still possess your Dervise heart
I'll run the risk of that. The stately robe
Is but your cloak.

DERVISE.

And yet it claims some honour.
But, tell me truly, at a court of yours
What had been Hafi's rank?

NATHAN.

A Dervise only--
Or, if aught else--perhaps my cook.

DERVISE.

Why yes!
That I might thus unlearn my native trade,
Your cook! why not your butler? But the Sultan--
He knows me better--I'm his treasurer.

NATHAN.

What, you?--his treasurer?

DERVISE.

Mistake me not,
I only bear his lesser purse; his father
Still manages the greater, and I am
The treasurer of his house.

NATHAN.

His house is large!

DERVISE.

Far larger than you think--all needy men
Are of his house.

NATHAN.

Yet Saladin is such
A foe to beggars!

DERVISE.

That he'd root them out,
Though he turned beggar in the enterprise.

NATHAN.

Bravo! I meant as much.

DERVISE.

He's one already.
His treasury at sunset every day
Is worse than empty; and although the tide
Flowed high at morn, 'tis ebb before the noon.

NATHAN.

Because it flows through channels such as we
Can neither stop nor fill.

DERVISE.

You hit the truth.

NATHAN.

I know it well.

DERVISE.

Ah! 'tis an evil case
When kings are vultures amid carcases,
But ten times worse when they're the carcases
Amid the vultures.

NATHAN.

Dervise, 'tis not so.

DERVISE.

Is that your thought? But, come, what will you give
If I resign my office in your favour?