Ascend on high! There, Prince! Does she still charm you? Does she still
rouse your appetites?--here, weltering in her blood--which cries for
vengeance against you. (_After a pause_.) Doubtless you wait to see the
end of this. You expect, perhaps, that I shall turn the steel against
myself, and finish the deed like some wretched tragedy. You are
mistaken. There! (_Throws the dagger at his feet_.) There lies the
blood-stained witness of my crime. I go to deliver myself into the
hands of justice. I go to meet you as my judge: then I shall meet you
in another world, before the Judge of all. (_Exit_.)

PRINCE (_after a pause, during which he surveys the body with a
look of horror and despair, turns to_ Marinelli).

Here! Raise her. How! Dost thou hesitate? Wretch! Villain! (_Tears the
dagger from his grasp_.) No. Thy blood shall not be mixed with such as
this. Go: hide thyself for ever. Begone, I say. Oh God! Oh God! Is it
not enough for the misery of many that monarchs are men? Must devils in
disguise become their friends?

NATHAN THE WISE.

A DRAMATIC POEM IN FIVE ACTS.

(_Translated by R. Dillon Boylan_.)

The well-known Goetze Controversy is to be thanked for the appearance
of this, the longest, and in many respects the most important of
Lessing's dramatic works. It was written in 1778-9, in reply to some of
the theological censures of the Hamburg pastor. In 1783, it was first
acted at Berlin, but it met with little success there or elsewhere,
until in 1801, when it was introduced on the Weimar stage, by Schiller
and Goethe.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Sultan Saladin.
Sittah, _his Sister_.
Nathan, _a rich Jew of Jerusalem_.
Recha, _his adopted Daughter_.
Daja, _a Christian woman living in the Jew's house as_ Recha's
_companion_.
_A young_ Knight Templar.
A Dervise.
_The_ Patriarch of Jerusalem.
A Friar.
_An_ Emir _and several of_ Saladin's Mamelukes.

_The scene is in Jerusalem_.

NATHAN THE WISE.

"Introite, nam et heic Dii sunt."

_Apud_ Gellium.

ACT I.

Scene I.--_A Hall in Nathan's House_.

Nathan, _returning