From Lessing’s “Nathan der Weise”6
[Since Plato, no writer has understood better than Lessing the dramatic conduct of a philosophic dialogue. The following colloquy is a beautiful example of his art and of his thought.
Nathan is a Jew, famed for his wealth and for his wisdom, living in Jerusalem at the time of the Third Crusade. In the following scene he has just been summoned to the presence of the Sultan Saladin. He supposes that a loan of money is the Sultan’s object. Instead of this, he finds that it is his reputed wisdom which has gained him the interview. Nathan is a man who cannot have taken his beliefs in spiritual things without examination; here, then, says Saladin, are three faiths contending for mastery, the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahommedan. Each claims to be the true and only true religion. The claim cannot be true of more than one of them. Which of them, in his inmost soul, does Nathan hold to be justified? That he may have time to collect his thoughts, Saladin leaves the Jew alone for a while before he answers. Nathan, who does not yet know Saladin, is at first very doubtful of the bona fides of the Musalman prince in making this inquiry of him.]
ACT III, Scene 6
Nathan ( alone )
H’m, h’m. A strange request. Where do I stand?
What will the Sultan with me ... what? I come
Prepared for money, and he asks for ... Truth!
And this he needs must have as bare and bright
As if the truth were coin!... Aye, were it coin,
Old, well-worn coin, that men tell out by weight,
Such might I find him! But new-minted coin—
The stamp’s enough: you fling it on the board
And there’s an end—not thus can Truth be told!
Doth he conceive that truth is to be poured
From head to head like gold into a bag?
Who’s here the Jew, I or the Sultan?... Yet
Suppose in very truth he asks for Truth?
How then? And verily it were too little,
Too paltry a suspicion, to believe
He used the truth but as a snare.... Too little!
Ah, what is then too little for the great?
Why should he break into my house? A friend
Would surely knock and listen at the door
Before he entered. I must tread with care.
But how? but how? To play the stolid Jew,
That ne’er will pass ... still less, no Jew at all;
For ’then’ he’ll say, ’why not a Musalman?’
Let me think.... Ha! I have it now. That saves me!
Not children only can one satisfy
With fables.... He is coming. Let him come!
Enter Saladin.
Saladin
I have not come too quickly? Thou hast brought
Thy meditation to an end? Then speak!
None hears but I.
Nathan
Nay, all the world may hear
For aught I care!
Saladin
So clear and confident
Is Nathan in his wisdom? Ha! this I deem
To be a sage indeed! Nothing to hide,
Never to palter—but to stake his life,
His blood, his goods, and all, upon the truth!
Nathan
Yea ... if need were ... and if the truth were served....
Saladin
One of my titles, Betterer of the World
And of the Law, I hope from this day forth
To bear with right.
Nathan
Truly, a noble title!
Yet, Sultan, ere I trust myself with thee,
Wholly and unreserved, I ask thee first
To hear a fable from me.
Saladin
Wherefore not?
From childhood I have ever loved to hear
Fables, well told.
Nathan
Well told? ah, that indeed
Is scarce a quality of mine!
Saladin
Again
So proudly modest? Well, speak on, speak on!
Nathan
In the grey morn of Time, there lived i’ the East
A man, who owned a ring of priceless worth,
Gift of a well-loved hand. For stone it bore
An opal, where a hundred lovely tints
Played, and where dwelt the magic power to make
Well-pleasing in the sight of God and man
Whoever wore it in this faith—What wonder
It never left the owner’s hand? what wonder
He made provision to retain it ever
In his own House, an heirloom for all time?
Thus did he order it: He left the Ring
First to his best-belovèd son, ordaining
That he in turn should leave it to the son
He dearliest loved; and so to the dearest ever.
And still the owner of the Ring, apart
From precedence of birth, by that alone
Should bear the sway.... Sultan, you follow me?
Saladin
I follow thee. Proceed!
Nathan
And so the Ring
Descended, till at length it came to one
Who had three sons, all dutiful alike,
Whom therefore he, perforce, must love alike;
Only, from time to time the first would seem
Most worthy of the Ring, and then the next,
And then again the third,—as each he found
Alone with him, the other two not by
To share his overflowing love. To each
His heart’s fond weakness made him pledge the Ring.
Thus all went smoothly ... while it could. But now
His time to die draws near, and, sore perplexed,
The good man rues that two of the three sons
That trusted in his word, must soon be left
Deceived, affronted.... Mark, now, his device!
All secretly he summons to his aid
“ cunning craftsman, and commands him fashion
After the pattern of his Ring, two others;
No cost, no labour to be spared, to make them
Like to the first, in every point alike.
And so ’tis done; and when the craftsman brings
The finished work, not even the father’s eye
Can tell his own ring from the copies. Now
Joyfully doth he summon to his side
His three sons, one by one, and, one by one,
Gives each his blessing—and a ring—and dies.
Sultan, thou hearest me?
Saladin
Yes, yes, I hear!
Come, will thy fable soon be told?
Nathan
’Tis told
Already, for the rest is evident.
Scarce is the father dead when comes each son
Bearing his ring, and claims to be the lord
And ruler of the house! What follows then?
Examinations, quarrellings, complaints—
In vain! Among the rings, the one true Ring
Remains for all eyes indistinguishable.—
[ After a pause in which he waits for
the Sultan’s reply.
Well-nigh as indistinguishable, Sultan,
As here, for us, to-day, the one true Faith.
Saladin
How? This shall be thine answer to my question?
Nathan
Nay, this shall but excuse me, if I trust not
My judgment to decide among the rings,
Made by the Father to the very intent
That they should never be distinguished.
Saladin
Yea,
The rings!... Thou playest with me! I had deemed
The three religions, whereof question is,
Were easily distinguished, even to points
Of food, and drink, and clothing!
Nathan
Only not
In this one thing—their proofs. All rest alike
On history, or written or handed down.
And history we take—is it not so?—
On faith and trust alone. Whose faith, whose truth,
Shall we confide in most? Surely in those
Of our own folk, whose blood we are, whose proofs
Of love were given us from our childhood up,
Who ne’er deceived us, saving when, perchance,
’Twere better for our weal. If this be so,
How can I less in my forefathers trust
Than thou in thine? Or take the other side:
Can I demand from thee that thou shouldst charge
Thine ancestors with lying, but for this,
That mine be justified? Again, the Christian
To both of us may plead the like defence.
Art thou not answered?
Saladin ( aside )
By the living God
The man is right! I must be dumb.
Nathan
Now turn we
Back to our rings again.—I said, the sons
Made their complaints: each one before the Judge
Made oath that from his father’s very hand
He had the Ring—and so in truth he had—
After his father’s promise, long before,
That one day he should own the Ring and all
Its rights—and this no less was true. The father,
Each one averr’d, could ne’er have played him false.
Rather than credit this—rather than nurse
Against so loved a father, such a thought,
How fain soever he had been to think
Nothing but good of them, he must believe
His brothers guilty of foul treachery.
But surely one day he would find a way
To unmask the villains—he would be avenged!
Saladin
And now, the Judge? I am intent to hear
What thou wilt put into his mouth. Speak on!
Nathan
On this wise spake the Judge: “Either ye bring
Right soon your father here before me, else
I spurn you from my seat. What! think ye I
Am here to answer riddles? Or do ye wait
Until the true Ring find a tongue and speak?
Yet stay! ’Tis said that in the true Ring lives
“ magic gift, to make the owner loved—
Well-pleasing before God and man. So good,
This shall decide the cause; for never, surely,
In this the false can emulate the true.
Which of the three of ye is best beloved
By the other twain? Marry, speak out! Ye are dumb!
Mysterious power, that only backward works,
Not outward from within! Lo, each of you
Loves best of all—himself! So are ye all
Deceived, and all deceivers. All your rings
Are manifestly false. Belike the true
Was irrecoverably lost; and so
Your father, to conceal the loss, made three
In place of one.”
Saladin
Excellent, excellent!
Nathan
“And so,” the Judge continued, “if ye now
Are bent on Law, on that alone, and counsel
Such as I can, will none—I bid you hence.
But, if I counselled you, my rede were this:
Take ye the matter simply as it lies.
Each from your father had his ring—let each
Be well persuaded that the ring he holds
Is the true Ring. It may be that your father
Was minded to maintain the tyranny
Of the one Ring no longer. And ’tis certain
He loved you all, and loved you each alike.
Would not have one exalted, one oppressed.
Mark that! and be it yours to emulate
His great impartial love. Strive, each of you,
To show the Ring’s benignant might his own;
Yea, help the mystic power to do its kind,
With gentleness, with loving courtesy,
Beneficence to man, and unto God
The deep devotion of the inmost soul.
And when, full many a generation hence,
Within your children’s children’s children’s hearts
The mystery of the Ring is manifest,
Lo! in a thousand thousand years, again
Before this judgment-seat I summon you,
Where one more wise than I shall sit and speak.
Now go your ways.” So spake the modest Judge.
Saladin
God! God!
Nathan
And now, O Saladin, if thou
Art confident that thou indeed art he,
The wise, the promised Judge....
Saladin
I? dust! I? nothing!
O God!
Nathan
What moves the Sultan?
Saladin
Nathan, Nathan,
The thousand thousand years are not yet done!
Not mine that judgment-seat! Enough—farewell!
But henceforth be my friend.
[6] The concluding twenty lines of this translation have appeared in the writer’s “Life of Lessing” (Walter Scott).