Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts
TextINTRODUCTION
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.
“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.