Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts

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.