Читать книгу Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts - Г. Э. Лессинг, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - Страница 4

’Tis he, ’tis Nathan!  Thanks to the Almighty,

That you’re at last returned.

   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.

   O Nathan, Nathan,

How miserable you had nigh become

During this little absence; for your house—

Well, ’twas on fire; I have already heard it.

God grant I may have heard the whole, that chanced!

’Twas on the point of burning to the ground.

Then we’d have built another, and a better.

True!—But thy Recha too was on the point

Of perishing amid the flames.

   Of perishing?

My Recha, saidst thou?  She?  I heard not that.

I then should not have needed any house.

Upon the point of perishing—perchance

She’s gone?—Speak out then—out—torment me not

With this suspense.—Come, tell me, tell me all.

Were she no more, from me you would not hear it.

Why then alarm me?—Recha, O my Recha!

Your Recha?  Yours?

   What if I ever were

Doomed to unlearn to call this child, my child,

Is all you own yours by an equal title?

Nought by a better.  What I else enjoy

Nature and Fortune gave—this treasure, Virtue.

How dear you make me pay for all your goodness!—

If goodness, exercised with such a view,

Deserves the name.—

With such a view?  With what?

My conscience—

Daya, let me tell you first—

I say, my conscience—

   What a charming silk

I bought for you in Babylon!  ’Tis rich,

Yet elegantly rich.  I almost doubt

If I have brought a prettier for Recha.

And what of that—I tell you that my conscience

Will no be longer hushed.

   And I have bracelets,

And earrings, and a necklace, which will charm you.

I chose them at Damascus.

   That’s your way:—

If you can but make presents—but make presents.—

Take you as freely as I give—and cease.

And cease?—Who questions, Nathan, but that you are

Honour and generosity in person;—

Yet—

   Yet I’m but a Jew.—That was your meaning.

You better know what was my meaning, Nathan.

Well, well, no more of this,

   I shall be silent;

But what of sinful in the eye of heaven

Springs out of it—not I, not I could help;

It falls upon thy head.

   So let it, Daya.

Where is she then?  What stays her?  Surely, surely,

You’re not amusing me—And does she know

That I’m arrived?

   That you yourself must speak to,

Terror still vibrates in her every nerve.

Her fancy mingles fire with all she thinks of.

Asleep, her soul seems busy; but awake,

Absent: now less than brute, now more than angel.

Poor thing!  What are we mortals—

   As she lay

This morning sleeping, all at once she started

And cried: “list, list! there come my father’s camels!”

And then she drooped again upon her pillow

And I withdrew—when, lo! you really came.

Her thoughts have only been with you—and him.

And him?  What him?

   With him, who from the fire

Preserved her life,

   Who was it?  Where is he,

That saved my Recha for me?

   A young templar,

Brought hither captive a few days ago,

And pardoned by the Sultan.

   How, a templar

Dismissed with life by Saladin.  In truth,

Not a less miracle was to preserve her,

God!—God!—

   Without this man, who risked afresh

The Sultan’s unexpected boon, we’d lost her.

Where is he, Daya, where’s this noble youth?

Do, lead me to his feet.  Sure, sure you gave him

What treasures I had left you—gave him all,

Promised him more—much more?

   How could we?

   Not?

He came, he went, we know not whence, or whither.

Quite unacquainted with the house, unguided

But by his ear, he prest through smoke and flame,

His mantle spread before him, to the room

Whence pierced the shrieks for help; and we began

To think him lost—and her; when, all at once,

Bursting from flame and smoke, he stood before us,

She in his arm upheld.  Cold and unmoved

By our loud warmth of thanks, he left his booty,

Struggled into the crowd, and disappeared.

But not for ever, Daya, I would hope.

For some days after, underneath you palms,

That shade his grave who rose again from death,

We saw him wandering up and down.  I went,

With transport went to thank him.  I conjured,

Intreated him to visit once again

The dear sweet girl he saved, who longed to shed

At her preserver’s feet the grateful tear—

Well?

   But in vain.  Deaf to our warmest prayers,

On me he flung such bitter mockery—

That hence rebuffed—

   Oh, no, oh, no, indeed not,

Daily I forced myself upon him, daily

Afresh encountered his dry taunting speeches.

Much I have borne, and would have borne much more:

But he of late forbears his lonely walk

Under the scattered palms, which stand about

Our holy sepulchre: nor have I learnt

Where he now is.  You seem astonished—thoughtful—

I was imagining what strange impressions

This conduct makes on such a mind as Recha’s.

Disdained by one whom she must feel compelled

To venerate and to esteem so highly.

At once attracted and repelled—the combat

Between her head and heart must yet endure,

Regret, Resentment, in unusual struggle.

Neither, perhaps, obtains the upper hand,

And busy fancy, meddling in the fray,

Weaves wild enthusiasms to her dazzled spirit,

Now clothing Passion in the garb of Reason,

And Reason now in Passion’s—do I err?

This last is Recha’s fate—Romantic notions—

Aye; but such pious, lovely, sweet, illusions.

Illusions though.

   Yes: and the one, her bosom

Clings to most fondly, is, that the brave templar

Was but a transient inmate of the earth,

A guardian angel, such as from her childhood

She loved to fancy kindly hovering round her,

Who from his veiling cloud amid the fire

Stepped forth in her preserver’s form.  You smile—

Who knows?  At least beware of banishing

So pleasing an illusion—if deceitful

Christian, Jew, Mussulman, agree to own it,

And ’tis—at least to her—a dear illusion.

Also to me.  Go, my good Daya, go,

See what she’s after.  Can’t I speak with her?

Then I’ll find out our untamed guardian angel,

Bring him to sojourn here awhile among us—

We’ll pinion his wild wing, when once he’s taken.

You undertake too much.

   And when, my Daya,

This sweet illusion yields to sweeter truth,

(For to a man a man is ever dearer

Than any angel) you must not be angry

To see our loved enthusiast exercised.

You are so good—and yet so sly.  I’ll seek her,

But listen,—yes! she’s coming of herself.

And you are here, your very self, my father,

I thought you’d only sent your voice before you.

Where are you then?  What mountains, deserts, torrents,

Divide us now?  You see me, face to face,

And do not hasten to embrace your Recha.

Poor Recha! she was almost burnt alive,

But only—only—almost.  Do not shudder!

O ’tis a horrid end to die in fire!

My child, my darling child!

   You had to cross

The Jordan, Tigris, and Euphrates, and

Who knows what rivers else.  I used to tremble

And quake for you, till the fire came so nigh me;

Since then, methinks ’twere comfort, balm, refreshment,

To die by water.  But you are not drowned—

I am not burnt alive.—We will rejoice—

We will praise God—the kind good God, who bore thee,

Upon the buoyant wings of unseen angels,

Across the treacherous stream—the God who bade

My angel visibly on his white wing

Athwart the roaring flame—

   White wing?—oh, aye

The broad white fluttering mantle of the templar.

Yes, visibly he bore me through the fire,

O’ershadowed by his pinions.—Face to face

I’ve seen an angel, father, my own angel.

Recha deserves it, and would see in him

No fairer form than he beheld in her,

Whom are you flattering, father—tell me now—

The angel, or yourself?

   Yet had a man,

A man of those whom Nature daily fashions,

Done you this service, he to you had seemed,

Had been an angel.

   No, not such a one.

Indeed it was a true and real angel.

And have not you yourself instructed me

How possible it is there may be angels;

That God for those who love him can work miracles—

And I do love him, father—

   And he thee;

And both for thee, and all like thee, my child,

Works daily wonders, from eternity

Has wrought them for you.

   That I like to hear.

Well, and although it sounds quite natural,

An every day event, a simple story,

That you was by a real templar saved,

Is it the less a miracle?  The greatest

Of all is this, that true and real wonders

Should happen so perpetually, so daily.

Without this universal miracle

A thinking man had scarcely called those such,

Which only children, Recha, ought to name so,

Who love to gape and stare at the unusual

And hunt for novelty—

   Why will you then

With such vain subtleties, confuse her brain

Already overheated?

   Let me manage.—

And is it not enough then for my Recha

To owe her preservation to a man,

Whom no small miracle preserved himself.

For whoe’er heard before that Saladin

Let go a templar; that a templar wished it,

Hoped it, or for his ransom offered more

Than taunts, his leathern sword-belt, or his dagger?

That makes for me; these are so many reasons

He was no real knight, but only seemed it.

If in Jerusalem no captive templar,

Appears alive, or freely wanders round,

How could I find one, in the night, to save me?

Ingenious! dextrous!  Daya, come in aid.

It was from you I learnt he was a prisoner;

Doubtless you know still more about him, speak.

’Tis but report indeed, but it is said

That Saladin bestowed upon this youth

His gracious pardon for the strong resemblance

He bore a favourite brother—dead, I think

These twenty years—his name, I know it not—

He fell, I don’t know where—and all the story

Sounds so incredible, that very likely

The whole is mere invention, talk, romance.

And why incredible?  Would you reject

This story, tho’ indeed, it’s often done,

To fix on something more incredible,

And give that faith?  Why should not Saladin,

Who loves so singularly all his kindred,

Have loved in early youth with warmer fondness

A brother now no more.  Do we not see

Faces alike, and is an old impression

Therefore a lost one?  Do resembling features

Not call up like emotions.  Where’s th’ incredible?

Surely, sage Daya, this can be to thee

No miracle, or do thy wonders only

Demand—I should have said deserve belief?

You’re on the bite.

   Were you quite fair with me?

Yet even so, my Recha, thy escape

Remains a wonder, only possible

To Him, who of the proud pursuits of princes

Makes sport—or if not sport—at least delights

To head and manage them by slender threads.

If I do err, it is not wilfully,

My father.

   No, you have been always docile.

See now, a forehead vaulted thus, or thus—

A nose bow’d one way rather than another—

Eye-brows with straiter, or with sharper curve—

A line, a mole, a wrinkle, a mere nothing

I’ th’ countenance of an European savage—

And thou—art saved, in Asia, from the fire.

Ask ye for signs and wonders after that?

What need of calling angels into play?

But Nathan, where’s the harm, if I may speak,

Of fancying one’s self by an angel saved,

Rather than by a man?  Methinks it brings us

Just so much the nearer the incomprehensive

First cause of preservation.

   Pride, rank pride!

The iron pot would with a silver prong

Be lifted from the furnace—to imagine

Itself a silver vase.  Paha!  Where’s the harm?

Thou askest.  Where’s the good?  I might reply.

For thy it brings us nearer to the Godhead

Is nonsense, Daya, if not blasphemy.

But it does harm: yes, yes, it does indeed.

Attend now.  To the being, who preserved you,

Be he an angel or a man, you both,

And thou especially wouldst gladly show

Substantial services in just requital.

Now to an angel what great services

Have ye the power to do?  To sing his praise—

Melt in transporting contemplation o’er him—

Fast on his holiday—and squander alms—

What nothingness of use!  To me at least

It seems your neighbour gains much more than he

By all this pious glow.  Not by your fasting

Is he made fat; not by your squandering, rich;

Nor by your transports is his glory exalted;

Nor by your faith his might.  But to a man—

Why yes; a man indeed had furnished us

With more occasions to be useful to him.

God knows how readily we should have seized them.

But then he would have nothing—wanted nothing—

Was in himself wrapped up, and self-sufficient,

As angels are.

   And when at last he vanished—

Vanished?  How vanished?  Underneath the palms

Escaped your view, and has returned no more.

Or have you really sought for him elsewhere?

No, that indeed we’ve not.

   Not, Daya, not?

See it does harm, hard-hearted, cold enthusiasts,

What if this angel on a bed of illness—

Illness?

   Ill! sure he is not.

   A cold shudder

Creeps over me; O Daya, feel my forehead,

It was so warm, ’tis now as chill as ice.

He is a Frank, unused to this hot climate,

Is young, and to the labours of his calling,

To fasting, watching, quite unused—

   Ill—ill!

Thy father only means ’twere possible.

And there he lies, without a friend, or money

To buy him friends—

   Alas! my father.

   Lies

Without advice, attendance, converse, pity,

The prey of agony, of death—

   Where—where?

He, who, for one he never knew, or saw—

It is enough for him he is a man—

Plunged into fire.

   O Nathan, Nathan, spare her.

Who cared not to know aught of her he saved,

Declined her presence to escape her thanks—

Do, spare her!

   Did not wish to see her more

Unless it were a second time to save her—

Enough for him he is a man—

   Stop, look!

He—he, in death, has nothing to console him,

But the remembrance of this deed.

   You kill her!

And you kill him—or might have done at least—

Recha ’tis medicine I give, not poison.

He lives—come to thyself—may not be ill—

Not even ill—

   Surely not dead, not dead.

Dead surely not—for God rewards the good

Done here below, here too.  Go; but remember

How easier far devout enthusiasm is

Than a good action; and how willingly

Our indolence takes up with pious rapture,

Tho’ at the time unconscious of its end,

Only to save the toil of useful deeds.

Oh never leave again thy child alone!—

But can he not be only gone a journey?

Yes, very likely.  There’s a Mussulman

Numbering with curious eye my laden camels,

Do you know who he is?

   Oh, your old dervis.

Who—who?

   Your chess companion.

      That, Al-Hafi?

And now the treasurer of Saladin.

Al-Hafi?  Are you dreaming?  How was this?

In fact it is so.  He seems coming hither.

In with you quick.—What now am I to hear?

Aye, lift thine eyes in wonder.

   Is it you?

A dervis so magnificent!—

   Why not?

Can nothing then be made out of a dervis?

Yes, surely; but I have been wont to think

A dervis, that’s to say a thorough dervis,

Will allow nothing to be made of him.

May-be ’tis true that I’m no thorough dervis;

But by the prophet, when we must—

   Must, Hafi?

Needs must—belongs to no man: and a dervis—

When he is much besought, and thinks it right,

A dervis must.

   Well spoken, by our God!

Embrace me, man, you’re still, I trust, my friend.

Why not ask first what has been made of me?

Ask climbers to look back!

   And may I not

Have grown to such a creature in the state

That my old friendship is no longer welcome?

If you still bear your dervis-heart about you

I’ll run the risk of that.  Th’ official robe

Is but your cloak.

   A cloak, that claims some honour.

What think’st thou?  At a court of thine how great

Had been Al-Hafi?

   Nothing but a dervis.

If more, perhaps—what shall I say—my cook.

In order to unlearn my native trade.

Thy cook—why not thy butler too?  The Sultan,

He knows me better, I’m his treasurer.

You, you?

   Mistake not—of the lesser purse—

His father manages the greater still—

The purser of his household.

   That’s not small.

’Tis larger than thou think’st; for every beggar

Is of his household.

   He’s so much their foe—

That he’d fain root them out—with food and raiment—

Tho’ he turn beggar in the enterprize.

Bravo, I meant so.

   And he’s almost such.

His treasury is every day, ere sun-set,

Poorer than empty; and how high so e’er

Flows in the morning tide, ’tis ebb by noon.

Because it circulates through such canals

As can be neither stopped, nor filled.

   Thou hast it.

I know it well.

   Nathan, ’tis woeful doing

When kings are vultures amid caresses:

But when they’re caresses amid the vultures

’Tis ten times worse.

   No, dervis, no, no, no.

Thou mayst well talk so.  Now then, let me hear

What wouldst thou give me to resign my office?

What does it bring you in?

   To me, not much;

But thee, it might indeed enrich: for when,

As often happens, money is at ebb,

Thou couldst unlock thy sluices, make advances,

And take in form of interest all thou wilt.

And interest upon interest of the interest—

Certainly.

   Till my capital becomes

All interest.

   How—that does not take with thee?

Then write a finis to our book of friendship;

For I have reckoned on thee.

   How so, Hafi?

That thou wouldst help me to go thro’ my office

With credit, grant me open chest with thee—

Dost shake thy head?

   Let’s understand each other.

Here’s a distinction to be made.  To you,

To dervis Hafi, all I have is open;

But to the defterdar of Saladin,

To that Al-Hafi—

   Spoken like thyself!

Thou hast been ever no less kind than cautious.

The two Al-Hafis thou distinguishest

Shall soon be parted.  See this coat of honour,

Which Saladin bestowed—before ’tis worn

To rags, and suited to a dervis’ back,—

Will in Jerusalem hang upon the hook;

While I along the Ganges scorching strand,

Amid my teachers shall be wandering barefoot.

That’s like you.

   Or be playing chess among them.

Your sovereign good.

   What dost thou think seduced me.

The wish of having not to beg in future—

The pride of acting the rich man to beggars—

Would these have metamorphosed a rich beggar

So suddenly into a poor rich man?

No, I think not.

   A sillier, sillier weakness,

For the first time my vanity was tempter,

Flattered by Saladin’s good-hearted notion—

Which was?

   That all a beggar’s wants are only

Known to a beggar: such alone can tell

How to relieve them usefully and wisely.

“Thy predecessor was too cold for me,

(He said) and when he gave, he gave unkindly;

Informed himself with too precautious strictness

Concerning the receiver, not content

To leant the want, unless he knew its cause,

And measuring out by that his niggard bounty.

Thou wilt not thus bestow.  So harshly kind

Shall Saladin not seem in thee.  Thou art not

Like the choked pipe, whence sullied and by spurts

Flow the pure waters it absorbs in silence.

Al-Hafi thinks and feels like me.”  So nicely

The fowler whistled, that at last the quail

Ran to his net.  Cheated, and by a cheat—

Tush! dervis, gently.

   What! and is’t not cheating,

Thus to oppress mankind by hundred thousands,

To squeeze, grind, plunder, butcher, and torment,

And act philanthropy to individuals?—

Not cheating—thus to ape from the Most High

The bounty, which alike on mead and desert,

Upon the just and the unrighteous, falls

In sunshine or in showers, and not possess

The never-empty hand of the Most High?—

Not cheating—

   Cease!

   Of my own cheating sure

It is allowed to speak.  Were it not cheating

To look for the fair side of these impostures,

In order, under colour of its fairness,

To gain advantage from them—ha?

   Al-Hafi,

Go to your desert quickly.  Among men

I fear you’ll soon unlearn to be a man.

And so do I—farewell.

   What, so abruptly?

Stay, stay, Al-Hafi; has the desert wings?

Man, ’twill not run away, I warrant you—

Hear, hear, I want you—want to talk with you—

He’s gone.  I could have liked to question him

About our templar.  He will likely know him.

O Nathan, Nathan!

   Well, what now?

      He’s there.

He shows himself again.

   Who, Daya, who?

He! he!

   When cannot He be seen?  Indeed

Your He is only one; that should not be,

Were he an angel even.

   ’Neath the palms

He wanders up and down, and gathers dates.

And eats?—and as a templar?

   How you tease us!

Her eager eye espied him long ago,

While he scarce gleamed between the further stems,

And follows him most punctually.  Go,

She begs, conjures you, go without delay;

And from the window will make signs to you

Which way his rovings bend.  Do, do make haste.

What! thus, as I alighted from my camel,

Would that be decent?  Swift, do you accost him,

Tell him of my return.  I do not doubt,

His delicacy in the master’s absence

Forbore my house; but gladly will accept

The father’s invitation.  Say, I ask him,

Most heartily request him—

   All in vain!

In short, he will not visit any Jew.

Then do thy best endeavours to detain him,

Or with thine eyes to watch his further haunt,

Till I rejoin you.  I shall not be long.