Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts

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.