywhere has need of room.
+   Too many set together only serve
+   To crush each others’ branches.  Middling good,
+   As we are, spring up everywhere in plenty.
+   Only let one not scar and bruise the other;
+   Let not the gnarl be angry with the stump;
+   Let not the upper branch alone pretend
+   Not to have started from the common earth.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Well said: and yet, I trust, you know the nation,
+   That first began to strike at fellow men,
+   That first baptised itself the chosen people—
+   How now if I were—not to hate this people,
+   Yet for its pride could not forbear to scorn it,
+   The pride which it to Mussulman and Christian
+   Bequeathed, as were its God alone the true one,
+   You start, that I, a Christian and a templar,
+   Talk thus.  Where, when, has e’er the pious rage
+   To own the better god—on the whole world
+   To force this better, as the best of all—
+   Shown itself more, and in a blacker form,
+   Than here, than now?  To him, whom, here and now,
+   The film is not removing from his eye—
+   But be he blind that wills!  Forget my speeches
+   And leave me.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Ah! indeed you do not know
+   How closer I shall cling to you henceforth.
+   We must, we will be friends.  Despise my nation—
+   We did not choose a nation for ourselves.
+   Are we our nations?  What’s a nation then?
+   Were Jews and Christians such, e’er they were men?
+   And have I found in thee one more, to whom
+   It is enough to be a man?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         That hast thou.
+   Nathan, by God, thou hast.  Thy hand.  I blush
+   To have mistaken thee a single instant.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And I am proud of it.  Only common souls
+   We seldom err in.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And uncommon ones
+   Seldom forget.  Yes, Nathan, yes we must,
+   We will be friends.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      We are so.  And my Recha—
+   She will rejoice.  How sweet the wider prospect
+   That dawns upon me!  Do but know her—once.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I am impatient for it.  Who is that
+   Bursts from your house, methinks it is your Daya.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Ay—but so anxiously—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Sure, to our Recha
+   Nothing has happened.
+
+                       NATHAN, TEMPLAR, _and_ DAYA.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Nathan, Nathan.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Well.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Forgive me, knight, that I must interrupt you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   What is the matter?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         The sultan sends—
+   The sultan wants to see you—in a hurry.
+   Jesus! the sultan—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Saladin wants me?
+   He will be curious to see what wares,
+   Precious, or new, I brought with me from Persia.
+   Say there is nothing hardly yet unpacked.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   No, no: ’tis not to look at anything.
+   He wants to speak to you, to you in person,
+   And orders you to come as soon as may be.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I’ll go—return.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Knight, take it not amiss;
+   But we were so alarmed for what the sultan
+   Could have in view.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         That I shall soon discover.
+
+                          NATHAN _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And don’t you know him yet, I mean his person?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Whose, Saladin’s?  Not yet.  I’ve neither shunned,
+   Nor sought to see him.  And the general voice
+   Speaks too well of him, for me not to wish,
+   Rather to take its language upon trust,
+   Than sift the truth out.  Yet—if it be so—
+   He, by the saving of your life, has now—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Yes: it is so.  The life I live he gave.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And in it double treble life to me.
+   This flings a bond about me, which shall tie me
+   For ever to his service: and I scarcely
+   Like to defer inquiring for his wishes.
+   For everything I am ready; and am ready
+   To own that ’tis on your account I am so.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   As often as I’ve thrown me in his way,
+   I have not found as yet the means to thank him.
+   The impression that I made upon him came
+   Quickly, and so has vanished.  Now perhaps
+   He recollects me not, who knows?  Once more
+   At least, he must recall me to his mind,
+   Fully to fix my doom.  ’Tis not enough
+   That by his order I am yet in being,
+   By his permission live, I have to learn
+   According to whose will I must exist.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Therefore I shall the more avoid delay.
+   Perchance some word may furnish me occasion
+   To glance at you—perchance—Excuse me, knight,
+   I am in haste.  When shall we see you with us?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Soon as I may.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That is, whene’er you will.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   To-day, then.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And your name?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         My name was—is
+   Conrade of Stauffen.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Conrade of Stauffen!  Stauffen!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Why does that strike so forcibly upon you?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   There are more races of that name, no doubt.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Yes, many of that name were here—rot here.
+   My uncle even—I should say, my father.
+   But wherefore is your look so sharpened on me?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Nothing—how can I weary to behold you—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Therefore I quit you first.  The searching eye
+   Finds often more than it desires to see.
+   I fear it, Nathan.  Fare thee well.  Let time,
+   Not curiosity make us acquainted.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                     NATHAN, _and soon after_, DAYA.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   “The searching eye will oft discover more
+   Than it desires,” ’tis as he read my soul.
+   That too may chance to me.  ’Tis not alone
+   Leonard’s walk, stature, but his very voice.
+   Leonard so wore his head, was even wont
+   Just so to brush his eyebrows with his hand,
+   As if to mask the fire that fills his look.
+   Those deeply graven images at times
+   How they will slumber in us, seem forgotten,
+   When all at once a word a tone, a gesture,
+   Retraces all.  Of Stauffen?  Ay right—right—
+   Filnek and Stauffen—I will soon know more—
+   But first to Saladin—Ha, Daya there?
+   Why on the watch?  Come nearer.  By this time,
+   I’ll answer for’t, you’ve something more at heart
+   Than to know what the sultan wants with me.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And do you take it ill in part of her?
+   You were beginning to converse with him
+   More confidentially, just as the message,
+   Sent by the sultan, tore us from the window.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Go tell her that she may expect his visit
+   At every instant.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      What indeed—indeed?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I think I can rely upon thee, Daya:
+   Be on thy guard, I beg.  Thou’lt not repent it.
+   Be but discreet.  Thy conscience too will surely
+   Find its account in ’t.  Do not mar my plans
+   But leave them to themselves.  Relate and question
+   With modesty, with backwardness.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Oh fear not.
+   How come you to preach up all this to me?
+   I go—go too.  The sultan sends for you
+   A second time, and by your friend Al-Hafi.
+
+                            NATHAN _and_ HAFI.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Ha! art thou here?  I was now seeking for thee.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Why in such haste?  What wants he then with me?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Who?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Saladin.  I’m coming—I am coming.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Where, to the sultan’s?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Was ’t not he who sent thee?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Me?  No.  And has he sent already?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Yes.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Then ’tis all right.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What’s right?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         That I’m unguilty.
+   God knows I am not guilty, knows I said—
+   What said I not of thee—belied thee—slandered—
+   To ward it off.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      To ward off what—be plain.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   That them art now become his defterdar.
+   I pity thee.  Behold it I will not.
+   I go this very hour—my road I told thee.
+   Now—hast thou orders by the way—command,
+   And then, adieu.  Indeed they must not be
+   Such business as a naked man can’t carry.
+   Quick, what’s thy pleasure?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Recollect yourself.
+   As yet all this is quite a riddle to me.
+   I know of nothing.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Where are then thy bags?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Bags?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Bags of money: bring the weightiest forth:
+   The money thou’rt to lend the sultan, Nathan.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And is that all?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      Novice, thou’st yet to learn
+   How he day after day will scoop and scoop,
+   Till nothing but an hollow empty paring,
+   A husk as light as film, is left behind.
+   Thou’st yet to learn how prodigality
+   From prudent bounty’s never-empty coffers
+   Borrows and borrows, till there’s not a purse
+   Left to keep rats from starving.  Thou mayst fancy
+   That he who wants thy gold will heed thy counsel;
+   But when has he yet listened to advice?
+   Imagine now what just befell me with him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+      I went in and found him with his sister,
+   Engaged, or rather rising up from chess.
+   Sittah plays—not amiss.  Upon the board
+   The game, that Saladin supposed was lost
+   And had given up, yet stood.  When I drew nigh,
+   And had examined it, I soon discovered
+   It was not gone by any means.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         For you
+   A blest discovery, a treasure-trove.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   He only needed to remove his king
+   Behind the tower t’ have got him out of check.
+   Could I but make you sensible—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         I’ll trust thee.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   Then with the knight still left.—I would have shown him
+   And called him to the board.—He must have won;
+   But what d’ye think he did?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Dared doubt your insight?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   He would not listen; but with scorn o’erthrew
+   The standing pieces.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Is that possible?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   And said, he chose to be check-mate—he chose it—
+   Is that to play the game?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Most surely not:
+   ’Tis to play with the game.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         And yet the stake
+   Was not a nut-shell.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Money here or there
+   Matters but little.  Not to listen to thee,
+   And on a point of such importance, Hafi,
+   There lies the rub.  Not even to admire
+   Thine eagle eye—thy comprehensive glance—
+   That calls for vengeance:—does it not, Al-Hafi?
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   I only tell it to thee that thou mayst see
+   How his brain’s formed.  I bear with him no longer.
+   Here I’ve been running to each dirty Moor,
+   Inquiring who will lend him.  I, who ne’er
+   Went for myself a begging, go a borrowing,
+   And that for others.  Borrowing’s much the same
+   As begging; just as lending upon usury
+   Is much the same as thieving—decency
+   Makes not of lewdness virtue.  On the Ganges,
+   Among my ghebers, I have need of neither:
+   Nor need I be the tool or pimp of either—
+   Upon the Ganges only there are men.
+   Here, thou alone art somehow almost worthy
+   To have lived upon the Ganges.  Wilt thou with me?
+   And leave him with the captive cloak alone,
+   The booty that he wants to strip thee of.
+   Little by little he will flay thee clean.
+   Thins thou’lt be quit at once, without the tease
+   Of being sliced to death.  Come wilt thou with me?
+   I’ll find thee with a staff.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I should have thought,
+   Come what come may, that thy resource remained:
+   But I’ll consider of it.  Stay.
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         Consider—
+   No; such things must not be considered.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Stay:
+   Till I have seen the sultan—till you’ve had—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+   He, who considers, looks about for motives
+   To forbear daring.  He, who can’t resolve
+   In storm and sunshine to himself to live,
+   Must live the slave of others all his life.
+   But as you please; farewell! ’tis you who choose.
+   My path lies yonder—and yours there—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Al-Hafi,
+   Stay then; at least you’ll set things right—not leave them
+   At sixes and at sevens—
+
+                                  HAFI.
+
+         Farce!  Parade!
+   The balance in the chest will need no telling.
+   And my account—Sittah, or you, will vouch.
+   Farewell.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yes I will vouch it.  Honest, wild—
+   How shall I call you—Ah! the real beggar
+   Is, after all, the only real monarch.
+
+
+
+ACT III.
+
+
+SCENE.—A Room in Nathan’s House.
+
+
+                            RECHA _and_ DAYA.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   What, Daya, did my father really say
+   I might expect him, every instant, here?
+   That meant—now did it not? he would come soon.
+   And yet how many instants have rolled by!—
+   But who would think of those that are elapsed?—
+   To the next moment only I’m alive.—
+   At last the very one will come that brings him.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   But for the sultan’s ill-timed message, Nathan
+   Had brought him in.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      And when this moment comes,
+   And when this warmest inmost of my wishes
+   Shall be fulfilled, what then? what then?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         What then?
+   Why then I hope the warmest of my wishes
+   Will have its turn, and happen.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         ’Stead of this,
+   What wish shall take possession of my bosom,
+   Which now without some ruling wish of wishes
+   Knows not to heave?  Shall nothing? ah, I shudder.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Yes: mine shall then supplant the one fulfilled—
+   My wish to see thee placed one day in Europe
+   In hands well worthy of thee.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         No, thou errest—
+   The very thing that makes thee form this wish
+   Prevents its being mine.  The country draws thee,
+   And shall not mine retain me?  Shall an image,
+   A fond remembrance of thy home, thy kindred,
+   Which years and distance have not yet effaced,
+   Be mightier o’er thy soul, than what I hear,
+   See, feel, and hold, of mine.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         ’Tis vain to struggle—
+   The ways of heaven are the ways of heaven.
+   Is he the destined saviour, by whose arm
+   His God, for whom he fights, intends to lead thee
+   Into the land, which thou wast born for—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+            Daya,
+   What art thou prating of?  My dearest Daya,
+   Indeed thou hast some strange unseemly notions.
+   “_His_ God—_for_ whom he fights”—what is a God
+   Belonging to a man—needing another
+   To fight his battles?  And can we pronounce
+   _For_ which among the scattered clods of earth
+   You, I was born; unless it be for that
+   _On_ which we were produced.  If Nathan heard thee—
+   What has my father done to thee, that thou
+   Hast ever sought to paint my happiness
+   As lying far remote from him and his.
+   What has he done to thee that thus, among
+   The seeds of reason, which he sowed unmixed,
+   Pure in my soul, thou ever must be seeking
+   To plant the weeds, or flowers, of thy own land.
+   He wills not of these pranking gaudy blossoms
+   Upon this soil.  And I too must acknowledge
+   I feel as if they had a sour-sweet odour,
+   That makes me giddy—that half suffocates.
+   Thy head is wont to bear it.  I don’t blame
+   Those stronger nerves that can support it.  Mine—
+   Mine it behoves not.  Latterly thy angel
+   Had made me half a fool.  I am ashamed,
+   Whene’er I see my father, of the folly.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   As if here only wisdom were at home—
+   Folly—if I dared speak.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      And dar’st thou not?
+   When was I not all ear, if thou beganst
+   To talk about the heroes of thy faith?
+   Have I not freely on their deeds bestowed
+   My admiration, to their sufferings yielded
+   The tribute of my tears?  Their faith indeed
+   Has never seemed their most heroic side
+   To me: yet, therefore, have I only learnt
+   To find more consolation in the thought,
+   That our devotion to the God of all
+   Depends not on our notions about God.
+   My father has so often told us so—
+   Thou hast so often to this point consented—
+   How can it be that thou alone art restless
+   To undermine what you built up together?
+   This is not the most fit discussion, Daya,
+   To usher in our friend to; tho’ indeed
+   I should not disincline to it—for to me
+   It is of infinite importance if
+   He too—but hark—there’s some one at the door.
+   If it were he—stay—hush—
+
+                                     (_A Slave who shows in the Templar_.)
+
+         They are—here this way.
+
+                       TEMPLAR, DAYA, _and_ RECHA.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+     (_starts_—_composes herself_—_then offers to fall at his feet_)
+
+   ’Tis he—my saviour! ah!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         This to avoid
+   Have I alone deferred my call so long.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Yes, at the feet of this proud man, I will
+   Thank—God alone.  The man will have no thanks;
+   No more than will the bucket which was busy
+   In showering watery damps upon the flame.
+   That was filled, emptied—but to me, to thee
+   What boots it?  So the man—he too, he too
+   Was thrust, he knew not how, and the fire.
+   I dropped, by chance, into his open arm.
+   By chance, remained there—like a fluttering spark
+   Upon his mantle—till—I know not what
+   Pushed us both from amid the conflagration.
+   What room is here for thanks?  How oft in Europe
+   Wine urges men to very different deeds!
+   Templars must so behave; it is their office,
+   Like better taught or rather handier spaniels,
+   To fetch from out of fire, as out of water.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Oh Daya, Daya, if, in hasty moments
+   Of care and of chagrin, my unchecked temper
+   Betrayed me into rudeness, why convey
+   To her each idle word that left my tongue?
+   This is too piercing a revenge indeed;
+   Yet if henceforth thou wilt interpret better—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   I question if these barbed words, Sir Knight,
+   Alighted so, as to have much disserved you.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   How, you had cares, and were more covetous
+   Of them than of your life?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+        (_who has been viewing her with wonder and perturbation_).
+
+      Thou best of beings,
+   How is my soul ’twixt eye and ear divided!
+   No: ’twas not she I snatched from amid fire:
+   For who could know her and forbear to do it?—
+   Indeed—disguised by terror—
+
+            [_Pause_: _during which he gazes on her as it were entranced_.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         But to me
+   You still appear the same you then appeared.
+
+    [_Another like pause_—_till she resumes_, _in order to interrupt him_.
+
+   Now tell me, knight, where have you been so long?
+   It seems as might I ask—where are you now?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I am—where I perhaps ought not to be.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Where have you been? where you perhaps ought not—
+   That is not well.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Up—how d’ye call the mountain?
+   Up Sinai.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Oh, that’s very fortunate.
+   Now I shall learn for certain if ’tis true—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   What! if the spot may yet be seen where Moses
+   Stood before God; when first—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         No, no, not that.
+   Where’er he stood, ’twas before God.  Of this
+   I know enough already.  Is it true,
+   I wish to learn from you that—that it is not
+   By far so troublesome to climb this mountain
+   As to get down—for on all mountains else,
+   That I have seen, quite the reverse obtains.
+   Well, knight, why will you turn away from me?
+   Not look at me?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Because I wish to hear you.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Because you do not wish me to perceive
+   You smile at my simplicity—You smile
+   That I can think of nothing more important
+   To ask about the holy hill of hills:
+   Do you not?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Must I meet those eyes again?
+   And now you cast them down, and damp the smile—
+   Am I in doubtful motions of the features
+   To read what I so plainly hear—what you
+   So audibly declare; yet will conceal?—
+   How truly said thy father “Do but know her!”
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Who has—of whom—said so to thee?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Thy father
+   Said to me “Do but know her,” and of thee.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And have not I too said so, times and oft.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   But where is then your father—with the sultan?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   So I suppose.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Yet there?  Oh, I forget,
+   He cannot be there still.  He is waiting for me
+   Most certainly below there by the cloister.
+   ’Twas so, I think, we had agreed, Forgive,
+   I go in quest of him.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Knight, I’ll do that.
+   Wait here, I’ll bring him hither instantly.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Oh no—Oh no.  He is expecting me.
+   Besides—you are not aware what may have happened.
+   ’Tis not unlikely he may be involved
+   With Saladin—you do not know the sultan—
+   In some unpleasant—I must go, there’s danger
+   If I forbear.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Danger—of what? of what?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Danger for me, for thee, for him; unless
+   I go at once.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                            RECHA _and_ DAYA.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      What is the matter, Daya?
+   So quick—what comes across him, drives him hence?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Let him alone, I think it no bad sign.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Sign—and of what?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         That something passes in him.
+   It boils—but it must not boil over.  Leave him—
+   Now ’tis your turn.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      My turn?  Thou dost become
+   Like him incomprehensible to me.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Now you may give him back all that unrest
+   He once occasioned.  Be not too severe,
+   Nor too vindictive.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Daya, what you mean
+   You must know best.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         And pray are you again
+   So calm.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      I am—yes that I am.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         At least
+   Own—that this restlessness has given you pleasure,
+   And that you have to thank his want of ease
+   For what of ease you now enjoy.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Of that
+   I am unconscious.  All I could confess
+   Were, that it does seem strange unto myself,
+   How, in this bosom, such a pleasing calm
+   Can suddenly succeed to such a tossing.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   His countenance, his speech, his manner, has
+   By this the satiated thee.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Satiated,
+   I will not say—not by a good deal yet.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   But satisfied the more impatient craving.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Well, well, if you must have it so.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         I? no.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   To me he will be ever dear, will ever
+   Remain more dear than my own life; altho’
+   My pulse no longer flutters at his name,
+   My heart no longer, when I think about him,
+   Beats stronger, swifter.  What have I been prating?
+   Come, Daya, let us once more to the window
+   Which overlooks the palms.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         So that ’tis not
+   Yet satisfied—the more impatient craving.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Now I shall see the palm-trees once again,
+   Not him alone amid them.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         This cold fit
+   Is but the harbinger of other fevers.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Cold—cold—I am not cold; but I observe not
+   Less willingly what I behold with calmness.
+
+
+SCENE.—An Audience Room in the Sultan’s Palace.
+
+
+             SITTAH: SALADIN _giving directions at the door_.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Here, introduce the Jew, whene’er he comes—
+   He seems in no great haste.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         May be at first
+   He was not in the way.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Ah, sister, sister!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   You seem as if a combat were impending.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   With weapons that I have not learnt to wield.
+   Must I disguise myself?  I use precautions?
+   I lay a snare?  When, where gained I that knowledge?
+   And this, for what?  To fish for money—money—
+   For money from a Jew—and to such arts
+   Must Saladin descend at last to come at
+   The least of little things?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Each little thing
+   Despised too much finds methods of revenge.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   ’Tis but too true.  And if this Jew should prove
+   The fair good man, as once the dervis painted—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Then difficulties cease.  A snare concerns
+   The avaricious, cautious, fearful Jew;
+   And not the good wise man: for he is ours
+   Without a snare.  Then the delight of hearing
+   How such a man speaks out; with what stern strength
+   He tears the net, or with what prudent foresight
+   He one by one undoes the tangled meshes;
+   That will be all to boot—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         That I shall joy in.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What then should trouble thee?  For if he be
+   One of the many only, a mere Jew,
+   You will not blush to such a one to seem
+   A man, as he thinks all mankind to be.
+   One, that to him should bear a better aspect,
+   Would seem a fool—a dupe.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         So that I must
+   Act badly, lest the bad think badly of me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Yes, if you call it acting badly, brother,
+   To use a thing after its kind.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      There’s nothing
+   That woman’s wit invents it can’t embellish.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Embellish—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      But their fine-wrought filligree
+   In my rude hand would break.  It is for those
+   That can contrive them to employ such weapons:
+   They ask a practised wrist.  But chance what may,
+   Well as I can—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Trust not yourself too little.
+   I answer for you, if you have the will.
+   Such men as you would willingly persuade us
+   It was their swords, their swords alone that raised them.
+   The lion’s apt to be ashamed of hunting
+   In fellowship of the fox—’tis of his fellow
+   Not of the cunning that he is ashamed.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   You women would so gladly level man
+   Down to yourselves.  Go, I have got my lesson.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What—_must_ I go?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Had you the thought of staying?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   In your immediate presence not indeed,
+   But in the by-room.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         You could like to listen.
+   Not that, my sister, if I may insist.
+   Away! the curtain rustles—he is come.
+   Beware of staying—I’ll be on the watch.
+
+     [_While Sittah retires through one door_, _Nathan enters at another_,
+                                              _and Saladin seats himself_.
+
+                          SALADIN _and_ NATHAN.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Draw nearer, Jew, yet nearer; here, quite by me,
+   Without all fear.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Remain that for thy foes!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Your name is Nathan?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Yes.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Nathan the wise?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   No.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      If not thou, the people calls thee so.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   May be, the people.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Fancy not that I
+   Think of the people’s voice contemptuously;
+   I have been wishing much to know the man
+   Whom it has named the wise.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         And if it named
+   Him so in scorn.  If wise meant only prudent.
+   And prudent, one who knows his interest well.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Who knows his real interest, thou must mean.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Then were the interested the most prudent,
+   Then wise and prudent were the same.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+            I hear
+   You proving what your speeches contradict.
+   You know man’s real interests, which the people
+   Knows not—at least have studied how to know them.
+   That alone makes the sage.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Which each imagines
+   Himself to be.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Of modesty enough!
+   Ever to meet it, where one seeks to hear
+   Dry truth, is vexing.  Let us to the purpose—
+   But, Jew, sincere and open—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I will serve thee
+   So as to merit, prince, thy further notice.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Serve me—how?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Thou shalt have the best I bring.
+   Shalt have them cheap.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      What speak you of?—your wares?
+   My sister shall be called to bargain with you
+   For them (so much for the sly listener), I
+   Have nothing to transact now with the merchant.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Doubtless then you would learn, what, on my journey,
+   I noticed of the motions of the foe,
+   Who stirs anew.  If unreserved I may—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Neither was that the object of my sending:
+   I know what I have need to know already.
+   In short I willed your presence—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Sultan, order.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   To gain instruction quite on other points.
+   Since you are a man so wise, tell me which law,
+   Which faith appears to you the better?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Sultan,
+   I am a Jew.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      And I a Mussulman:
+   The Christian stands between us.  Of these three
+   Religions only one came be the true.
+   A man, like you, remains not just where birth
+   Has chanced to cast him, or, if he remains there,
+   Does it from insight, choice, from grounds of preference.
+   Share then with me your insight—let me hear
+   The grounds of preference, which I have wanted
+   The leisure to examine—learn the choice,
+   These grounds have motived, that it may be mine.
+   In confidence I ask it.  How you startle,
+   And weigh me with your eye!  It may well be
+   I’m the first sultan to whom this caprice,
+   Methinks not quite unworthy of a sultan,
+   Has yet occurred.  Am I not?  Speak then—Speak.
+   Or do you, to collect yourself, desire
+   Some moments of delay—I give them you—
+   (Whether she’s listening?—I must know of her
+   If I’ve done right.)  Reflect—I’ll soon return—
+
+               [_Saladin steps into the room to which Sittah had retired_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Strange! how is this? what wills the sultan of me?
+   I came prepared with cash—he asks truth.  Truth?
+   As if truth too were cash—a coin disused
+   That goes by weight—indeed ’tis some such thing—
+   But a new coin, known by the stamp at once,
+   To be flung down and told upon the counter,
+   It is not that.  Like gold in bags tied up,
+   So truth lies hoarded in the wise man’s head
+   To be brought out.—Which now in this transaction
+   Which of us plays the Jew; he asks for truth,
+   Is truth what he requires, his aim, his end?
+   That this is but the glue to lime a snare
+   Ought not to be suspected, ’twere too little,
+   Yet what is found too little for the great—
+   In fact, through hedge and pale to stalk at once
+   Into one’s field beseems not—friends look round,
+   Seek for the path, ask leave to pass the gate—
+   I must be cautious.  Yet to damp him back,
+   And be the stubborn Jew is not the thing;
+   And wholly to throw off the Jew, still less.
+   For if no Jew he might with right inquire—
+   Why not a Mussulman—Yes—that may serve me.
+   Not children only can be quieted
+   With stories.  Ha! he comes—well, let him come.
+
+                           SALADIN (_returning_).
+
+   So, there, the field is clear, I’m not too quick,
+   Thou hast bethought thyself as much as need is,
+   Speak, no one hears.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Might the whole world but hear us.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Is Nathan of his cause so confident?
+   Yes, that I call the sage—to veil no truth,
+   For truth to hazard all things, life and goods.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Aye, when ’tis necessary and when useful.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Henceforth I hope I shall with reason bear
+   One of my titles—“Betterer of the world
+   And of the law.”
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      In truth a noble title.
+   But, sultan, e’er I quite unfold myself
+   Allow me to relate a tale.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Why not?
+   I always was a friend of tales well told.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well told, that’s not precisely my affair.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Again so proudly modest, come begin.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   In days of yore, there dwelt in east a man
+   Who from a valued hand received a ring
+   Of endless worth: the stone of it an opal,
+   That shot an ever-changing tint: moreover,
+   It had the hidden virtue him to render
+   Of God and man beloved, who in this view,
+   And this persuasion, wore it.  Was it strange
+   The eastern man ne’er drew it off his finger,
+   And studiously provided to secure it
+   For ever to his house.  Thus—He bequeathed it;
+   First, to the _most beloved_ of his sons,
+   Ordained that he again should leave the ring
+   To the _most dear_ among his children—and
+   That without heeding birth, the _favourite_ son,
+   In virtue of the ring alone, should always
+   Remain the lord o’ th’ house—You hear me, Sultan?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   I understand thee—on.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      From son to son,
+   At length this ring descended to a father,
+   Who had three sons, alike obedient to him;
+   Whom therefore he could not but love alike.
+   At times seemed this, now that, at times the third,
+   (Accordingly as each apart received
+   The overflowings of his heart) most worthy
+   To heir the ring, which with good-natured weakness
+   He privately to each in turn had promised.
+   This went on for a while.  But death approached,
+   And the good father grew embarrassed.  So
+   To disappoint two sons, who trust his promise,
+   He could not bear.  What’s to be done.  He sends
+   In secret to a jeweller, of whom,
+   Upon the model of the real ring,
+   He might bespeak two others, and commanded
+   To spare nor cost nor pains to make them like,
+   Quite like the true one.  This the artist managed.
+   The rings were brought, and e’en the father’s eye
+   Could not distinguish which had been the model.
+   Quite overjoyed he summons all his sons,
+   Takes leave of each apart, on each bestows
+   His blessing and his ring, and dies—Thou hearest me?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   I hear, I hear, come finish with thy tale;
+   Is it soon ended?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         It is ended, Sultan,
+   For all that follows may be guessed of course.
+   Scarce is the father dead, each with his ring
+   Appears, and claims to be the lord o’ th’ house.
+   Comes question, strife, complaint—all to no end;
+   For the true ring could no more be distinguished
+   Than now can—the true faith.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         How, how, is that
+   To be the answer to my query?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         No,
+   But it may serve as my apology;
+   If I can’t venture to decide between
+   Rings, which the father got expressly made,
+   That they might not be known from one another.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   The rings—don’t trifle with me; I must think
+   That the religions which I named can be
+   Distinguished, e’en to raiment, drink and food,
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And only not as to their grounds of proof.
+   Are not all built alike on history,
+   Traditional, or written.  History
+   Must be received on trust—is it not so?
+   In whom now are we likeliest to put trust?
+   In our own people surely, in those men
+   Whose blood we are, in them, who from our childhood
+   Have given us proofs of love, who ne’er deceived us,
+   Unless ’twere wholesomer to be deceived.
+   How can I less believe in my forefathers
+   Than thou in thine.  How can I ask of thee
+   To own that thy forefathers falsified
+   In order to yield mine the praise of truth.
+   The like of Christians.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      By the living God,
+   The man is in the right, I must be silent.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Now let us to our rings return once more.
+   As said, the sons complained.  Each to the judge
+   Swore from his father’s hand immediately
+   To have received the ring, as was the case;
+   After he had long obtained the father’s promise,
+   One day to have the ring, as also was.
+   The father, each asserted, could to him
+   Not have been false, rather than so suspect
+   Of such a father, willing as he might be
+   With charity to judge his brethren, he
+   Of treacherous forgery was bold t’ accuse them.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Well, and the judge, I’m eager now to hear
+   What thou wilt make him say.  Go on, go on.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   The judge said, If ye summon not the father
+   Before my seat, I cannot give a sentence.
+   Am I to guess enigmas?  Or expect ye
+   That the true ring should here unseal its lips?
+   But hold—you tell me that the real ring
+   Enjoys the hidden power to make the wearer
+   Of God and man beloved; let that decide.
+   Which of you do two brothers love the best?
+   You’re silent.  Do these love-exciting rings
+   Act inward only, not without?  Does each
+   Love but himself?  Ye’re all deceived deceivers,
+   None of your rings is true.  The real ring
+   Perhaps is gone.  To hide or to supply
+   Its loss, your father ordered three for one.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   O charming, charming!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And (the judge continued)
+   If you will take advice in lieu of sentence,
+   This is my counsel to you, to take up
+   The matter where it stands.  If each of you
+   Has had a ring presented by his father,
+   Let each believe his own the real ring.
+   ’Tis possible the father chose no longer
+   To tolerate the one ring’s tyranny;
+   And certainly, as he much loved you all,
+   And loved you all alike, it could not please him
+   By favouring one to be of two the oppressor.
+   Let each feel honoured by this free affection.
+   Unwarped of prejudice; let each endeavour
+   To vie with both his brothers in displaying
+   The virtue of his ring; assist its might
+   With gentleness, benevolence, forbearance,
+   With inward resignation to the godhead,
+   And if the virtues of the ring continue
+   To show themselves among your children’s children,
+   After a thousand thousand years, appear
+   Before this judgment-seat—a greater one
+   Than I shall sit upon it, and decide.
+   So spake the modest judge.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      God!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Saladin,
+   Feel’st thou thyself this wiser, promised man?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   I dust, I nothing, God!
+
+ [_Precipitates himself upon Nathan_, _and takes hold of his hand_, _which
+                             he does not quit the remainder of the scene_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What moves thee, Sultan?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Nathan, my dearest Nathan, ’tis not yet
+   The judge’s thousand thousand years are past,
+   His judgment-seat’s not mine.  Go, go, but love me.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Has Saladin then nothing else to order?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   No.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Nothing?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Nothing in the least, and wherefore?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I could have wished an opportunity
+   To lay a prayer before you.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Is there need
+   Of opportunity for that?  Speak freely.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I come from a long journey from collecting
+   Debts, and I’ve almost of hard cash too much;
+   The times look perilous—I know not where
+   To lodge it safely—I was thinking thou,
+   For coming wars require large sums, couldst use it.
+
+                         SALADIN (_fixing Nathan_).
+
+   Nathan, I ask not if thou sawst Al-Hafi,
+   I’ll not examine if some shrewd suspicion
+   Spurs thee to make this offer of thyself.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Suspicion—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      I deserve this offer.  Pardon,
+   For what avails concealment, I acknowledge
+   I was about—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      To ask the same of me?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Yes.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Then ’tis well we’re both accommodated.
+   That I can’t send thee all I have of treasure
+   Arises from the templar; thou must know him,
+   I have a weighty debt to pay to him.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   A templar!  How, thou dost not with thy gold
+   Support my direst foes.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I speak of him
+   Whose life the sultan—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      What art thou recalling?
+   I had forgot the youth, whence is he, knowest thou?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Hast thou not heard then how thy clemency
+   To him has fallen on me.  He at the risk
+   Of his new-spared existence, from the flames
+   Rescued my daughter.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Ha!  Has he done that;
+   He looked like one that would—my brother too,
+   Whom he’s so like, bad done it.  Is he here still?
+   Bring him to me—I have so often talked
+   To Sittah of this brother, whom she knew not,
+   That I must let her see his counterfeit.
+   Go fetch him.  How a single worthy action,
+   Though but of whim or passion born, gives rise
+   To other blessings!  Fetch him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         In an instant.
+   The rest remains as settled.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      O, I wish
+   I had let my sister listen.  Well, I’ll to her.
+   How shall I make her privy to all this?
+
+
+SCENE.—The Place of Palms.
+
+
+                   The TEMPLAR _walking and agitated_.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Here let the weary victim pant awhile.—
+   Yet would I not have time to ascertain
+   What passes in me; would not snuff beforehand
+   The coming storm.  ’Tis sure I fled in vain;
+   But more than fly I could not do, whatever
+   Comes of it.  Ah! to ward it off—the blow
+   Was given so suddenly.  Long, much, I strove
+   To keep aloof; but vainly.  Once to see her—
+   Her, whom I surely did not court the sight of,
+   To see her, and to form the resolution,
+   Never to lose sight of her here again,
+   Was one—The resolution?—Not ’tis will,
+   Fixt purpose, made (for I was passive in it)
+   Sealed, doomed.  To see her, and to feel myself
+   Bound to her, wove into her very being,
+   Was one—remains one.  Separate from her
+   To live is quite unthinkable—is death.
+   And wheresoever after death we be,
+   There too the thought were death.  And is this love?
+   Yet so in troth the templar loves—so—so—
+   The Christian loves the Jewess.  What of that?
+   Here in this holy land, and therefore holy
+   And dear to me, I have already doffed
+   Some prejudices.—Well—what says my vow?
+   As templar I am dead, was dead to that
+   From the same hour which made me prisoner
+   To Saladin.  But is the head he gave me
+   My old one?  No.  It knows no word of what
+   Was prated into yon, of what had bound it.
+   It is a better; for its patrial sky
+   Fitter than yon.  I feel—I’m conscious of it,
+   With this I now begin to think, as here
+   My father must have thought; if tales of him
+   Have not been told untruly.  Tales—why tales?
+   They’re credible—more credible than ever—
+   Now that I’m on the brink of stumbling, where
+   He fell.  He fell?  I’d rather fall with men,
+   Than stand with children.  His example pledges
+   His approbation, and whose approbation
+   Have I else need of?  Nathan’s?  Surely of his
+   Encouragement, applause, I’ve little need
+   To doubt—O what a Jew is he! yet easy
+   To pass for the mere Jew.  He’s coming—swiftly—
+   And looks delighted—who leaves Saladin
+   With other looks?  Hoa, Nathan!
+
+                          NATHAN _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Are you there?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Your visit to the sultan has been long.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Not very long; my going was indeed
+   Too much delayed.  Troth, Conrade, this man’s fame
+   Outstrips him not.  His fame is but his shadow.
+   But before all I have to tell you—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         What?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   That he would speak with you, and that directly.
+   First to my house, where I would give some orders,
+   Then we’ll together to the sultan.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Nathan,
+   I enter not thy doors again before—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Then you’ve been there this while—have spoken with her.
+   How do you like my Recha?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Words cannot tell—
+   Gaze on her once again—I never will—
+   Never—no never: unless thou wilt promise
+   That I for ever, ever, may behold her.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   How should I take this?
+
+               TEMPLAR (_falling suddenly upon his neck_).
+
+   Nathan—O my father!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Young man!
+
+                  TEMPLAR (_quitting him as suddenly_).
+
+      Not son?—I pray thee, Nathan—ha!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Thou dear young man!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Not son?—I pray thee, Nathan,
+   Conjure thee by the strongest bonds of nature,
+   Prefer not those of later date, the weaker.—
+   Be it enough to thee to be a man!
+   Push me not from thee!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Dearest, dearest friend!—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Not son?  Not son?  Not even—even if
+   Thy daughter’s gratitude had in her bosom
+   Prepared the way for love—not even if
+   Both wait thy nod alone to be but one?—
+   You do not speak?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Young knight, you have surprised me.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Do I surprise thee—thus surprise thee, Nathan,
+   With thy own thought?  Canst thou not in my mouth
+   Know it again?  Do I surprise you?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Ere
+   I know, which of the Stauffens was your father?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   What say you, Nathan?—And in such a moment
+   Is curiosity your only feeling?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   For see, once I myself well knew a Stauffen,
+   Whose name was Conrade.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Well, and if my father
+   Was bearer of that name?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Indeed?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         My name
+   Is from my father’s, Conrade.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Then thy father
+   Was not my Conrade.  He was, like thyself,
+   A templar, never wedded.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      For all that—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   How?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      For all that he may have been my father.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   You joke.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And you are captious.  Boots it then
+   To be true-born?  Does bastard wound thine ear?
+   The race is not to be despised: but hold,
+   Spare me my pedigree; I’ll spare thee thine.
+   Not that I doubt thy genealogic tree.
+   O, God forbid!  You may attest it all
+   As far as Abraham back; and backwarder
+   I know it to my heart—I’ll swear to it also.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Knight, you grow bitter.  Do I merit this?
+   Have I refused you ought?  I’ve but forborne
+   To close with you at the first word—no more.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Indeed—no more?  O then forgive—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         ’Tis well.
+   Do but come with me.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Whither?  To thy house?
+   No? there not—there not: ’tis a burning soil.
+   Here I await thee, go.  Am I again
+   To see her, I shall see her times enough:
+   If not I have already gazed too much.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I’ll try to be soon back.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Too much indeed—
+   Strange that the human brain, so infinite
+   Of comprehension, yet at times will fill
+   Quite full, and all at once, of a mere trifle—
+   No matter what it teems with.  Patience!  Patience!
+   The soul soon calms again, th’ upboiling stuff
+   Makes itself room and brings back light and order.
+   Is this then the first time I love?  Or was
+   What by that name I knew before, not love—
+   And this, this love alone that now I feel?
+
+                           DAYA _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Sir knight, sir knight.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Who calls? ha, Daya, you?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   I managed to slip by him.  No, come here
+   (He’ll see us where you stand) behind this tree.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Why so mysterious?  What’s the matter, Daya?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Yes, ’tis a secret that has brought me to you
+   A twofold secret.  One I only know,
+   The other only you.  Let’s interchange,
+   Intrust yours first to me, then I’ll tell mine.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   With pleasure when I’m able to discover
+   What you call me.  But that yours will explain.
+   Begin—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   That is not fair, yours first, sir knight;
+   For be assured my secret serves you not
+   Unless I have yours first.  If I sift it out
+   You’ll not have trusted me, and then my secret
+   Is still my own, and yours lost all for nothing.
+   But, knight, how can you men so fondly fancy
+   You ever hide such secrets from us women.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Secrets we often are unconscious of.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   May be—So then I must at last be friendly,
+   And break it to you.  Tell me now, whence came it
+   That all at once you started up abruptly
+   And in the twinkling of an eye were fled?
+   That you left us without one civil speech!
+   That you return no more with Nathan to us—
+   Has Recha then made such a slight impression,
+   Or made so deep a one?  I penetrate you.
+   Think you that on a limed twig the poor bird
+   Can flutter cheerfully, or hop at ease
+   With its wing pinioned?  Come, come, in one word
+   Acknowledge to me plainly that you love her,
+   Love her to madness, and I’ll tell you what.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   To madness, oh, you’re very penetrating.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Grant me the love, and I’ll give up the madness.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Because that must be understood of course—
+   A templar love a Jewess—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Seems absurd,
+   But often there’s more fitness in a thing
+   Than we at once discern; nor were this time
+   The first, when through an unexpected path
+   The Saviour drew his children on to him
+   Across the tangled maze of human life.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   So solemn that—(and yet if in the stead
+   Of Saviour, I were to say Providence,
+   It would sound true) you make me curious, Daya,
+   Which I’m unwont to be.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         This is the place
+   For miracles
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      For wonders—well and good—
+   Can it be otherwise, where the whole world
+   Presses as toward a centre.  My dear Daya,
+   Consider what you asked of me as owned;
+   That I do love her—that I can’t imagine
+   How I should live without her—that
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Indeed!
+   Then, knight, swear to me you will call her yours,
+   Make both her present and eternal welfare.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And how, how can I, can I swear to do
+   What is not in my power?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         ’Tis in your power,
+   A single word will put it in your power.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   So that her father shall not be against it.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Her father—father? he shall be compelled.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   As yet he is not fallen among thieves—
+   Compelled?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Aye to be willing that you should.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Compelled and willing—what if I inform thee
+   That I have tried to touch this string already,
+   It vibrates not responsive.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         He refused thee?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   He answered in a tone of such discordance
+   That I was hurt.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      What do you say?  How, you
+   Betrayed the shadow of a wish for Recha,
+   And he did not spring up for joy, drew back,
+   Drew coldly back, made difficulties?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Almost.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Well then I’ll not deliberate a moment.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And yet you are deliberating still.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   That man was always else so good, so kind,
+   I am so deeply in his debt.  Why, why
+   Would he not listen to you?  God’s my witness
+   That my heart bleeds to come about him thus.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I pray you, Daya, once for all, to end
+   This dire uncertainty.  But if you doubt
+   Whether what ’tis your purpose to reveal
+   Be right or wrong, be praiseworthy or shameful,
+   Speak not—I will forget that you have had
+   Something to hide.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      That spurs me on still more.
+   Then learn that Recha is no Jewess, that
+   She is a Christian.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I congratulate you,
+   ’Twas a hard labour, but ’tis out at last;
+   The pangs of the delivery won’t hurt you.
+   Go on with undiminished zeal, and people
+   Heaven, when no longer fit to people earth.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   How, knight, does my intelligence deserve
+   Such bitter scorn?  That Recha is a Christian
+   On you a Christian templar, and her lover,
+   Confers no joy.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Particularly as
+   She is a Christian of your making, Daya.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   O, so you understand it—well and good—
+   I wish to find out him that might convert her.
+   It is her fate long since to have been that
+   Which she is spoiled for being.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Do explain—
+   Or go.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      She is a Christian child—of Christian
+   Parents was born and is baptised.
+
+                           TEMPLAR (_hastily_).
+
+         And Nathan—
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Is not her father.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Nathan not her father—
+   And are you sure of what you say?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         I am,
+   It is a truth has cost me tears of blood.
+   No, he is not her father.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And has only
+   Brought her up as his daughter, educated
+   The Christian child a Jewess.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Certainly.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And she is unacquainted with her birth?
+   Has never learnt from him that she was born
+   A Christian, and no Jewess?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Never yet.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And he not only let the child grow up
+   In this mistaken notion, but still leaves
+   The woman in it.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Aye, alas!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         How, Nathan,
+   The wise good Nathan thus allow himself
+   To stifle nature’s voice?  Thus to misguide
+   Upon himself th’ effusions of a heart
+   Which to itself abandoned would have formed
+   Another bias, Daya—yes, indeed
+   You have intrusted an important secret
+   That may have consequences—it confounds me,
+   I cannot tell what I’ve to do at present,
+   Therefore go, give me time, he may come by
+   And may surprise us.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      I should drop for fright.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I am not able now to talk, farewell;
+   And if you chance to meet him, only say
+   That we shall find each other at the sultan’s.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Let him not see you’ve any grudge against him.
+   That should be kept to give the proper impulse
+   To things at last, and may remove your scruples
+   Respecting Recha.  But then, if you take her
+   Back with you into Europe, let not me
+   Be left behind.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      That we’ll soon settle, go.
+
+
+
+ACT IV.
+
+
+SCENE.—The Cloister of a Convent.
+
+
+                           _The_ FRIAR _alone_.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Aye—aye—he’s very right—the patriarch is—
+   In fact of all that he has sent me after
+   Not much turns out his way—Why put on me
+   Such business and no other?  I don’t care
+   To coax and wheedle, and to run my nose
+   Into all sorts of things, and have a hand
+   In all that’s going forward.  I did not
+   Renounce the world, for my own part, in order
+   To be entangled with ’t for other people.
+
+                           FRIAR _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                      TEMPLAR (_abruptly entering_).
+
+   Good brother, are you there?  I’ve sought you long.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Me, sir?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What, don’t you recollect me?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Oh,
+   I thought I never in my life was likely
+   To see you any more.  For so I hoped
+   In God.  I did not vastly relish the proposal
+   That I was bound to make you.  Yes, God knows,
+   How little I desired to find a hearing,
+   Knows I was inly glad when you refused
+   Without a moment’s thought, what of a knight
+   Would be unworthy.  Are your second thoughts—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   So, you already know my purpose, I
+   Scarce know myself.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Have you by this reflected
+   That our good patriarch is not so much out,
+   That gold and fame in plenty may be got
+   By his commission, that a foe’s a foe
+   Were he our guardian angel seven times over.
+   Have you weighed this ’gainst flesh and blood, and come
+   To strike the bargain he proposed.  Ah, God.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   My dear good man, set your poor heart at ease.
+   Not therefore am I come, not therefore wish
+   To see the patriarch in person.  Still
+   On the first point I think as I then thought,
+   Nor would I for aught in the world exchange
+   That good opinion, which I once obtained
+   From such a worthy upright man as thou art,
+   I come to ask your patriarch’s advice—
+
+                  FRIAR (_looking round with timidity_).
+
+   Our patriarch’s—you? a knight ask priest’s advice?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Mine is a priestly business.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Yet the priests
+   Ask not the knights’ advice, be their affair
+   Ever so knightly.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Therefore one allows them
+   To overshoot themselves, a privilege
+   Which such as I don’t vastly envy them.
+   Indeed if I were acting for myself,
+   Had not t’ account with others, I should care
+   But little for his counsel.  But some things
+   I’d rather do amiss by others’ guidance
+   Than by my own aright.  And then by this time
+   I see religion too is party, and
+   He, who believes himself the most impartial,
+   Does but uphold the standard of his own,
+   Howe’er unconsciously.  And since ’tis so,
+   So must be well.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      I rather shall not answer,
+   For I don’t understand exactly.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Yet
+   Let me consider what it is precisely
+   That I have need of, counsel or decision,
+   Simple or learned counsel.—Thank you, brother,
+   I thank you for your hint—A patriarch—why?
+   Be thou my patriarch; for ’tis the plain Christian,
+   Whom in the patriarch I have to consult,
+   And not the patriarch in the Christian.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Oh,
+   I beg no further—you must quite mistake me;
+   He that knows much hath learnt much care, and I
+   Devoted me to only one.  ’Tis well,
+   Most luckily here comes the very man,
+   Wait here, stand still—he has perceived you, knight.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I’d rather shun him, he is not my man.
+   A thick red smiling prelate—and as stately—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   But you should see him on a gala-day;
+   He only comes from visiting the sick.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Great Saladin must then be put to shame.
+
+    [_The Patriarch_, _after marching up one of the aisles in great pomp_,
+       _draws near_, _and makes signs to the Friar_, _who approaches him_.
+
+                     PATRIARCH, FRIAR, _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   Hither—was that the templar?  What wants he?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   I know not.
+
+PATRIARCH (_approaches the templar_, _while the friar and the rest of his
+                            train draw back_).
+
+      So, sir knight, I’m truly happy
+   To meet the brave young man—so very young too—
+   Something, God helping, may come of him.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         More
+   Than is already hardly will come of him,
+   But less, my reverend father, that may chance.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   It is my prayer at least a knight so pious
+   May for the cause of Christendom and God
+   Long be preserved; nor can that fail, so be
+   Young valour will lend ear to aged counsel.
+   With what can I be useful any way?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   With that which my youth is without, with counsel.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   Most willingly, but counsel should be followed.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Surely not blindly?
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+      Who says that?  Indeed
+   None should omit to make use of the reason
+   Given him by God, in things where it belongs,
+   But it belongs not everywhere; for instance,
+   If God, by some one of his blessed angels,
+   Or other holy minister of his word,
+   Deign’d to make known a mean, by which the welfare
+   Of Christendom, or of his holy church,
+   In some peculiar and especial manner
+   Might be promoted or secured, who then
+   Shall venture to rise up, and try by reason
+   The will of him who has created reason,
+   Measure th’ eternal laws of heaven by
+   The little rules of a vain human honour?—
+   But of all this enough.  What is it then
+   On which our counsel is desired?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Suppose,
+   My reverend father, that a Jew possessed
+   An only child, a girl we’ll say, whom he
+   With fond attention forms to every virtue,
+   And loves more than his very soul; a child
+   Who by her pious love requites his goodness.
+   And now suppose it whispered—say to me—
+   This girl is not the daughter of the Jew,
+   He picked up, purchased, stole her in her childhood—
+   That she was born of Christians and baptised,
+   But that the Jew hath reared her as a Jewess,
+   Allows her to remain a Jewess, and
+   To think herself his daughter.  Reverend father
+   What then ought to be done?
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+         I shudder!  But
+   First will you please explain if such a case
+   Be fact, or only an hypothesis?
+   That is to say, if you, of your own head,
+   Invent the case, or if indeed it happened,
+   And still continues happening?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         I had thought
+   That just to learn your reverence’s opinion
+   This were all one.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+      All one—now see how apt
+   Proud human reason is in spiritual things
+   To err: ’tis not all one; for, if the point
+   In question be a mere sport of the wit,
+   ’Twill not be worth our while to think it through
+   But I should recommend the curious person
+   To theatres, where oft, with loud applause,
+   Such pro and contras have been agitated.
+   But if the object should be something more
+   Than by a school-trick—by a sleight of logic
+   To get the better of me—if the case
+   Be really extant, if it should have happened
+   Within our diocese, or—or perhaps
+   Here in our dear Jerusalem itself,
+   Why then—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What then?
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+         Then were it proper
+   To execute at once upon the Jew
+   The penal laws in such a case provided
+   By papal and imperial right, against
+   So foul a crime—such dire abomination.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   So.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+      And the laws forementioned have decreed,
+   That if a Jew shall to apostacy
+   Seduce a Christian, he shall die by fire.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   So.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+      How much more the Jew, who forcibly
+   Tears from the holy font a Christian child,
+   And breaks the sacramental bond of baptism;
+   For all what’s done to children is by force—
+   I mean except what the church does to children.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   What if the child, but for this fostering Jew,
+   Must have expired in misery?
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+         That’s nothing,
+   The Jew has still deserved the faggot—for
+   ’Twere better it here died in misery
+   Than for eternal woe to live.  Besides,
+   Why should the Jew forestall the hand of God?
+   God, if he wills to save, can save without him.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And spite of him too save eternally.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   That’s nothing!  Still the Jew is to be burnt.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   That hurts me—more particularly as
+   ’Tis said he has not so much taught the maid
+   His faith, as brought her up with the mere knowledge
+   Of what our reason teaches about God.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   That’s nothing!  Still the Jew is to be burnt—
+   And for this very reason would deserve
+   To be thrice burnt.  How, let a child grow up
+   Without a faith?  Not even teach a child
+   The greatest of its duties, to believe?
+   ’Tis heinous!  I am quite astonished, knight,
+   That you yourself—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      The rest, right reverend sir,
+   In the confessional, but not before.
+
+                                                          [_Offers to go_.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   What off—not stay for my interrogation—
+   Not name to me this infidel, this Jew—
+   Not find him up for me at once?  But hold,
+   A thought occurs, I’ll straightway to the sultan
+   Conformably to the capitulation,
+   Which Saladin has sworn, he must support us
+   In all the privileges, all the doctrines
+   Which appertain to our most holy faith,
+   Thank God, we’ve the original in keeping,
+   We have his hand and seal to it—we—
+   And I shall lead him easily to think
+   How very dangerous for the state it is
+   Not to believe.  All civic bonds divide,
+   Like flax fire-touched, where subjects don’t believe.
+   Away with foul impiety!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         It happens
+   Somewhat unlucky that I want the leisure
+   To enjoy this holy sermon.  I am sent for
+   To Saladin.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+      Why then—indeed—if so—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   And will prepare the sultan, if agreeable.
+   For your right reverend visit.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+         I have heard
+   That you found favour in the sultan’s sight,
+   I beg with all humility to be
+   Remembered to him.  I am purely motived
+   By zeal in th’ cause of God.  What of too much
+   I do, I do for him—weigh that in goodness.
+   ’Twas then, most noble sir—what you were starting
+   About the Jew—a problem merely!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Problem!
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                PATRIARCH.
+
+   Of whose foundation I’ll have nearer knowledge.
+   Another job for brother Bonafides.
+   Hither, my son!
+
+                              [_Converses with the Friar as he walks off_.
+
+
+SCENE.—A Room in the Palace.
+
+
+SLAVES _bring in a number of purses and pile them on the floor_.  SALADIN
+_is present_.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   In troth this has no end.  And is there much
+   Of this same thing behind?
+
+                                  SLAVE.
+
+      About one half.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Then take the rest to Sittah.  Where’s Al-Hafi?
+   What’s here Al-Hafi shall take charge of straight.
+   Or shan’t I rather send it to my father;
+   Here it slips through one’s fingers.  Sure in time
+   One may grow callous; it shall now cost labour
+   To come at much from me—at least until
+   The treasures come from Ægypt, poverty
+   Must shift as ’t can—yet at the sepulchre
+   The charges must go on—the Christian pilgrims
+   Shall not go back without an alms.
+
+                          SALADIN _and_ SITTAH.
+
+                            SITTAH (_entering_).
+
+         Why this?
+   Wherefore the gold to me?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Pay thyself with it,
+   And if there’s something left ’twill be in store.
+   Are Nathan and the templar not yet come?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   He has been seeking for him everywhere—
+   Look what I met with when the plate and jewels
+   Were passing through my hands—
+
+                                              [_Showing a small portrait_.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Ha!  What, my brother?
+   ’Tis he, ’tis he, _was_ he, _was_ he alas!
+   Thou dear brave youth, and lost to me so early;
+   What would I not with thee and at thy side
+   Have undertaken?  Let me have the portrait,
+   I recollect it now again; he gave it
+   Unto thy elder sister, to his Lilah,
+   That morning that she would not part with him,
+   But clasped him so in tears.  It was the last
+   Morning that he rode out; and I—I let him
+   Ride unattended.  Lilah died for grief,
+   And never could forgive me that I let him
+   Then ride alone.  He came not back.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Poor brother—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Time shall be when none of us will come back,
+   And then who knows?  It is not death alone
+   That balks the hopes of young men of his cast,
+   Such have far other foes, and oftentimes
+   The strongest like the weakest is o’ercome.
+   Be as it may—I must compare this picture
+   With our young templar, to observe how much
+   My fancy cheated me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I therefore brought it;
+   But give it me, I’ll tell thee if ’tis like.
+   We women see that best.
+
+                   SALADIN (_to a slave at the door_).
+
+         Ah, who is there?
+   The templar? let him come.
+
+      SITTAH (_throws herself on a sofa apart and drops her veil_).
+
+         Not to interfere,
+   Or with my curiosity disturb you.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   That’s right.  And then his voice, will that be like?
+   The tone of Assad’s voice, sleeps somewhere yet—
+   So—
+
+                          TEMPLAR _and_ SALADIN.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I thy prisoner, sultan,
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Thou my prisoner—
+   And shall I not to him whose life I gave
+   Also give freedom?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What ’twere worthy thine
+   To do, it is my part to hear of thee,
+   And not to take for granted.  But, O Sultan,
+   To lay loud protestations at thy feet
+   Of gratitude for a life spared, agrees
+   Not with my station or my character.
+   At all times, ’tis once more, prince, at thy service.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Only forbear to use it against me.
+   Not that I grudge my enemy one pair more
+   Of hands—but such a heart, it goes against me
+   To yield him.  I have been deceived with thee,
+   Thou brave young man, in nothing.  Yes, thou art
+   In soul and body Assad.  I could ask thee,
+   Where then hast thou been lurking all this time?
+   Or in what cavern slept?  What Ginnistan
+   Chose some kind Perie for thy hiding-place,
+   That she might ever keep the flower thus fresh?
+   Methinks I could remind thee here and yonder
+   Of what we did together—could abuse thee
+   For having had one secret, e’en to me—
+   Cheat me of one adventure—yes, I could,
+   If I saw thee alone, and not myself.
+   Thanks that so much of this fond sweet illusion
+   At least is true, that in my sear of life
+   An Assad blossoms for me.  Thou art willing?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   All that from thee comes to me, whatsoever
+   It chance to prove, lies as a wish already
+   Within my soul.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      We’ll try the experiment.
+   Wilt thou stay with me? dwell about me? boots not
+   As Mussulman or Christian, in a turban
+   Or a white mantle—I have never wished
+   To see the same bark grow about all trees.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Else, Saladin, thou hardly hadst become
+   The hero that thou art, alike to all
+   The gardener of the Lord.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      If thou think not
+   The worse of me for this, we’re half right.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Quite so.
+   One word.
+
+                     SALADIN (_holds out his hand_).
+
+                          TEMPLAR (_takes it_).
+
+      One man—and with this receive more
+   Than thou canst take away again—thine wholly.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   ’Tis for one day too great a gain—too great.
+   Came he not with thee?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Who?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Who?  Nathan.
+
+                           TEMPLAR (_coldly_).
+
+         No,
+   I came alone.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      O, what a deed of thine!
+   And what a happiness, a blessing to thee,
+   That such a deed was serving such a man.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Yes, yes.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      So cold—no, my young friend—when God
+   Does through our means a service, we ought not
+   To be so cold, not out of modesty
+   Wish to appear so cold.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      In this same world
+   All things have many sides, and ’tis not easy
+   To comprehend how they can fit each other.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Cling ever to the best—Give praise to God,
+   Who knows how they can fit.  But, my young man,
+   If thou wilt be so difficult, I must
+   Be very cautious with thee, for I too
+   Have many sides, and some of them perhaps
+   Such as mayn’t always seem to fit.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         That wounds me;
+   Suspicion usually is not my failing.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Say then of whom thou harbour’st it, of Nathan?
+   So should thy talk imply—canst thou suspect him?
+   Give me the first proof of thy confidence.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I’ve nothing against Nathan, I am angry
+   With myself only.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      And for what?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         For dreaming
+   That any Jew could learn to be no Jew—
+   For dreaming it awake.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Out with this dream.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Thou know’st of Nathan’s daughter, sultan.  What
+   I did for her I did—because I did it;
+   Too proud to reap thanks which I had not sown for,
+   I shunned from day to day her very sight.
+   The father was far off.  He comes, he hears,
+   He seeks me, thanks me, wishes that his daughter
+   May please me; talks to me of dawning prospects—
+   I listen to his prate, go, see, and find
+   A girl indeed.  O, sultan, I am ashamed—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   A shamed that a Jew girl knew how to make
+   Impression on thee, surely not.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         But that
+   To this impression my rash yielding heart,
+   Trusting the smoothness of the father’s prate,
+   Opposed no more resistance.  Fool—I sprang
+   A second time into the flame, and then
+   I wooed, and was denied.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Denied!  Denied!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   The prudent father does not flatly say
+   No to my wishes, but the prudent father
+   Must first inquire, and look about, and think.
+   Oh, by all means.  Did not I do the same?
+   Did not I look about and ask who ’twas
+   While she was shrieking in the flame?  Indeed,
+   By God, ’tis something beautifully wise
+   To be so circumspect.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Come, come, forgive
+   Something to age.  His lingerings cannot last.
+   He is not going to require of thee
+   First to turn Jew.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Who knows?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Who?  I, who know
+   This Nathan better.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Yet the superstition
+   In which we have grown up, not therefore loses
+   When we detect it, all its influence on us.
+   Not all are free that can bemock their fetters.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Maturely said—but Nathan, surely Nathan—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   The worst of superstitions is to think
+   One’s own most bearable.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      May be, but Nathan—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Must Nathan be the mortal, who unshrinking
+   Can face the moon-tide ray of truth, nor there
+   Betray the twilight dungeon which he crawled from.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Yes, Nathan is that man.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I thought so too,
+   But what if this picked man, this chosen sage,
+   Were such a thorough Jew that he seeks out
+   For Christian children to bring up as Jews—
+   How then?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Who says this of him?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         E’en the maid
+   With whom he frets me—with the hope of whom
+   He seemed to joy in paying me the service,
+   Which he would not allow me to do gratis—
+   This very maid is not his daughter—no,
+   She is a kidnapped Christian child.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Whom he
+   Has, notwithstanding, to thy wish refused?
+
+                       TEMPLAR (_with vehemence_).
+
+   Refused or not, I know him now.  There lies
+   The prating tolerationist unmasked—
+   And I’ll halloo upon this Jewish wolf,
+   For all his philosophical sheep’s clothing,
+   Dogs that shall touze his hide.
+
+                          SALADIN (_earnestly_).
+
+         Peace, Christian!
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+            What!
+   Peace, Christian—and may Jew and Mussulman
+   Stickle for being Jew and Mussulman,
+   And must the Christian only drop the Christian?
+
+                        SALADIN (_more solemnly_).
+
+   Peace, Christian!
+
+                           TEMPLAR (_calmly_.)
+
+      Yes, I feel what weight of blame
+   Lies in that word of thine pent up.  O that
+   I knew how Assad in my place would act.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   He—not much better, probably as fiery.
+   Who has already taught thee thus at once
+   Like him to bribe me with a single word?
+   Indeed, if all has past as thou narratest,
+   I scarcely can discover Nathan in it.
+   But Nathan is my friend, and of my friends
+   One must not bicker with the other.  Bend—
+   And be directed.  Move with caution.  Do not
+   Loose on him the fanatics of thy sect.
+   Conceal what all thy clergy would be claiming
+   My hand to avenge upon him, with more show
+   Of right than is my wish.  Be not from spite
+   To any Jew or Mussulman a Christian.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Thy counsel is but on the brink of coming
+   Somewhat too late, thanks to the patriarch’s
+   Bloodthirsty rage, whose instrument I shudder
+   To have almost become.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      How! how! thou wentest
+   Still earlier to the patriarch than to me?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Yes, in the storm of passion, in the eddy
+   Of indecision—pardon—oh! thou wilt
+   No longer care, I fear, to find in me
+   One feature of thy Assad.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Yes, that fear.
+   Methinks I know by this time from what failings
+   Our virtue springs—this do thou cultivate,
+   Those shall but little harm thee in my sight.
+   But go, seek Nathan, as he sought for thee,
+   And bring him hither: I must reconcile you.
+   If thou art serious about the maid—
+   Be calm, she shall be thine—Nathan shall feel
+   That without swine’s flesh one may educate
+   A Christian child, Go.
+
+                                                     [_Templar withdraws_.
+
+                     SITTAH (_rising from the sofa_).
+
+      Very strange indeed!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Well, Sittah, must my Assad not have been
+   A gallant handsome youth?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         If he was thus,
+   And ’twasn’t the templar who sat to the painter.
+   But how couldst thou be so forgetful, brother,
+   As not to ask about his parents?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         And
+   Particularly too about his mother.
+   Whether his mother e’er was in this country,
+   That is your meaning, isn’t it?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         You run on—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Oh, nothing is more possible, for Assad
+   ’Mong handsome Christian ladies was so welcome,
+   To handsome Christian ladies so attached,
+   That once a report spread—but ’tis not pleasant
+   To bring that up.  Let us be satisfied
+   That we have got him once again—have got him
+   With all the faults and freaks, the starts and wildness
+   Of his warm gentle heart—Oh, Nathan must
+   Give him the maid—Dost think so?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Give—give up!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Aye, for what right has Nathan with the girl
+   If he be not her father?  He who saved
+   Her life so lately has a stronger claim
+   To heir their rights who gave it her at first.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What therefore, Saladin, if you withdraw
+   The maid at once from the unrightful owner?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   There is no need of that.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Need, not precisely;
+   But female curiosity inspires
+   Me with that counsel.  There are certain men
+   Of whom one is irresistibly impatient
+   To know what women they can be in love with.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Well then you may send for her.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         May I, brother?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   But hurt not Nathan, he must not imagine
+   That we propose by violence to part them.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Be without apprehension.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Fare you well,
+   I must make out where this Al-Hafi is.
+
+
+SCENE.—The Hall in Nathan’s House, as in the first scene; the things
+there mentioned unpacked and displayed.
+
+
+                            DAYA _and_ NATHAN.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   O how magnificent, how tasty, charming—
+   All such as only you could give—and where
+   Was this thin silver stuff with sprigs of gold
+   Woven?  What might it cost?  Yes, this is worthy
+   To be a wedding-garment.  Not a queen
+   Could wish a handsomer.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Why wedding-garment?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Perhaps of that you thought not when you bought it;
+   But Nathan, it must be so, must indeed.
+   It seems made for a bride—the pure white ground,
+   Emblem of innocence—the branching gold,
+   Emblem of wealth—Now is not it delightful?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   What’s all this ingenuity of speech for?
+   Over whose wedding-gown are you displaying
+   Your emblematic learning?  Have you found
+   A bridegroom?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      I—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Who then?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+            I—Gracious God!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Who then?  Whose wedding-garment do you speak of?
+   For this is all your own and no one’s else.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   Mine—is’t for me and not for Recha?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         What
+   I brought for Recha is in another bale.
+   Come, clear it off: away with all your rubbish.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   You tempter—No—Were they the precious things
+   Of the whole universe, I will not touch them
+   Until you promise me to seize upon
+   Such an occasion as heaven gives not twice.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Seize upon what occasion?  For what end?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   There, do not act so strange.  You must perceive
+   The templar loves your Recha—Give her to him;
+   Then will your sin, which I can hide no longer,
+   Be at an end.  The maid will come once more
+   Among the Christians, will be once again
+   What she was born to, will be what she was;
+   And you, by all the benefits, for which
+   We cannot thank you enough, will not have heaped
+   More coals of fire upon your head.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Again
+   Harping on the old string, new tuned indeed,
+   But so as neither to accord nor hold.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   How so?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      The templar pleases me indeed,
+   I’d rather he than any one had Recha;
+   But—do have patience.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Patience—and is that
+   Not the old string you harp on?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Patience, patience,
+   For a few days—no more.  Ha! who comes here?
+   A friar—ask what he wants.
+
+                             DAYA (_going_).
+
+         What can he want?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Give, give before he begs.  O could I tell
+   How to come at the templar, not betraying
+   The motive of my curiosity—
+   For if I tell it, and if my suspicion
+   Be groundless, I have staked the father idly.
+   What is the matter?
+
+                           DAYA (_returning_).
+
+      He must speak to you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Then let him come to me.  Go you meanwhile.
+
+                                                             [_Daya goes_.
+
+   How gladly would I still remain my Recha’s
+   Father.  And can I not remain so, though
+   I cease to wear the name.  To her, to her
+   I still shall wear it, when she once perceives
+
+                                                          [_Friar enters_.
+
+   How willingly I were so.  Pious brother,
+   What can be done to serve you?
+
+                           NATHAN _and_ FRIAR.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         O not much;
+   And yet I do rejoice to see you yet
+   So well.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      You know me then—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Who knows you not?
+   You have impressed your name in many a hand,
+   And it has been in mine these many years.
+
+                    NATHAN (_feeling for his purse_).
+
+   Here, brother, I’ll refresh it.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Thank you, thank you—
+   From poorer men I’d steal—but nothing now!
+   Only allow me to refresh my name
+   In your remembrance; for I too may boast
+   To have of old put something in your hand
+   Not to be scorned.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Excuse me, I’m ashamed,
+   What was it?  Claim it of me sevenfold,
+   I’m ready to atone for my forgetting.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   But before all, hear how this very day
+   I was reminded of the pledge I brought you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   A pledge to me intrusted?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Some time since,
+   I dwelt as hermit on the Quarantana,
+   Not far from Jericho, but Arab robbers
+   Came and broke up my cell and oratory,
+   And dragged me with them.  Fortunately I
+   Escaped, and with the patriarch sought a refuge,
+   To beg of him some other still retreat,
+   Where I may serve my God in solitude
+   Until my latter end.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I stand on coals—
+   Quick, my good brother, let me know what pledge
+   You once intrusted to me.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Presently,
+   Good Nathan, presently.  The patriarch
+   Has promised me a hermitage on Thabor,
+   As soon as one is vacant, and meanwhile
+   Employs me as lay-brother in the convent,
+   And there I am at present: and I pine
+   A hundred times a day for Thabor; for
+   The patriarch will set me about all work,
+   And some that I can’t brook—as for example—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Be speedy, I beseech you.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Now it happens
+   That some one whispered in his ear to-day,
+   There lives hard by a Jew, who educates
+   A Christian child as his own daughter.
+
+                           NATHAN (_startled_).
+
+         How
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Hear me quite out.  So he commissions me,
+   If possible to track him out this Jew:
+   And stormed most bitterly at the misdeed;
+   Which seems to him to be the very sin
+   Against the Holy Ghost—That is, the sin
+   Of all most unforgiven, most enormous;
+   But luckily we cannot tell exactly
+   What it consists in—All at once my conscience
+   Was roused, and it occurred to me that I
+   Perhaps had given occasion to this sin.
+   Now do not you remember a knight’s squire,
+   Who eighteen years ago gave to your hands
+   A female child a few weeks old?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         How that?
+   In fact such was—
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Now look with heed at me,
+   And recollect.  I was the man on horseback
+   Who brought the child.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Was you?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         And he from whom
+   I brought it was methinks a lord of Filnek—
+   Leonard of Filnek.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Right!
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Because the mother.
+   Died a short time before; and he, the father,
+   Had on a sudden to make off to Gazza,
+   Where the poor helpless thing could not go with him;
+   Therefore he sent it you—that was my message.
+   Did not I find you out at Darun? there
+   Consign it to you?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yes.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         It were no wonder
+   My memory deceived me.  I have had
+   Many a worthy master, and this one
+   I served not long.  He fell at Askalon—
+   But he was a kind lord.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      O yes, indeed;
+   For much have I to thank him, very much—
+   He more than once preserved me from the sword.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   O brave—you therefore will with double pleasure
+   Have taken up this daughter.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         You have said it.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Where is she then?  She is not dead, I hope—
+   I would not have her dead, dear pretty creature.
+   If no one else know anything about it
+   All is yet safe.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Aye all!
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Yes, trust me, Nathan,
+   This is my way of thinking—if the good
+   That I propose to do is somehow twined
+   With mischief, then I let the good alone;
+   For we know pretty well what mischief is,
+   But not what’s for the best.  ’Twas natural
+   If you meant to bring up the Christian child
+   Right well, that you should rear it as your own;
+   And to have done this lovingly and truly,
+   For such a recompense—were horrible.
+   It might have been more prudent to have had it
+   Brought up at second hand by some good Christian
+   In her own faith.  But your friend’s orphan child
+   You would not then have loved.  Children need love,
+   Were it the mute affection of a brute,
+   More at that age than Christianity.
+   There’s always time enough for that—and if
+   The maid have but grown up before your eyes
+   With a sound frame and pious—she remains
+   Still in her maker’s eye the same.  For is not
+   Christianity all built on Judaism?
+   Oh, it has often vexed me, cost me tears,
+   That Christians will forget so often that
+   Our Saviour was a Jew.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      You, my good brother,
+   Shall be my advocate, when bigot hate
+   And hard hypocrisy shall rise upon me—
+   And for a deed—a deed—thou, thou shalt know it—
+   But take it with thee to the tomb.  As yet
+   Has vanity ne’er tempted me to tell it
+   To living soul—only to thee I tell it,
+   To simple piety alone; for it
+   Alone can feel what deeds the man who trusts
+   In God can gain upon himself.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         You seem
+   Affected, and your eye-balls swim in water.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   ’Twas at Darun you met me with the child;
+   But you will not have known that a few days
+   Before, the Christians murdered every Jew in Gath,
+   Woman and child; that among these, my wife
+   With seven hopeful sons were found, who all
+   Beneath my brother’s roof which they had fled to,
+   Were burnt alive.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Just God!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         And when you came,
+   Three nights had I in dust and ashes lain
+   Before my God and wept—aye, and at times
+   Arraigned my maker, raged, and cursed myself
+   And the whole world, and to Christianity
+   Swore unrelenting hate.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Ah, I believe you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   But by degrees returning reason came,
+   She spake with gentle voice—And yet God is,
+   And this was his decree—now exercise
+   What thou hast long imagined, and what surely
+   Is not more difficult to exercise
+   Than to imagine—if thou will it once.
+   I rose and called out—God, I will—I will,
+   So thou but aid my purpose—And behold
+   You was just then dismounted, and presented
+   To me the child wrapt in your mantle.  What
+   You said, or I, occurs not to me now—
+   Thus much I recollect—I took the child,
+   I bore it to my couch, I kissed it, flung
+   Myself upon my knees and sobbed—my God,
+   Now have I one out of the seven again!
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Nathan, you are a Christian!  Yes, by God
+   You are a Christian—never was a better.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Heaven bless us!  What makes me to you a Christian
+   Makes you to me a Jew.  But let us cease
+   To melt each other—time is nigh to act,
+   And though a sevenfold love had bound me soon
+   To this strange only girl, though the mere thought,
+   That I shall lose in her my seven sons
+   A second time distracts me—yet I will,
+   If providence require her at my hands,
+   Obey.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      The very thing I should advise you;
+   But your good genius has forestalled my thought.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   The first best claimant must not seek to tear
+   Her from me.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      No most surely not.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         And he,
+   That has not stronger claims than I, at least
+   Ought to have earlier.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      Certainly.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         By nature
+   And blood conferred.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      I mean so too.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Then name
+   The man allied to her as brother, uncle,
+   Or otherwise akin, and I from him
+   Will not withhold her—she who was created
+   And was brought up to be of any house,
+   Of any faith, the glory—I, I hope,
+   That of your master and his race you knew
+   More than myself.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      I hardly think that, Nathan;
+   For I already told you that I passed
+   A short time with him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Can you tell at least
+   The mother’s family name?  She was, I think,
+   A Stauffen.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      May be—yes, in fact, you’re right.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Conrade of Stauffen was her brother’s name—
+   He was a templar.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         I am clear it was.
+   But stay, I recollect I’ve yet a book,
+   ’Twas my dead lord’s—I drew it from his bosom,
+   While we were burying him at Askalon.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well!
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+      There are prayers in’t, ’tis what we call
+   A breviary.  This, thought I, may yet serve
+   Some Christian man—not me indeed, for I
+   Can’t read.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      No matter, to the thing.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   This book is written at both ends quite full,
+   And, as I’m told, contains, in his hand-writing
+   About both him and her what’s most material.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Go, run and fetch the book—’tis fortunate;
+   I am ready with its weight in gold to pay it,
+   And thousand thanks beside—Go, run.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         Most gladly;
+   But ’tis in Arabic what he has written.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   No matter—that’s all one—do fetch it—Oh!
+   If by its means I may retain the daughter,
+   And purchase with it such a son-in-law;
+   But that’s unlikely—well, chance as it may.
+   Who now can have been with the patriarch
+   To tell this tale?  That I must not forget
+   To ask about.  If ’t were of Daya’s?
+
+                            NATHAN _and_ DAYA.
+
+                      DAYA (_anxiously breaks in_).
+
+            Nathan!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Well!
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Only think, she was quite frightened at it,
+   Poor child, a message—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      From the patriarch?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         No—
+   The sultan’s sister, princess Sittah, sends.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And not the patriarch?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+      Can’t you hear?  The princess
+   Has sent to see your Recha.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Sent for Recha
+   Has Sittah sent for Recha?  Well, if Sittah,
+   And not the patriarch, sends.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+         Why think of him?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Have you heard nothing from him lately—really
+   Seen nothing of him—whispered nothing to him?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   How, I to him?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Where are the messengers?
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   There, just before you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I will talk with them
+   Out of precaution.  If there’s nothing lurking
+   Beneath this message of the patriarch’s doing—
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                  DAYA.
+
+   And I—I’ve other fears.  The only daughter,
+   As they suppose, of such a rich, rich Jew,
+   Would for a Mussulman be no bad thing;
+   I bet the templar will be choused, unless
+   I risk the second step, and to herself
+   Discover who she is.  Let me for this
+   Employ the first short moments we’re alone;
+   And that will be—oh, as I am going with her.
+   A serious hint upon the road I think
+   Can’t be amiss—yes, now or never—yes.
+
+
+
+ACT V.
+
+
+SCENE.—A Room in the Palace; the Purses still in a pile.
+
+
+SALADIN, _and_, _soon after_, _several_ MAMALUKES.
+
+                       SALADIN (_as he comes in_).
+
+   Here lies the money still, and no one finds
+   The dervis yet—he’s probably got somewhere
+   Over a chess-board.  Play would often make
+   The man forget himself, and why not, me.
+   Patience—Ha! what’s the matter.
+
+                          SALADIN _and_ IBRAHIM.
+
+                                 IBRAHIM.
+
+         Happy news—
+   Joy, sultan, joy, the caravan from Cairo
+   Is safe arrived and brings the seven years’ tribute
+   Of the rich Nile.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Bravo, my Ibrahim,
+   Thou always wast a welcome messenger,
+   And now at length—at length—accept my thanks
+   For the good tidings.
+
+                           IBRAHIM (_waiting_).
+
+      Hither with them, sultan.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   What art thou waiting for?  Go.
+
+                                 IBRAHIM.
+
+         Nothing further
+   For my glad news?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      What further?
+
+                                 IBRAHIM.
+
+         Errand boys
+   Earn hire—and when their message smiles i’ the telling,
+   The sender’s hire by the receiver’s bounty
+   Is oft outweighed.  Am I to be the first
+   Whom Saladin at length has learnt to pay
+   In words?  The first about whose recompense
+   The sultan higgled?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Go, pick up a purse.
+
+                                 IBRAHIM.
+
+   No, not now—you might give them all away
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   All—hold, man.  Here, come hither, take these two—
+   And is he really going—shall he conquer
+   Me then in generosity? for surely
+   ’Tis harder for this fellow to refuse
+   Than ’tis for me to give.  Here, Ibrahim—
+   Shall I be tempted, just before my exit,
+   To be a different man—small Saladin
+   Not die like Saladin, then wherefore live so?
+
+                         ABDALLAH _and_ SALADIN.
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+   Hail, Sultan!
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      If thou comest to inform me
+   That the whole convoy is arrived from Egypt,
+   I know it already.
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+      Do I come too late?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Too late, and why too late?  There for thy tidings
+   Pick up a purse or two.
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+         Does that make three?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   So thou wouldst reckon—well, well, take them, take them.
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+   A third will yet be here if he be able.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   How so?
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+      He may perhaps have broke his neck.
+   We three, as soon as certain of the coming
+   Of the rich caravan, each crossed our horses,
+   And galloped hitherward.  The foremost fell,
+   Then I was foremost, and continued so
+   Into the city, but sly Ibrahim,
+   Who knows the streets—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         But he that fell, go, seek him.
+
+                                ABDALLAH.
+
+   That will I quickly—if he lives, the half
+   Of what I’ve got is his.
+
+                                                                  [_Goes_.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      What a fine fellow!
+   And who can boast such mamalukes as these;
+   And is it not allowed me to imagine
+   That my example helped to form them.  Hence
+   With the vile thought at last to turn another.
+
+                            _A third_ COURIER.
+
+   Sultan—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Was’t thou who fell?
+
+                                 COURIER.
+
+         No, I’ve to tell thee
+   That Emir Mansor, who conducts the convoy,
+   Alights.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      O bring him to me—Ah, he’s there—
+   Be welcome, Emir.  What has happened to thee?
+   For we have long expected thee.
+
+                           SALADIN _and_ EMIR.
+
+                    EMIR (_after the wont obeisance_).
+
+         This letter
+   Will show, that, in Thebais, discontents
+   Required thy Abulkassem’s sabred hand,
+   Ere we could march.  Since that, our progress, sultan,
+   My zeal has sped most anxiously.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         I trust thee—
+   But my good Mansor take without delay—
+   Thou art not loth to go further—fresh protection,
+   And with the treasure on to Libanon;
+   The greater part at least I have to lodge
+   With my old father.
+
+                                  EMIR.
+
+      O, most willingly.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   And take not a slight escort.  Libanon
+   Is far from quiet, as thou wilt have heard;
+   The templars stir afresh, be therefore cautious.
+   Come, I must see thy troop, and give the orders.
+
+                                                            [_To a slave_.
+
+   Say I shall be with Sittah when I’ve finished.
+
+
+SCENE—A Place of Palms.
+
+
+                   _The_ TEMPLAR _walking to and fro_.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Into this house I go not—sure at last
+   He’ll show himself—once, once they used to see me
+   So instantly, so gladly—time will come
+   When he’ll send out most civilly to beg me
+   Not to pace up and down before his door.
+   Psha—and yet I’m a little nettled too;
+   And what has thus embittered me against him?
+   He answered yes.  He has refused me nothing
+   As yet.  And Saladin has undertaken
+   To bring him round.  And does the Christian nestle
+   Deeper in me than the Jew lurks in him?
+   Who, who can justly estimate himself?
+   How comes it else that I should grudge him so
+   The little booty that he took such pains
+   To rob the Christians of?  A theft, no less
+   Than such a creature tho’—but whose, whose creature?
+   Sure not the slave’s who floated the mere block
+   On to life’s barren strand, and then ran off;
+   But his the artist’s, whose fine fancy moulded
+   Upon the unowned block a godlike form,
+   Whose chisel graved it there.  Recha’s true father,
+   Spite of the Christian who begot her, is,
+   Must ever be, the Jew.  Alas, were I
+   To fancy her a simple Christian wench,
+   And without all that which the Jew has given,
+   Which only such a Jew could have bestowed—
+   Speak out my heart, what had she that would please thee?
+   No, nothing!  Little!  For her very smile
+   Shrinks to a pretty twisting of the muscles—
+   Be that, which makes her smile, supposed unworthy
+   Of all the charms in ambush on her lips?
+   No, not her very smile—I’ve seen sweet smiles
+   Spent on conceit, on foppery, on slander,
+   On flatterers, on wicked wooers spent,
+   And did they charm me then? then wake the wish
+   To flutter out a life beneath their sunshine?
+   Indeed not—Yet I’m angry with the man
+   Who alone gave this higher value to her.
+   How this, and why?  Do I deserve the taunt
+   With which I was dismissed by Saladin?
+   ’Tis bad enough that Saladin should think so;
+   How little, how contemptible must I
+   Then have appeared to him—all for a girl.
+   Conrade, this will not do—back, back—And if
+   Daya to boot had prated matter to me
+   Not easy to be proved—At last he’s coming,
+   Engaged in earnest converse—and with whom?
+   My friar in Nathan’s house! then he knows all—
+   Perhaps has to the patriarch been betrayed.
+   O Conrade, what vile mischiefs thou hast brooded
+   Out of thy cross-grained head, that thus one spark
+   Of that same passion, love, can set so much
+   O’ th’ brain in flame?  Quick, then, determine, wretch,
+   What shalt thou say or do?  Step back a moment
+   And see if this good friar will please to quit him.
+
+      NATHAN _and the_ FRIAR _come together out of Nathan’s house_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Once more, good brother, thanks.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         The like to you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   To me, and why; because I’m obstinate—
+   Would force upon you what you have no use for?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   The book besides was none of mine.  Indeed
+   It must at any rate belong to th’ daughter;
+   It is her whole, her only patrimony—
+   Save she has you.  God grant you ne’er have reason
+   To sorrow for the much you’ve done for her.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   How should I? that can never be; fear nothing.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Patriarchs and templars—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Have not in their power
+   Evil enough to make me e’er repent.
+   And then—But are you really well assured
+   It is a templar who eggs on your patriarch?
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   It scarcely can be other, for a templar
+   Talked with him just before, and what I heard
+   Agreed with this.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      But there is only one
+   Now in Jerusalem; and him I know;
+   He is my friend, a noble open youth.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   The same.  But what one is at heart, and what
+   One gets to be in active life, mayn’t always
+   Square well together.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      No, alas, they do not.
+   Therefore unangered I let others do
+   Their best or worst.  O brother, with your book
+   I set all at defiance, and am going
+   Straight with it to the Sultan.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+         God be with you!
+   Here I shall take my leave.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         And have not seen her—
+   Come soon, come often to us.  If to-day
+   The patriarch make out nothing—but no matter,
+   Tell him it all to-day, or when you will.
+
+                                  FRIAR.
+
+   Not I—farewell!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Do not forget us, brother
+   My God, why may I not beneath thy sky
+   Here drop upon my knees; now the twined knot,
+   Which has so often made my thinkings anxious,
+   Untangles of itself—God, how I am eased,
+   Now that I’ve nothing in the world remaining
+   That I need hide—now that I can as freely
+   Walk before man as before thee, who only
+   Need’st not to judge a creature by his deeds—
+   Deeds which so seldom are his own—O God!
+
+                          NATHAN _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                       TEMPLAR (_coming forward_).
+
+   Hoa, Nathan, take me with you.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Ha!  Who calls?
+   Is it you, knight?  And whither have you been
+   That you could not be met with at the Sultan’s?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   We missed each other—take it not amiss.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I, no, but Saladin.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      You was just gone.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   O, then you spoke with him; I’m satisfied.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Yes—but he wants to talk with us together.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   So much the better.  Come with me, my step
+   Was eitherwise bent thither.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      May I ask,
+   Nathan, who ’twas now left you?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Did you know him?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Was’t that good-hearted creature the lay-brother,
+   Whom the hoar patriarch has a knack of using
+   To feel his way out?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That may be.  In fact
+   He’s at the patriarch’s.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      ’Tis no awkward hit
+   To make simplicity the harbinger
+   Of craft.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      If the simplicity of dunces,
+   But if of honest piety?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         This last
+   No patriarch can believe in.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I’ll be bound for’t
+   This last belongs to him who quitted me.
+   He’ll not assist his patriarch to accomplish
+   A vile or cruel purpose.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Such, at least,
+   He would appear—but has he told you then
+   Something of me?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Of you?  No—not by name,
+   He can’t well be acquainted with your name.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   No, that not.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      He indeed spoke of a templar,
+   Who—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      What?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         But by this templar could not mean
+   To point out you.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Stay, stay, who knows?  Let’s hear.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Who has accused me to his patriarch.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Accused thee, no, that by his leave is false.
+   Nathan do hear me—I am not the man
+   Who would deny a single of his actions;
+   What I have done, I did.  Nor am I one
+   Who would defend all he has done as right—
+   Why be ashamed of failing?  Am I not
+   Firmly resolved on better future conduct?
+   And am I not aware how much the man
+   That’s willing can improve?  O, hear me, Nathan—
+   I am the templar your lay-brother talked of—
+   Who has accused—You know what made me angry,
+   What set the blood in all my veins on fire,
+   The mad-cap that I was—I had drawn nigh
+   To fling myself with soul and body whole
+   Into your arms—and you received me, Nathan—
+   How cold, how lukewarm, for that’s worse than cold.—
+   How with words weighed and measured, you took care
+   To put me off; and with what questioning
+   About my parentage, and God knows what,
+   You seemed to answer me—I must not think on’t
+   If I would keep my temper—Hear me, Nathan—
+   While in this ferment—Daya steps behind me,
+   Bolts out a secret in my ear, which seemed
+   At once to lend a clue to your behaviour.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   How so?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Do hear me to the end.  I fancied
+   That what you from the Christians had purloined
+   You wasn’t content to let a Christian have;
+   And so the project struck me short and good,
+   To hold the knife to your throat till—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Short and good;
+   And good—but where’s the good?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Yet hear me, Nathan,
+   I own I did not right—you are unguilty,
+   No doubt.  The prating Daya does not know
+   What she reported—has a grudge against you—
+   Seeks to involve you in an ugly business—
+   May be, may be, and I’m a crazy looby,
+   A credulous enthusiast—both ways mad—
+   Doing ever much too much, or much too little—
+   That too may be—forgive me, Nathan.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         If
+   Such be the light in which you view—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         In short
+   I to the patriarch went.  I named you not.
+   That, as I said, was false.  I only stated
+   In general terms, the case, to learn his notion,
+   That too might have been let alone—assuredly.
+   For knew I not the patriarch then to be
+   A knave?  And might I not have talked with you?
+   And ought I to have exposed the poor girl—ha!
+   To part with such a father?  Now what happens?
+   The patriarch’s villainy consistent ever
+   Restored me to myself—O, hear me out—
+   Suppose he was to ferret out your name,
+   What then?  What then?  He cannot seize the maid,
+   Unless she still belong to none but you.
+   ’Tis from your house alone that he could drag her
+   Into a convent; therefore grant her me—
+   Grant her to me, and let him come.  By God—
+   Sever my wife from me—he’ll not be rash
+   Enough to think about it.  Give her to me,
+   Be she or no thy daughter, Christian, Jewess,
+   Or neither, ’tis all one, all one—I’ll never
+   In my whole life ask of thee which she is,
+   Be’t as it may.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      You may perhaps imagine
+   That I’ve an interest to conceal the truth.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Be’t as it may.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I neither have to you
+   Nor any one, whom it behooved to know it,
+   Denied that she’s a Christian, and no more
+   Than my adopted daughter.  Why, to her
+   I have not yet betrayed it—I am bound
+   To justify only to her.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Of that
+   Shall be no need.  Indulge, indulge her with
+   Never beholding you with other eyes—
+   Spare, spare her the discovery.  As yet
+   You have her to yourself, and may bestow her;
+   Give her to me—oh, I beseech thee, Nathan,
+   Give her to me, I, only I can save her
+   A second time, and will.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Yes, could have saved her.
+   But ’tis all over now—it is too late.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   How so, too late.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Thanks to the patriarch.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         How
+   Thanks to the patriarch, and for what?  Can he
+   Earn thanks of us.  For what?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That now we know
+   To whom she is related—to whose hands
+   She may with confidence be now delivered.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   He thank him who has more to thank him for.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   From theirs you now have to obtain her, not
+   From mine.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Poor Recha—what befalls thee?  Oh,
+   Poor Recha—what had been to other orphans
+   A blessing, is to thee a curse.  But, Nathan,
+   Where are they, these new kinsmen?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Where they are?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Who are they?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Who—a brother is found out
+   To whom you must address yourself.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         A brother!
+   And what is he, a soldier or a priest?
+   Let’s hear what I’ve to hope.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         As I believe
+   He’s neither of the two—or both.  Just now
+   I cannot say exactly.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And besides
+   He’s—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      A brave fellow, and with whom my Recha
+   Will not be badly placed.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      But he’s a Christian.
+   At times I know not what to make of you—
+   Take it not ill of me, good Nathan.  Will she
+   Not have to play the Christian among Christians;
+   And when she has been long enough the actress
+   Not turn so?  Will the tares in time not stifle
+   The pure wheat of your setting—and does that
+   Affect you not a whit—you yet declare
+   She’ll not be badly placed.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      I think, I hope so.
+   And should she there have need of any thing
+   Has she not you and me?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Need at her brother’s—
+   What should she need when there?  Won’t he provide
+   His dear new sister with all sorts of dresses,
+   With comfits and with toys and glittering jewels?
+   And what needs any sister wish for else—
+   Only a husband?  And he comes in time.
+   A brother will know how to furnish that,
+   The Christianer the better.  Nathan, Nathan,
+   O what an angel you had formed, and how
+   Others will mar it now!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Be not so downcast,
+   Believe me he will ever keep himself
+   Worthy our love.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      No, say not that of mine.
+   My love allows of no refusal—none.
+   Were it the merest trifle—but a name.
+   Hold there—has she as yet the least suspicion
+   Of what is going forward?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         That may be,
+   And yet I know not whence.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         It matters not,
+   She shall, she must in either case from me
+   First learn what fate is threatening.  My fixed purpose
+   To see her not again, nor speak to her,
+   Till I might call her mine, is gone.  I hasten—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Stay, whither would you go?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         To her, to learn
+   If this girl’s soul be masculine enough
+   To form the only resolution worthy
+   Herself.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      What resolution?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         This—to ask
+   No more about her brother and her father,
+   And—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      And—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         To follow me.  E’en if she were
+   So doing to become a Moslem’s wife.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Stay, you’ll not find her—she is now with Sittah,
+   The Sultan’s sister.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      How long since, and wherefore?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   And would you there behold her brother, come
+   Thither with me.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Her brother, whose then?  Sittah’s
+   Or Recha’s do you mean?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Both, both, perchance.
+   Come this way—I beseech you, come with me.
+
+                                        [_Leads off the Templar with him_.
+
+
+SCENE.—The Sultan’s Palace.  A Room in Sittah’s Apartment.
+
+
+                           SITTAH _and_ RECHA.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   How I am pleased with thee, sweet girl!  But do
+   Shake off this perturbation, be not anxious,
+   Be not alarmed, I want to hear thee talk—
+   Be cheerful.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Princess!
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         No, not princess, child.
+   Call me thy friend, or Sittah, or thy sister,
+   Or rather aunt, for I might well be thine;
+   So young, so good, so prudent, so much knowledge,
+   You must have read a great deal to be thus.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   I read—you’re laughing, Sittah, at your sister,
+   I scarce can read.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Scarce can, you little fibber.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   My father’s hand or so—I thought you spoke
+   Of books.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Aye, surely so I did, of books.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Well really now it puzzles me to read them.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   In earnest?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      Yes, in earnest, for my father
+   Hates cold book-learning, which makes an impression
+   With its dead letters only on the brain.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What say you?  Aye, he’s not unright in that.
+   So then the greater part of what you know—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   I know but from his mouth—of most of it
+   I could relate to you, the how, the where,
+   The why he taught it me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      So it clings closer,
+   And the whole soul drinks in th’ instruction.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Yes,
+   And Sittah certainly has not read much.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   How so?  Not that I’m vain of having read;
+   But what can be thy reason?  Speak out boldly,
+   Thy reason for it.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      She is so right down,
+   Unartificial—only like herself
+   And books do seldom leave us so; my father
+   Says.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      What a man thy father is, my Recha.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Is not he?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      How he always hits the mark.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Does not he?  And this father—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Love, what ails thee?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   This father—
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      God, thou’rt weeping
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         And this father—
+   It must have vent, my heart wants room, wants room.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Child, child, what ails you, Recha?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         And this father
+   I am to lose.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Thou lose him, O no, never:
+   Arise, be calm, how so?  It must not be.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   So shall thy offer not have been in vain,
+   To be my friend, my sister.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Maid, I am.
+   Rise then, or I must call for help.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Forgive,
+   My agony made me awhile forgetful
+   With whom I am.  Tears, sobbing, and despair,
+   Can not avail with Sittah.  Cool calm reason
+   Alone is over her omnipotent;
+   Whose cause that pleads before her, he has conquered.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Well, then!
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   My friend, my sister, suffer not
+   Another father to be forced upon me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Another father to be forced upon thee—
+   Who can do that, or wish to do it, Recha?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Who?  Why my good, my evil genius, Daya,
+   She, she can wish it, will it—and can do it.
+   You do not know this dear good evil Daya.
+   God, God forgive it her—reward her for it;
+   So much good she has done me, so much evil.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Evil to thee—much goodness she can’t have.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   O yes, she has indeed.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Who is she?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Who?
+   A Christian, who took care of all my childhood.
+   You cannot think how little she allowed me
+   To miss a mother—God reward her for it—
+   But then she has so teased, so tortured me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   And about what?  Why, how, when?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         The poor woman,
+   I tell thee, is a Christian—and she must
+   From love torment—is one of those enthusiasts
+   Who think they only know the one true road
+   To God.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I comprehend thee.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      And who feel
+   Themselves in duty bound to point it out
+   To every one who is not in this path,
+   To lead, to drag them into it.  And indeed
+   They can’t do otherwise consistently;
+   For if theirs really be the only road
+   On which ’tis safe to travel—they cannot
+   With comfort see their friends upon another
+   Which leads to ruin, to eternal ruin:
+   Else were it possible at the same instant
+   To love and hate the same man.  Nor is ’t this
+   Which forces me to be aloud complainant.
+   Her groans, her prayers, her warnings, and her threats,
+   I willingly should have abided longer—
+   Most willingly—they always called up thoughts
+   Useful and good; and whom does it not flatter
+   To be by whomsoever held so dear,
+   So precious, that they cannot bear the thought
+   Of parting with us at some time for ever?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   Most true.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      But—but—at last this goes too far;
+   I’ve nothing to oppose to it, neither patience,
+   Neither reflection—nothing.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         How, to what?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   To what she has just now, as she will have it,
+   Discovered to me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      How discovered to thee?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Yes, just this instant.  Coming hitherward
+   We past a fallen temple of the Christians—
+   She all at once stood still, seemed inly struggling,
+   Turned her moist eyes to heaven, and then on me.
+   Come, says she finally, let us to the right
+   Thro’ this old fane—she leads the way, I follow.
+   My eyes with horror overran the dim
+   And tottering ruin—all at once she stops
+   By the sunk steps of a low Moorish altar.—
+   O how I felt, when there, with streaming tears
+   And wringing hands, prostrate before my feet
+   She fell
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Good child—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         And by the holy Virgin,
+   Who there had hearkened many a prayer, and wrought
+   Many a wonder, she conjured, intreated,
+   With looks of heartfelt sympathy and love,
+   I would at length take pity of myself—
+   At least forgive, if she must now unfold
+   What claims her church had on me.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         Ah!  I guessed it.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   That I am sprung of Christian blood—baptised—
+   Not Nathan’s daughter—and he not my father.
+   God, God, he not my father!  Sittah, Sittah,
+   See me once more low at thy feet.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         O Recha,
+   Not so; arise, my brother’s coming, rise.
+
+                      SALADIN, SITTAH, _and_ RECHA.
+
+                          SALADIN (_entering_).
+
+   What is the matter, Sittah?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         She is swooned—
+   God—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Who?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         You know sure.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         What, our Nathan’s daughter?
+   What ails her?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Child, come to thyself, the sultan.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   No, I’ll not rise, not rise, not look upon
+   The Sultan’s countenance—I’ll not admire
+   The bright reflection of eternal justice
+   And mercy on his brow, and in his eye,
+   Before—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Rise, rise.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Before he shall have promised—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Come, come, I promise whatsoe’er thy prayer.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   Nor more nor less than leave my father to me,
+   And me to him.  As yet I cannot tell
+   What other wants to be my father.  Who
+   Can want it, care I not to inquire.  Does blood
+   Alone then make the father? blood alone?
+
+                         SALADIN (_raising her_).
+
+   Who was so cruel in thy breast to shed
+   This wild suspicion?  Is it proved, made clear?
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   It must, for Daya had it from my nurse,
+   Whose dying lips intrusted it to her.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Dying, perhaps delirious; if ’twere true,
+   Blood only does not make by much the father,
+   Scarcely the father of a brute, scarce gives
+   The first right to endeavour at deserving
+   The name of father.  If there be two fathers
+   At strife for thee, quit both, and take a third,
+   And take me for thy father.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Do it, do it.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   I will be a kind father—but methinks
+   A better thought occurs, what hast thou need
+   Of father upon father?  They will die,
+   So that ’tis better to look out by times
+   For one that starts fair, and stakes life with life
+   On equal terms.  Knowst thou none such?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+         My brother,
+   Don’t make her blush.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Why that was half my project.
+   Blushing so well becomes the ugly, that
+   The fair it must make charming—I have ordered
+   Thy father Nathan hither, and another,
+   Dost guess who ’tis? one other.—Sittah, you
+   Will not object?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Brother—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         And when he comes,
+   Sweet girl, then blush to crimson.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         Before whom—
+   Blush?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Little hypocrite—or else grow pale,
+   Just as thou willst and canst.  Already there?
+
+                SITTAH (_to a female slave who comes in_).
+
+   Well, be they ushered in.  Brother, ’tis they.
+
+              SALADIN, SITTAH, RECHA, NATHAN, _and_ TEMPLAR.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   Welcome, my dear good friends.  Nathan, to you
+   I’ve first to mention, you may send and fetch
+   Your monies when you will.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Sultan—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         And now
+   I’m at your service.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Sultan—
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         For my treasures
+   Are all arrived.  The caravan is safe.
+   I’m richer than I’ve been these many years.
+   Now tell me what you wish for, to achieve
+   Some splendid speculation—you in trade
+   Like us, have never too much ready cash.
+
+                     NATHAN (_going towards Recha_).
+
+   Why first about this trifle?—I behold
+   An eye in tears, which ’tis far more important
+   To me to dry.  My Recha thou hast wept,
+   What hast thou lost?  Thou art still, I trust, my daughter.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+   My father!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      That’s enough, we are understood
+   By one another; but be calm, be cheerful.
+   If else thy heart be yet thy own—if else
+   No threatened loss thy trembling bosom wring
+   Thy father shall remain to thee.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         None, none.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   None, none—then I’m deceived.  What we don’t fear
+   To lose, we never fancied, never wished
+   Ourselves possessed of.  But ’tis well, ’tis well.
+   Nathan, this changes all—all.  Saladin,
+   At thy command we came, but I misled thee,
+   Trouble thyself no further.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Always headlong;
+   Young man, must every will then bow to thine,
+   Interpret all thy meanings?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Thou hast heard,
+   Sultan, hast seen.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Aye, ’twas a little awkward
+   Not to be certain of thy cause.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         I now
+   Do know my doom,
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Pride in an act of service
+   Revokes the benefit.  What thou hast saved
+   Is therefore not thy own, or else the robber,
+   Urged by his avarice thro’ fire-crumbling halls,
+   Were like thyself a hero.  Come, sweet maid,
+
+          [_Advances toward Recha in order to lead her up to the Templar_.
+
+   Come, stickle not for niceties with him.
+   Other—he were less warm and proud, and had
+   Paused, and not saved thee.  Balance then the one
+   Against the other, and put him to the blush,
+   Do what he should have done—own thou thy love—
+   Make him thy offer, and if he refuse,
+   Or o’er forgot how infinitely more
+   By this thou do for him than he for thee—
+   What, what in fact has he then done for thee
+   But make himself a little sooty?  That
+   (Else he has nothing of my Assad in him,
+   But only wears his mask) that was mere sport,
+   Come, lovely girl.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      Go, go, my love, this step
+   Is for thy gratitude too short, too trifling.
+
+     [_They are each taking one of Recha’s hands when Nathan with a solemn
+                                             gesture of prohibition says_,
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Hold, Saladin—hold, Sittah.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Ha! thou too?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   One other has to speak.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Who denies that?
+   Unquestionably, Nathan, there belongs
+   A vote to such a foster-father—and
+   The first, if you require it.  You perceive
+   I know how all the matter lies.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Not all—
+   I speak not of myself.  There is another,
+   A very different man, whom, Saladin,
+   I must first talk with.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Who?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Her brother.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         Recha’s?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Yes, her’s.
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+      My brother—have I then a brother?
+
+             [_The templar starts from his silent and sullen inattention_.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   Where is this brother?  Not yet here?  ’Twas here
+   I was to find him.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Patience yet a while.
+
+                        TEMPLAR (_very bitterly_).
+
+   He has imposed a father on the girl,
+   He’ll find her up a brother.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      That was wanting!
+   Christian, this mean suspicion ne’er had past
+   The lips of Assad.  Go but on—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         Forgive him,
+   I can forgive him readily.  Who knows
+   What in his place, and at his time of life,
+   We might have thought ourselves?  Suspicion, knight,
+
+                          [_Approaching the templar in a friendly manner_.
+
+   Succeeds soon to mistrust.  Had you at first
+   Favoured me with your real name.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         How? what?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   You are no Stauffen.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Who then am I?  Speak.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Conrade of Stauffen is no name of yours.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   What is my name then?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Guy of Filnek.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      How?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   You startle—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      And with reason.  Who says that?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   I, who can tell you more.  Meanwhile, observe
+   I do not tax you with a falsehood.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      No?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   May be you with propriety can wear
+   Yon name as well.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I think so too.  (God—God
+   Put that speech on his tongue.)
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      In fact your mother—
+   She was a Stauffen: and her brother’s name,
+   (The uncle to whose care you were resigned,
+   When by the rigour of the climate chased,
+   Your parents quitted Germany to seek
+   This land once more) was Conrade.  He perhaps
+   Adopted you as his own son and heir.
+   Is it long since you hither travelled with him?
+   Is he alive yet?
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      So in fact it stands.
+   What shall I say?  Yes, Nathan, ’tis all right:
+   Tho’ he himself is dead.  I came to Syria
+   With the last reinforcement of our order,
+   But—but what has all this long tale to do
+   With Recha’s brother, whom—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      Your father—
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Him,
+   Him did you know?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   He was my friend.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+         Your friend?
+   And is that possible?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      He called himself
+   Leonard of Filnek, but he was no German.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   You know that too?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      He had espoused a German,
+   And followed for a time your mother thither.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   No more I beg of you—But Recha’s brother—
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Art thou
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      I, I her brother—
+
+                                  RECHA.
+
+         He, my brother?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   So near akin—
+
+                      RECHA (_offers to clasp him_).
+
+      My brother!
+
+                         TEMPLAR (_steps back_).
+
+         Brother to her—
+
+                       RECHA (_turning to Nathan_).
+
+   It cannot be, his heart knows nothing of it.
+   We are deceivers, God.
+
+                       SALADIN (_to the templar_).
+
+      Deceivers, yes;
+   All is deceit in thee, face, voice, walk, gesture,
+   Nothing belongs to thee.  How, not acknowledge
+   A sister such as she?  Go.
+
+                  TEMPLAR (_modestly approaching him_).
+
+      Sultan, Sultan
+   O do not misinterpret my amazement—
+   Thou never saw’st in such a moment, prince,
+   Thy Assad’s heart—mistake not him and me.
+
+                                              [_Hastening towards Nathan_.
+
+   O Nathan, you have taken, you have given,
+   Both with full hands indeed; and now—yes—yes,
+   You give me more than you have taken from me,
+   Yes, infinitely more—my sister—sister.
+
+                                                        [_Embraces Recha_.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Blanda of Filnek.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+      Blanda, ha! not Recha,
+   Your Recha now no longer—you resign her,
+   Give her her Christian name again, and then
+   For my sake turn her off.  Why Nathan, Nathan,
+   Why must she suffer for it? she for me?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   What mean you?  O my children, both my children—
+   For sure my daughter’s brother is my child,
+   So soon as he but will it!
+
+    [_While they embrace Nathan by turns_, _Saladin draws nigh to Sittah_.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      What sayst thou
+   Sittah to this?
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I’m deeply moved.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+         And I
+   Half tremble at the thought of the emotion
+   Still greater, still to come.  Nathan, a word
+
+   [_While he converses with Nathan_, _Sittah goes to express her sympathy
+                                                           to the others_.
+
+   With thee apart.  Wast thou not saying also
+   That her own father was no German born?
+   What was he then?  Whence was he?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+         He himself
+   Never intrusted me with that.  From him
+   I knew it not.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   You say he was no Frank?
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   No, that he owned: he loved to talk the Persian.
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+   The Persian—need I more?  ’Tis he—’twas he!
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   Who?
+
+                                 SALADIN.
+
+      Assad certainly, my brother Assad.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+   If thou thyself perceive it, be assured;
+   Look in this book—
+
+                                                    [_Gives the breviary_.
+
+                       SALADIN (_eagerly looking_.)
+
+      O ’tis his hand, his hand,
+   I recollect it well.
+
+                                 NATHAN.
+
+      They know it not;
+   It rests with thee what they shall learn of this.
+
+                  SALADIN (_turning over the breviary_.)
+
+   I not acknowledge my own brother’s children,
+   Not own my nephew—not my children—I
+   Leave them to thee?  Yes, Sittah, it is they,
+
+                                                                 [_Aloud_.
+
+   They are my brother’s and thy brother’s children.
+
+                                                [_Rushes to embrace them_.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+   What do I hear?  Could it be otherwise?
+
+                                                              [_The like_.
+
+                       SALADIN (_to the templar_).
+
+   Now, proud boy, thou shalt love me, thou must love me,
+
+                                                              [_To Recha_.
+
+   And I am, what I offered to become,
+   With or without thy leave.
+
+                                 SITTAH.
+
+      I too—I too.
+
+                       SALADIN (_to the templar_.)
+
+   My son—my Assad—my lost Assad’s son.
+
+                                 TEMPLAR.
+
+   I of thy blood—then those were more than dreams
+   With which they used to lull my infancy—
+   Much more.
+
+                                            [_Falls at the Sultan’s feet_.
+
+                         SALADIN (_raising him_.)
+
+      Now mark his malice.  Something of it
+   He knew, yet would have let me butcher him—
+   Boy, boy!
+
+        [_During the silent continuance of reciprocal embraces the curtain
+                                                                   falls_.
+
+
+
+
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