Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

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.