Nathan the Wise | Page 5

briefe. Dissertations upon fable, led
also to Lessing's "Fables," produced in this period of his life.
In 1760 Lessing was tempted by scarcity of income to serve as a
Government secretary at Breslau. He held that office for five years, and
then again returned to his old work in Berlin. During the five years in
Breslau, Lessing had completed his play of "Minna von Barnhelm,"

and the greatest of his critical works, "Laocoon," a treatise on the
"Boundary Lines of Painting and Poetry." All that he might then have
saved from his earnings went to the buying of books and to the relief of
the burdens in the Camenz parsonage. At Berlin the office of Royal
Librarian became vacant. The claims of Lessing were urged, but
Frederick appointed an insignificant Frenchman. In 1767 Lessing was
called to aid an unsuccessful attempt to establish a National Theatre in
Hamburg.
Other troubles followed. Lessing gave his heart to a widow, Eva Konig,
and was betrothed to her. But the involvements of her worldly affairs,
and of his, delayed the marriage for six years. To secure fixed income
he took a poor office as Librarian at Wolfenbuttel. In his first year at
Wolfenbuttel, he wrote his play of "Emilia Galotti." Then came a
long-desired journey to Italy; but it came in inconvenient form, for it
had to be made with Prince Leopold, of Brunswick, hurriedly, for the
sake of money, at the time when Lessing was at last able to marry.
The wife, long waited for, and deeply loved, died at the birth of her first
child. This was in January, 1778, when Lessing's age was 49. Very
soon afterwards he was attacked by a Pastor Goeze, in Hamburg, and
other narrow theologians, for having edited papers that contained an
attack on Christianity, which Lessing himself had said that he wished to
see answered before he died. The uncharitable bitterness of these
attacks, felt by a mind that had been touched to the quick by the
deepest of sorrows, helped to the shaping of Lessing's calm, beautiful
lesson of charity, this noblest of his plays--"Nathan the Wise." But
Lessing's health was shattered, and he survived his wife only three
years. He died in 1781, leaving imperishable influence for good upon
the minds of men, but so poor in what the world calls wealth, that his
funeral had to be paid for by a Duke of Brunswick.
William Taylor, the translator of Lessing's "Nathan the Wise;" was
born in 1765, the son of a rich merchant at Norwich, from whose
business he was drawn away by his strong bent towards literature. His
father yielded to his wishes, after long visits to France and to Germany,
in days astir with the new movements of thought, that preceded and
followed the French Revolution. He formed a close friendship with
Southey, edited for a little time a "Norwich Iris," and in his later years
became known especially for his Historic Survey of German Poetry,

which included his translations, and among them this of "Nathan the
Wise." It was published in 1830, Taylor died in 1836. Thomas Carlyle,
in reviewing William Taylor's Survey of German Poetry, said of the
author's own translations in it "compared with the average of British
translations, they may be pronounced of almost ideal excellence;
compared with the best translations extant, for example, the German
Shakespeare, Homer, Calderon, they may still be called better than
indifferent. One great merit Mr. Taylor has: rigorous adherence to his
original; he endeavours at least to copy with all possible fidelity the
term of praise, the tone, the very metre, whatever stands written for
him."
H. M.

NATHAN THE WISE.

"Introite nam et heic Dii sunt!"--APUD GELLIUM.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
SALADIN, the Sultan. SITTAH, his Sister. NATHAN, a rich Jew.
RECHA, his adopted Daughter. DAYA, a Christian Woman dwelling
with the Jew a companion to Recha. CONRADE, a young Templar.
HAFI, a Dervis. ATHANASIOS, the Patriarch of Palestine.
BONAFIDES, a Friar. An Emir, sundry Mamalukes, Slaves, &c.
The Scene is at Jerusalem.

ACT I.

SCENE--A Hall in Nathan's House.
NATHAN, in a travelling dress, DAYA meeting him.
DAYA.
'Tis he, 'tis Nathan! Thanks to the Almighty, That you're at last
returned.
NATHAN.
Yes, Daya, thanks, That I have reached Jerusalem in safety. But
wherefore this AT LAST? Did I intend, Or was it possible to come
back sooner? As I was forced to travel, out and in, 'Tis a long hundred
leagues to Babylon; And to get in one's debts is no employment, That

speeds a traveller.
DAYA.
O Nathan, Nathan, How miserable you had nigh become During this
little absence; for your house -
NATHAN,
Well, 'twas on fire; I have already heard it. God grant I may have heard
the whole, that chanced!
DAYA.
'Twas on