Nathan The Wise
“Introite, nam et heic Dii sunt.”
Apud Gellium.
Act I Scene I — A Hall in Nathan’s House
Nathan, returning from a journey; Daja, meeting him.
Daja
’Tis he! ’Tis Nathan! endless thanks to Heaven
That you at last are happily returned.
Nathan
Yes, Daja! thanks to Heaven! But why at last?
Was it my purpose—was it in my power
To come back sooner? Babylon from here,
As I was forced to take my devious way,
Is a long journey of two hundred leagues;
And gathering in one’s debts is not—at best,
A task that expedites a traveller’s steps.
Daja
O Nathan! what a dire calamity
Had, in your absence, nigh befallen us!
Your house——
Nathan
Took fire. I have already heard.
God grant I may have learnt the whole that chanced!
Daja
Chance saved it, or it had been burnt to ashes.
Nathan
Then, Daja! we had built another house,
And a far better——
Daja
True—ay, true! but Recha
Was on the point of perishing amid
The flames——
Nathan
Of perishing? Who saidst thou? Recha?
I had not heard of that. I should not then
Have needed any house. What! on the point
Of perishing? Nay, nay; perchance she’s dead—
Is burnt alive. Speak, speak the dreadful truth.
Kill me, but do not agonize me thus.
Tell me at once she’s dead.
Daja
And if she were
Could you expect to hear it from these lips?
Nathan
Why then alarm me? Recha! O my Recha!
Daja
Your Recha? Yours?
Nathan
And can it ever be
That I shall cease to call this child my own?
Daja
Is all you have yours by an equal title?
Nathan
Nought by a better. What I else enjoy
Are Fortune’s gifts, or Nature’s. This alone—
This treasure do I owe to virtue.
Daja
Nathan!
How dearly must I pay for all your goodness!
If goodness practised for an end like yours
Deserves the name.
Nathan
An end like mine! What mean you?
Daja
My conscience——
Nathan
Daja, let me tell you first——
Daja
I say my conscience——
Nathan
Oh, the gorgeous robe
That I have bought for you in Babylon!
Costly it is and rare. For Recha’s self
I have not bought a richer.
Daja
What of that?
My conscience can be silent now no more.
Nathan
I long to witness your delight, to see
The bracelets, earrings, and the golden chain
Which I selected at Damascus for you.
Daja
’Tis always so, you surfeit me with gifts.
Nathan
Accept them freely, as they are bestowed,
And silence!
Daja
Silence! Yes. But who can doubt
That you are generosity itself?
And yet——
Nathan
I’m but a Jew! Daja, confess
That I have guessed your thought.
Daja
You know my thoughts
Far better.
Nathan
Well, be silent!
Daja
I am dumb.
And henceforth all the evil that may spring
From this, which I cannot avert, nor change,
Fall on your head.
Nathan
Let it all fall on me!
But where is Recha? What detains her thus?
Are you deceiving me? Can she have heard
That I am here?
Daja
Yourself must answer that.
Terror still palpitates through every nerve,
And fancy mingles fire with all her thoughts.
In sleep her soul’s awake; but when awake,
Is wrapt in slumber. Less than mortal now,
And now far more than angel, she appears.
Nathan
Poor child! how frail a thing is human nature!
Daja
She lay this morning with her eyelids closed—
One would have thought her dead—when suddenly
She started from her couch, and cried, “Hark, hark!
Here come my father’s camels, and I hear
His own sweet voice again!” With that, her eyes
Once more she opened, and her arms’ support
Withdrawn, her head droop’d softly on her pillow.
Quickly I hastened forth, and now behold,
I find you here. But marvel not at this.
Has not her every thought been long engrossed
With dreams of you and him?
Nathan
Of him! What him?
Daja
Of him who from the flames preserved her life.
Nathan
And who was he? Where is he? Name the man
Who saved my Recha?
Daja
A young Templar he!
Brought hither captive lately, and restored
To freedom by the Sultan.
Nathan
How? A Templar?
A captive, too, and pardoned by the Sultan?
Could not my Recha’s life have been preserved
By some less wondrous miracle? O God!
Daja
But for this stranger’s help, who risked afresh
The life so unexpectedly restored,
Recha had surely perished.
Nathan
Where is he?
Where is this noble youth? Where is he, Daja?
Oh, lead me to his feet! But you already
Have surely lavished on him all the wealth
That I had left behind; have given him all—
And promised more, much more.
Daja
How could we, Nathan?
Nathan
Why not?
Daja
He came we know not whence, he went
We know not whither. To the house a stranger,
And guided by his ear alone, he rushed
With fearless daring through the smoke and flame,
His mantle spread before him, till he reached
The spot whence issued piercing screams for help.
We thought him lost; when, bursting through the fire,
He stood before us, bearing in his arms
Her almost lifeless form. Unmoved and cold,
Deaf to our cries of thanks, he left his prize,
Passed through the wondering crowd, and disappeared.
Nathan
But not for ever, Daja, I would hope.
Daja
For some days after, ’neath yon spreading palms,
Which wave above our blest Redeemer’s grave,
We saw him pacing thoughtful to and fro.
With transport I approached to speak my thanks.
I pleaded, begged, entreated that for once,
Once only, he would see the grateful maid,
Who longed to shed at her preserver’s feet
Her tears of gratitude.
Nathan
Well?
Daja
All in vain!
Deaf to my warmest prayers, he poured on me
Such bitter taunts——
Nathan
That you withdrew dismayed.
Daja
Far otherwise. I sought to meet him daily,
And daily heard his harsh insulting words.
Much have I borne, and would have borne still more;
But lately he has ceased his lonely walk
Beneath the spreading palms that shade the grave
Of Him who rose from death; and no man knows
Where he may now be found. You seem surprised.
Nathan
I was considering how such a scene
Must work upon a mind like Recha’s. Scorned
By one whom she can never cease to prize;
Repelled by one who still attracts her to him.
Her head and heart at strife! And long, full long
The contest may endure, without the power
To say if anger or regret shall triumph.
Should neither prove the victor, Fancy then
May mingle in the fray, and turn her brain.
Then Passion will assume fair Reason’s garb,
And Reason act like Passion. Fatal change!
Such, doubtless, if I know my Recha well,
Must be her fate; her mind is now unhinged.
Daja
But her illusions are so sweet and holy.
Nathan
But yet she raves!
Daja
The thought she clings to most,
Is that the Templar was no earthly form,
But her blest guardian angel, such as she
From childhood fancied hovering o’er her path;
Who from his veiling cloud, amid the fire
Rushed to her aid in her preserver’s form.
You smile incredulous. Who knows the truth?
Permit her to indulge the fond deceit,
Which Christian, Jew, and Mussulman alike
Agree to own. The illusion is so sweet!
Nathan
I love it too. But go, good Daja! go,
See what she does—if I can speak with her.
This guardian angel, wilful and untamed,
I’ll then seek out—and if he still is pleased
To sojourn here a while with us—or still
Is pleased to play the knight so boorishly,
I’ll doubtless find him out and bring him here.
Daja
You are too daring, Nathan.
Nathan
Trust me, Daja!
If fond delusion yield to sweeter truth—
For human beings ever to their kind
Are dearer after all than angels are—
You will not censure me, when you perceive
Our lov’d enthusiast’s mind again restored.
Daja
You are so good, and so discerning, Nathan!
But see, behold! Yes, here she comes herself.
Scene II
Recha, Nathan, and Daja.
Recha
And is it you! your very self, my father?
I thought you had but sent your voice before you,
Where are you lingering still? What mountains, streams,
Or deserts now divide us? Here we are Once more together, face to face, and yet
You do not hasten to embrace your Recha!
Poor Recha! she was almost burnt alive!
Yet she escaped——But do not, do not shudder.
It were a dreadful death to die by fire!
Nathan
My child! my darling child!
Recha
Your journey lay
Across the Tigris, Jordan, and Euphrates,
And many other rivers. ’Till that fire
I trembled for your safety, but since then
Methinks it were a blessed, happy thing
To die by water. But you are not drowned,
Nor am I burnt alive. We will rejoice,
And thank our God, who bore you on the wings
Of unseen angels o’er the treacherous streams,
And bade my angel bear me visibly
On his white pinion through the raging flames.
Nathan (Aside)
On his white pinion! Ha! I see; she means
The broad white fluttering mantle of the Templar.
Recha
Yes, visibly he bore me through the flames,
O’ershadowed by his wings. Thus, face to face,
I have beheld an angel—my own angel.
Nathan
Recha were worthy of so blest a sight.
And would not see in him a fairer form
Than he would see in her.
Recha (Smiling)
Whom would you flatter—
The angel, dearest father, or yourself?
Nathan
And yet methinks, dear Recha, if a man—
Just such a man as Nature daily fashions—
Had rendered you this service, he had been
A very angel to you.
Recha
But he was
No angel of that stamp, but true and real.
And have I not full often heard you say
’Tis possible that angels may exist?
And how God still works miracles for those
Who love Him? And I love Him dearly, father.
Nathan
And He loves you; and ’tis for such as you
That He from all eternity has wrought
Such ceaseless wonders daily.
Recha
How I love
To hear you thus discourse!
Nathan
Well, though it sound
A thing but natural and common-place
That you should by a Templar have been saved,
Is it the less a miracle for that?
The greatest of all miracles seems this:
That real wonders, genuine miracles,
Can seem and grow so commonplace to us.
Without this universal miracle,
Those others would scarce strike a thinking man,
Awaking wonder but in children’s minds,
Who love to stare at strange, unusual things,
And hunt for novelty.
Daja
Why will you thus
With airy subtleties perplex her mind,
Already overheated?
Nathan
Silence, Daja!
And was it then no miracle that Recha
Should be indebted for her life to one
Whom no small miracle preserved himself?
Who ever heard before, that Saladin
Pardoned a Templar? that a Templar asked it—
Hoped it—or for his ransom offered more
Than his own sword—belt, or at most his dagger?
Recha
That argues for me, father! All this proves
That my preserver was no Templar knight,
But only seemed so. If no captive Templar
Has e’er come hither but to meet his death,
And through Jerus’lem cannot wander free,
How could I find one, in the night, to save me?
Nathan
Ingenious, truly! Daja, you must speak.
Doubtless, you know still more about this knight;
For ’twas from you I learnt he was a prisoner.
Daja
’Tis but report indeed, but it is said
That Saladin gave freedom to the knight,
Moved by the likeness which his features bore
To a lost brother whom he dearly loved,
Though since his disappearance twenty years
Have now elapsed. He fell I know not where,
And e’en his very name’s a mystery.
But the whole tale sounds so incredible,
It may be mere invention, pure romance.
Nathan
And why incredible? Would you reject
This story, Daja, as so oft is done,
To fix on something more incredible,
And credit that? Why should not Saladin,
To whom his race are all so dear, have loved
In early youth a brother now no more?
Since when have features ceased to be alike?
Is an impression lost because ’tis old?
Will the same cause not work a like effect?
What, then, is so incredible? My Daja,
This can to you be no great miracle;
Or does a wonder only claim belief
When it proceeds from you?
Daja
You mock me, Nathan!
Nathan
Nay, ’tis the very tone you use yourself.
And yet, dear Recha, your escape from death
Remains no less a miracle
Of Him who turns the proud resolves of kings
To mockery, or guides them to their end
By the most slender threads.
Recha
O father, father!
My error is not wilful, if I err.
Nathan
No, I have ever found you glad to learn.
See, then, a forehead vaulted thus or thus,
A nose of such a shape, and brows that shade
The eye with straighter or with sharper curve,
A spot, a mole, a wrinkle, or a line—
A nothing—in an European’s face,
And you are saved in Asia from the flames!
Is that no wonder, wonder-seeking folk?
What need to summon angels to your aid?
Daja
But, Nathan, where’s the harm,—if I may speak—
In thinking one was rescued by an angel
Rather than by a man? Are we not brought
Thus nearer to the first mysterious cause
Of our life’s preservation?
Nathan
Pride, rank pride!
The iron pot would with a silver tongs
Be lifted from the furnace, to believe
Itself a silver vase! Well! where’s the harm?
And “where’s the good?” I well may ask in turn.
Your phrase, “It brings you nearer to the first
Mysterious cause!” is nonsense—if ’tis not
Rank blasphemy:—it works a certain harm.
Attend to me. To him who saved your life,
Whether he be an angel or a man,
You both—and you especially—should pay
Substantial services in just return.
Is not this true? Now, what great services
Have you the power to render to an angel!
To sing his praise—to pour forth sighs and prayers—
Dissolve in transports of devotion o’er him—
Fast on his vigil, and distribute alms?
Mere nothings! for ’tis clear your neighbour gains
Far more than he by all this piety.
Not by your abstinence will he grow fat,
Nor by your alms will he be rendered rich;
Nor by your transports is his glory raised,
Nor by your faith in him his power increased.
Say, is not all this true? But to a man——
Daja
No doubt a man had furnished us with more
Occasions to be useful to himself;
God knows how willingly we had seized them!
But he who saved her life demanded nought;
He needed nothing—in himself complete
And self—sufficient—as the angels are;
Recha
And when at last he vanished——
Nathan
How was that?
Did he then vanish? ’Neath yon spreading palms
Has he not since been seen? Or have you sought
Elsewhere to find him?
Daja
No, in truth we’ve not.
Nathan
Not sought him, Daja? Cold enthusiasts!
See now the harm: suppose your angel stretched
Upon a bed of sickness!
Daja
Sickness, what!
Recha
A chill creeps over me. I shudder, Daja!
My forehead, which till now was warm, becomes
As cold as very ice; come, feel it, Daja.
Nathan
He is a Frank, unused to this hot clime,
Young and unpractised in his order’s rules,
In fastings and in watchings quite untrained.
Recha
Sick! sick!
Daja
Your father means ’twere possible.
Nathan
Friendless and penniless, he may be lying
Without the means to purchase aid.
Recha
Alas!
Nathan
Without advice, or hope, or sympathy,
May lie a prey to agony and death.
Recha
Where, where?
Nathan
And yet for one he never knew—
Enough for him it was a human being—
He plunged amid the flames and——
Daja
Spare her, Nathan!
Nathan
He sought no more to know the being whom
He rescued thus—he shunned her very thanks——
Recha
Oh, spare her!
Nathan
Did not wish to see her more,
Unless to save her for the second time—
Enough for him that she was human!
Daja
Hold!
Nathan
He may have nothing to console him dying,
Save the remembrance of his deed.
Daja
You kill her!
Nathan
And you kill him, or might have done at least.
’Tis med’cine that I give, not poison, Recha!
But be of better cheer: he lives—perhaps
He is not ill.
Recha
Indeed? not dead—not ill?
Nathan
Assuredly not dead—for God rewards
Good deeds done here below—rewards them hero.
Then go, but ne’er forget how easier far
Devout enthusiasm is, than good deeds.
How soon our indolence contents itself
With pious raptures, ignorant, perhaps,
Of their ulterior end, that we may be
Exempted from the toil of doing good.
Recha
O father! leave your child no more alone.—
But may he not have only gone a journey?
Nathan
Perhaps. But who is yonder Mussulman,
Numbering with curious eye my laden camels?
Say, do you know him?
Daja
Surely your own Dervise.
Nathan
Who?
Daja
Your Dervise—your old chess companion.
Nathan
Al-Hafi do you mean? What!—that Al-Hafi?
Daja
No other: now the Sultan’s treasurer.
Nathan
What, old Al-Hafi? Do you dream again?
And yet ’tis he himself—he’s coming hither.
Quick, in with you! What am I now to hear?
Scene III
Nathan and the Dervise.
Dervise
Ay, lift your eyes and wonder.
Nathan
Is it you?
A Dervise so magnificent!
Dervise
Why not?
Can you make nothing of a Dervise, Nathan?
Nathan
Ay, surely, but I’ve still been wont to think
A Dervise—I would say a thorough Dervise—
Will ne’er let anything be made of him.
Dervise
Well, by the Prophet! though it may be true
That I’m no thorough Dervise, yet one must——
Nathan
Must, Hafi! You a Dervise! No man must——
And least of all a Dervise.
Dervise
Nay, he must,
When he is much implored and deems it right.
Nathan
Well spoken, Hafi! Let us now embrace.
You’re still, I trust, my friend.
Dervise
Why not ask first
What has been made of me?
Nathan
I take my chance,
In spite of all that has been made of you.
Dervise
May I not be a servant of the state
Whose friendship is no longer good for you?
Nathan
If you but still possess your Dervise heart
I’ll run the risk of that. The stately robe
Is but your cloak.
Dervise
And yet it claims some honour.
But, tell me truly, at a court of yours
What had been Hafi’s rank?
Nathan
A Dervise only—
Or, if aught else—perhaps my cook.
Dervise
Why yes!
That I might thus unlearn my native trade,
Your cook! why not your butler? But the Sultan—
He knows me better—I’m his treasurer.
Nathan
What, you?—his treasurer?
Dervise
Mistake me not,
I only bear his lesser purse; his father
Still manages the greater, and I am
The treasurer of his house.
Nathan
His house is large!
Dervise
Far larger than you think—all needy men
Are of his house.
Nathan
Yet Saladin is such
A foe to beggars!
Dervise
That he’d root them out,
Though he turned beggar in the enterprise.
Nathan
Bravo! I meant as much.
Dervise
He’s one already.
His treasury at sunset every day
Is worse than empty; and although the tide
Flowed high at morn, ’tis ebb before the noon.
Nathan
Because it flows through channels such as we
Can neither stop nor fill.
Dervise
You hit the truth.
Nathan
I know it well.
Dervise
Ah! ’tis an evil case
When kings are vultures amid carcases,
But ten times worse when they’re the carcases
Amid the vultures.
Nathan
Dervise, ’tis not so.
Dervise
Is that your thought? But, come, what will you give
If I resign my office in your favour?
Nathan
What are your profits?
Dervise
Mine? not much; but you
Would soon grow rich; for when, as oft occurs,
The Sultan’s treasury is at an ebb,
You might unlock your sluices, pour in gold,
And take in form of interest what you please.
Nathan
And interest on the interest of the interest.
Dervise
Of course.
Nathan
Until my capital becomes
All interest.
Dervise
Well! is not the offer tempting?
Farewell for ever to our friendship then,
For I had counted on you.
Nathan
How so, Hafi?
Dervise
I thought you would have helped me to discharge
My task with credit; that I should have found
Your treasury ready. Ha! you shake your head.
Nathan
Let us explain. We must distinguish here.
To you, Dervise Al-Hafi, all I have
Is welcome; but to you, the Defterdar
Of Saladin—to that Al-Hafi, who——
Dervise
I guessed as much. You ever are as good
As you are wise and prudent. Only wait.
The two Al-Hafis you distinguish thus
Will soon be parted. See, this robe of honour,
Which Saladin bestowed, before ’tis worn
To rags, and suited to a Dervise back,
Will in Jerusalem hang from a nail;
Whilst I, upon the Ganges’ scorching strand,
Barefoot amid my teachers will be found.
Nathan
That’s like yourself!
Dervise
Or playing chess with them.
Nathan
Your greatest bliss!
Dervise
What do you think seduced me?
Hopes of escaping future penury,
The pride of acting the rich man to beggars,
Would this have metamorphosed all at once
The richest beggar to a poor rich man?
Nathan
No.
Dervise
But I yielded to a sillier whim.
For the first time I felt myself allured
By Saladin’s kind-hearted, flattering words.
Nathan
And what were they?
Dervise
He said a beggar’s wants
Are known but to the poor alone; that they
Alone can tell how want should be relieved.
“Thy predecessor was too cold,” he said,
“Too harsh, and when he gave, ’twas with a frown.
He searched each case too strictly, not content
To find out want, he would explore the cause,
And thus he measured out his niggard alms.
Not so wilt thou bestow, and Saladin
Will not appear so harshly kind in thee.
Thou art not like that choked-up conduit-pipe,
Whence in unequal streams the water flows,
Which it receives in pure and copious stores.
Al-Hafi thinks, Al-Hafi feels like me.”
The fowler whistled, and at last the quail
Ran to his net. Cheated, and by a cheat?
Nathan
Hush, Dervise, hush!
Dervise
What! is it not a cheat
To grind mankind by hundred thousands thus!
Oppress them, plunder, butcher, and torment,
And singly play the philanthropic part?
Not cheating, to pretend to imitate
That heavenly bounty, which in even course
Descends alike on desert and on plain,
On good and bad, in sunshine and in shower,
And not possess the never empty hand
Of the Most High! Not cheating——
Nathan
Dervise, cease!
Dervise
Nay, let me speak of cheating of my own,
How now? Were it not cheating to seek out
The bright side of impostures such as these,
That under colour of this brighter side
I might take part in them? What say you now?
Nathan
Fly to your desert quickly. Amongst men
I fear you’ll soon unlearn to be a man.
Dervise
I fear so too. Farewell!
Nathan
What, so abrupt?
Stay, stay, Al-Hafi! Has the desert wings?
It will not fly away. Here, stay, Al-Hafi!
He’s gone; he’s gone. I would that I had asked
About that Templar; he must know the man.
Scene IV
Daja (rushing in), Nathan.
Daja
O Nathan, Nathan!
Nathan
Well! what now?
Daja
He’s there.
He shows himself once more.
Nathan
Who, Daja—who?
Daja
He—he!
Nathan
Where cannot he be found? But he
You mean, is, I suppose, the only He.
That should not be, were he an angel’s self.
Daja
Beneath the palms he wanders up and down,
And gathers dates.
Nathan
And eats them, I suppose,
Just as a Templar would.
Daja
You mock me, sir!
Her eager eye espied him long ago,
When scarcely seen amid the distant trees.
She watches him intently, and implores
That you will go to him without delay.
Then go, and from the window she will mark
Which way his paces tend. Go, go; make haste!
Nathan
What! thus, as I alighted from my camel?
Would that be seemly? But do you accost him;
Tell him of my return. I do not doubt
You’ll find the honest man forbore our house
Because the host was absent. He’ll accept
A father’s invitation. Say I ask him,
I heartily request him.
Daja
All in vain!
In short, he will not visit any Jew.
Nathan
Then use your best endeavours to detain him,
Or, with unerring eye, observe his steps,
And mark him well. Go, I shall not be long.
(Nathan enters the house. Daja retires.)
Scene V
A Place of Palms. The Templar, walking to and fro; a Friar, following him at some distance, as if desirous of addressing him.
Templar
It cannot be for pastime that this man
Follows me thus. See how he eyes my hands!
Good brother—or, perhaps I should say, father!
Friar
No, brother; a lay brother, at your service.
Templar
Well, brother, then, if I had anything—
But truly I have nothing——
Friar
Thanks the same!
God will reward your purpose thousandfold.
The will and not the deed perfects the giver.
Nor was I sent to follow you for alms.
Templar
Sent?
Friar
From the convent.
Templar
Where I even now
Was hoping to partake a pilgrim’s fare.
Friar
’Tis meal—time now, the tables all are full;
But if it please you, we will turn together.
Templar
No matter, though I have not tasted meat
For many days; these dates, you see, are ripe.
Friar
Be sparing of that fruit, sir, for too much
Is hurtful, sours the blood, and makes one sad.
Templar
And what if sadness suits me? Though, methinks,
’Twas not to give this warning that you came.
Friar
Oh, no! my mission was to question you—
To feel your pulse a little.
Templar
And you tell
This tale yourself?
Friar
Why not?
Templar
An artful soul! (aside).
And has the convent many more like you?
Friar
I know not. Mere obedience is my duty.
Templar
And you obey without much questioning.
Friar
Could it be rightly termed obedience else?
Templar
The simple mind is ever in the right.—(aside).
But will you not inform me who it is That wishes to know more of me? Not you,
I dare be sworn.
Friar
Would such a wish become
Or profit me?
Templar
Whom would it then become
Or profit to be thus inquisitive?
Friar
Perhaps the Patriarch—’twas he that sent.
Templar
The Patriarch? and does he know my badge
So ill?—The red cross on the snow-white robe.
Friar
Why? I know that.
Templar
Well, brother, hear me out.
I am a Templar—and a prisoner now.
Made captive with some others at Tebnin,
Whose fortress we had almost ta’en by storm
Just as the truce expired. Our hopes had been
To threaten Sidon next. Of twenty knights
Made prisoners there together, I alone
Was pardoned by command of Saladin.
The Patriarch now knows what he requires,
And more than he requires.
Friar
And yet no more
Than he had learned already. He would ask
Why you, of all the captives doomed to die,
Alone were spared?
Templar
Can I myself tell that?
Already with bare neck I had knelt down
Upon my mantle, to await the stroke,
When Saladin with steadfast eye surveys me.
Nearer he draws—he makes a sign—they raise me—
I am unbound—I would express my thanks—
I mark the tear-drop glisten in his eye—
We both stand mute—he turns and leaves the spot—
I stay. And now, how all this hangs together,
The Patriarch must explain.
Friar
The Patriarch thinks
That Heaven preserved you for some mighty deed.
Templar
Some mighty deed? To rescue from the flames
A Jewish maid! To lead to Sinai’s mount
Bands of inquiring pilgrims—and the like!
Friar
The time may come for more important tasks:
Perhaps the Patriarch has already planned
Some mighty business for you.
Templar
Think you so?
Has he already given you a hint?
Friar
Yes—but my task is first to sift a little,
To see if you are one to undertake——
Templar
Well—sift away? (We’ll see how this man sifts).
Friar
The better course will be to name at once
What is the Patriarch’s desire.
Templar
It is——?
Friar
To make you bearer of a letter.
Templar
Me?
I am no carrier. Is that the office
More meritorious than to save from death
A Jewish maid?
Friar
So, truly, it would seem.
The Patriarch says that this little note
Involves the general weal of Christendom,
And that to bear it to its destined hand,
Safely, will merit a peculiar crown
From Heaven—and of that crown, the Patriarch
Says none can worthier be than you.
Templar
Than I!
Friar
You have your liberty—can look around;
You understand how cities may be stormed,
And how defended, says the Patriarch;
You know the strength and weakness of the towers,
And of the inner rampart lately reared
By Saladin, and you could point out all
To the Lord’s champions fully.
Templar
May I know
Exactly the contents of this same letter?
Friar
Of that I am not quite informed myself.
’Tis to King Philip; and our Patriarch—
I often wonder how that holy man,
Whose every thought would seem absorbed by Heaven,
Can stoop to earthly things, and how his mind
Can be so deeply skilled in human lore——
Templar
Well, then, your Patriarch——
Friar
Exactly knows
From secret sources, how, and with what force,
And in what quarter, should the war break out,
The foe and Saladin will take the field.
Templar
Knows he so much?
Friar
Ay, truly! and he longs
To send the urgent tidings to King Philip,
That he may better calculate if now
The danger be so great, as to demand
At every hazard that he should renew
The truce so boldly broken by the Templars.
Templar
The noble Patriarch! He seeks in me
No common herald, but the meanest spy.
Therefore, good brother, tell your Patriarch,
That I am not—as far as you can sift—
The man to suit his ends. I hold myself
A captive still. I know a Templar’s duty:
Ready to die, not live to play the spy.
Friar
I thought as much. Nor can I censure you
For your resolve. The best has still to come.
Our Patriarch has learnt the very fort,
Its name, its strength, its site on Lebanon,
Wherein those countless treasures are concealed,
Wherewith the Sultan’s prudent father pays
His troops, and all the heavy costs of war.
He knows that Saladin, from time to time,
Visits this fortress, by some secret way,
With but a few attendants.
Templar
Well! what then?
Friar
’Twould be an easy task, methinks, to seize
The Sultan thus defenceless—and to end him.
You shudder, knight! Two monks who fear the Lord,
Are ready now to undertake the task,
And wait a leader.
Templar
And the Patriarch
Has pitched on me to do this noble deed?
Friar
He thinks King Philip might from Ptolemais
Give aid in the design.
Templar
Has pitched on me!
On me!—Say, brother, have you never heard
The boundless debt I owe to Saladin?
Friar
Truly I have.
Templar
And yet——
Friar
The Patriarch
Says that is very well; but yet your order,
And vows to God——
Templar
Change nothing; they command
No villainy.
Friar
No. But the Patriarch
Says what seems villainy to human eyes,
May not appear so in the sight of God.
Templar
Brother, I owe my life to Saladin,
And his shall my hand take?
Friar
Oh, no!—But yet
The Patriarch maintains that Saladin,
Who is the common foe of Christendom,
Can never have a claim to be your friend.
Templar
My friend? forsooth! because I will not be
A thankless wretch to him!
Friar
’Tis so!—But yet
The Patriarch thinks gratitude is not
Before the eyes of God or man, a debt,
Unless, for our own sakes, some benefit
Has been conferred; and, says the Patriarch,
It is affirmed the Sultan spared your life
Merely because your voice, your look, your air,
Awoke a recollection of his brother——
Templar
He knows all this, and yet?——Ah, were it true!
And, Saladin, could Nature form in me
A single feature in thy brother’s likeness,
With nothing in my soul to answer it?
Or what does correspond, shall I belie
To please a Patriarch? No, surely Nature
Could never lie so basely! Nor, kind God,
Couldst thou so contradict Thyself! Go, brother,
And do not rouse my anger.
Friar
I withdraw
More gladly than I came. And, pardon me:
A monk’s first duty, sir, is to obey.
Scene VI — The Templar and Daja
(She has been watching him from afar and now approaches.)
Daja
Methinks the monk left him in no good mood,
But, spite of that, I must my errand risk.
Templar
This hits exactly. As the proverb goes,
Women and monks are ever Satan’s tools,
And I to-day am subject to them both.
Daja
Whom do I see? Thank God, our noble knight.
Where have you been so long? Not ill, I hope?
Templar
No.
Daja
In good health?
Templar
Yes.
Daja
We have all been grieved
Lest something should have ailed you. Have you been
Upon a journey?
Templar
Fairly guessed.
Daja
Since when
Have you returned to us?
Templar
Since yesterday.
Daja
Our Recha’s father, too, is just returned,
And now may Recha hope at last.
Templar
For what?
Daja
For what she has so often asked in vain.
Her father pressingly invites you too.
He lately has arrived from Babylon
With twenty camels, bearing precious stones,
And stuffs and fragrant spices, which he sought
In India, Persia, Syria, and China.
Templar
I am no merchant.
Daja
He is much esteemed
By all his nation—honoured as a prince—
And yet to hear how he is named by all
Nathan the Wise, and not the Rich, seems strange.
It often makes me wonder.
Templar
But to them
It may be, wise and rich—both mean the same.
Daja
It seems to me he should be called the Good,
So rich a store of goodness dwells in him.
Since he has learned the weighty debt he owes
For service done to Recha there is nought
He would withhold from you.
Templar
Well?
Daja
Try him, sir!
Templar
What then? A moment passes soon away.
Daja
I had not dwelt with him so many years
Were he less kind. I know a Christian’s worth,
And it was never o’er my cradle sung
That I to Palestine should wend my way,
Following a husband’s steps, to educate
A Jewish maid. My husband was a page,
A noble page, in Emperor Frederick’s court——
Templar
By birth a Swiss, who earned the sorry fame
Of drowning in one river with his lord.
Woman! how often have you told this tale?
When will you cease to persecute me thus?
Daja
To persecute you!
Templar
Ay, to persecute!
Now mark me. I will never see you more,
Hear you, nor be reminded of a deed
Performed at random. When I think of it,
I wonder somewhat, though I ne’er repent.
But hear me still. Should such a fatal chance
Again occur, you have yourself to blame
If I proceed more calmly, question first.
And let what’s burning, burn.
Daja
Great God forbid!
Templar
And now I have a favour to implore.
Know me henceforth no more. Grant me this grace,
And save me from her father; for with me
A Jew’s a Jew; a Swabian blunt am I.
The image of the maid is now erased
Out of my soul—if it was ever there.
Daja
But yours remains with her.
Templar
Well, and what then?
Daja
Who knows? Men are not always what they seem.
Templar
They’re seldom better. (Going.)
Daja
Stay a little while.
What need of haste?
Templar
Woman! forbear to make
These palm—trees odious: I have loved their shade.
Daja
Then go, thou German bear! Yet I must follow him.
(She follow him at a distance.)