Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts. Gotthold Ephraim LessingЧитать онлайн книгу.
fare.
FRIAR.
They were already at table:
But if it suit with you to turn directly—
TEMPLAR.
Why so? ’Tis true, I have not tasted meat
This long time. What of that? The dates are ripe.
FRIAR.
O with that fruit go cautiously to work.
Too much of it is hurtful, sours the humours,
Makes the blood melancholy.
TEMPLAR.
And if I
Choose to be melancholy—For this warning
You were not sent to follow me, I ween.
FRIAR.
Oh, no: I only was to ask about you,
And feel your pulse a little.
TEMPLAR.
And you tell me
Of that yourself?
FRIAR.
Why not?
TEMPLAR.
A deep one! troth:
And has your cloister more such?
FRIAR.
I can’t say.
Obedience is our bounden duty.
TEMPLAR.
So—
And you obey without much scrupulous questioning?
FRIAR.
Were it obedience else, good sir?
TEMPLAR.
How is it
The simple mind is ever in the right?
May you inform me who it is that wishes
To know more of me? ’Tis not you yourself,
I dare be sworn.
FRIAR.
Would it become me, sir,
Or benefit me?
TEMPLAR.
Whom can it become,
Whom can it benefit, to be so curious?
FRIAR.
The patriarch, I presume—’twas he that sent me.
TEMPLAR.
The patriarch? Knows he not my badge, the cross
Of red on the white mantle?
FRIAR.
Can I say?
TEMPLAR.
Well, brother, well! I am a templar, taken
Prisoner at Tebnin, whose exalted fortress,
Just as the truce expired, we sought to climb,
In order to push forward next to Sidon.
I was the twentieth captive, but the only
Pardoned by Saladin—with this, the patriarch
Knows all, or more than his occasions ask.
FRIAR.
And yet no more than he already knows,
I think. But why alone of all the captives
Thou hast been spared, he fain would learn—
TEMPLAR.
Can I
Myself tell that? Already, with bare neck,
I kneeled upon my mantle, and awaited
The blow—when Saladin with steadfast eye
Fixed me, sprang nearer to me, made a sign—
I was upraised, unbound, about to thank him—
And saw his eye in tears. Both stand in silence.
He goes. I stay. How all this hangs together,
Thy patriarch may unriddle.
FRIAR.
He concludes,
That God preserved you for some mighty deed.
TEMPLAR.
Some mighty deed? To save out of the fire
A Jewish girl—to usher curious pilgrims
About Mount Sinai—to—
FRIAR.
The time may come—
And this is no such trifle—but perhaps
The patriarch meditates a weightier office.
TEMPLAR.
Think you so, brother? Has he hinted aught?
FRIAR.
Why, yes; I was to sift you out a little,
And hear if you were one to—
TEMPLAR.
Well—to what?
I’m curious to observe how this man sifts.
FRIAR.
The shortest way will be to tell you plainly
What are the patriarch’s wishes.
TEMPLAR.
And they are—
FRIAR.
To send a letter by your hand.
TEMPLAR.
By me?
I am no carrier. And were that an office
More meritorious than to save from burning
A Jewish maid?
FRIAR.
So it should seem; must seem—
For, says the patriarch, to all Christendom
This letter is of import; and to bear it
Safe to its destination, says the patriarch,
God will reward with a peculiar crown
In heaven; and of this crown, the patriarch says,
No one is worthier than you—
TEMPLAR.
Than I?
FRIAR.
For none so able, and so fit to earn
This crown, the patriarch says, as you.
TEMPLAR.
As I?
FRIAR.
The patriarch here is free, can look about him,
And knows, he says, how cities may be stormed,
And how defended; knows, he says, the strengths
And weaknesses of Saladin’s new bulwark,
And of the inner rampart last thrown up;
And to the warriors of the Lord, he says,
Could clearly point them out;—
TEMPLAR.
And can I know
Exactly the contents of this same letter?
FRIAR.
Why, that I don’t pretend to vouch exactly—
’Tis to King Philip: and our patriarch—
I often wonder how this holy