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

not yet.

      You may advance the knight, and ward the danger,

      Or as you will—it is all one.

SALADIN

         It is so.

      You are the winner, and Al-Hafi pays.

      Let him be called.  Sittah, you was not wrong;

      I seem to recollect I was unmindful—

      A little absent.  One isn’t always willing

      To dwell upon some shapeless bits of wood

      Coupled with no idea.  Yet the Imam,

      When I play with him, bends with such abstraction—

      The loser seeks excuses.  Sittah, ’twas not

      The shapeless men, and the unmeaning squares,

      That made me heedless—your dexterity,

      Your calm sharp eye.

SITTAH

         And what of that, good brother,

      Is that to be th’ excuse for your defeat?

      Enough—you played more absently than I.

SALADIN

      Than you!  What dwells upon your mind, my Sittah?

      Not your own cares, I doubt—

SITTAH

            O Saladin,

      When shall we play again so constantly?

SALADIN

      An interruption will but whet our zeal.

      You think of the campaign.  Well, let it come.

      It was not I who first unsheathed the sword.

      I would have willingly prolonged the truce,

      And willingly have knit a closer bond,

      A lasting one—have given to my Sittah

      A husband worthy of her, Richard’s brother.

SITTAH

      You love to talk of Richard.

SALADIN

         Richard’s sister

      Might then have been allotted to our Melek.

      O what a house that would have formed—the first—

      The best—and what is more—of earth the happiest!

      You know I am not loth to praise myself;

      Why should I?—Of my friends am I not worthy?

      O we had then led lives!

SITTAH

         A pretty dream.

      It makes me smile.  You do not know the Christians.

      You will not know them.  ’Tis this people’s pride

      Not to be men, but to be Christians.  Even

      What of humane their Founder felt, and taught,

      And left to savour their found superstition,

      They value not because it is humane,

      Lovely, and good for man; they only prize it

      Because ’twas Christ who taught it, Christ who did it.

      ’Tis well for them He was so good a man:

      Well that they take His goodness all for granted,

      And in His virtues put their trust.  His virtues—

      ’Tis not His virtues, but His name alone

      They wish to thrust upon us—’Tis His name

      Which they desire should overspread the world,

      Should swallow up the name of all good men,

      And put the best to shame.  ’Tis His mere name

      They care for—

SALADIN

         Else, my Sittah, as thou sayst,

      They would not have required that thou, and Melek,

      Should be called Christians, ere you might be suffered

      To feel for Christians conjugal affection.

SITTAH

      As if from Christians only, and as Christians,

      That love could be expected which our Maker

      In man and woman for each other planted.

SALADIN

      The Christians do believe such idle notions,

      They well might fancy this: and yet thou errest.

      The templars, not the Christians, are in fault.

      ’Tis not as Christians, but as templars, that

      They thwart my purpose.  They alone prevent it.

      They will on no account evacuate Acca,

      Which was to be the dower of Richard’s sister,