Are thy
reflections
ended ?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
fire years
1:1 astT
priency, the lector
feculi. Tue Feinons, whics -
Visi21lot use him n: 11:11 H
Distrir111 itert as a st11
18. ) pars liter le Wert
to litterdengi where iei
th, 1,5? .
ܢܐ ,f746
of Lein
L
and az
; f( 1. 011) ܂ ܃ ؛
D) iper theme raiudiz
edino ai jie, le cevi,
railer vermelt
Athlüsili tu
## p. 9004 (#644) ###########################################
LESSING
## p. 9005 (#645) ###########################################
9005
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
(1729-1781)
BY E. P. EVANS
ESSING was born January 22d, 1729, at Camenz in the Saxon
province of Upper Lusatia, and died at Brunswick, February
15th, 1781. His father was a clergyman and his mother the
daughter of a clergyman; and his earliest known ancestor, Clarence
Lessigk, a curate in the Saxon Erzgebirge, was one of the signers of
the formula concordia published in 1580, and designed to allay certain
doctrinal dissensions which had arisen soon after the death of the
reformer. From this ecclesiastical progenitor his line of descent ran
unbroken through six generations of theologians, jurists, burgomas-
ters, and other men of culture; and in illustration of the “survival of
the fittest,” the family name and characteristics were in our own day
the heritage of one of the most eminent historical painters of Ger-
many. Lessing belonged therefore to what Oliver Wendell Holmes
used to call the “Academic Races,” in whom scholarly tastes and
aptitudes are inbred and transmitted from father to son, and who take
to learning almost as instinctively as a cat takes to mousing. It
is the scions of such a stock that constitute the largest contingent of
those who pursue university studies, and fill the ranks of the learned
professions; producing a horde of pedants like Lessing's younger
brother Theophilus, and at rare intervals a man of genius like him-
self.
In June 1741, when he was scarcely thirteen, he was sent to the
then celebrated grammar school at Meissen (Fürstenschule zu St.
Afra), where he completed the prescribed six-years' course of study
in five years. In answer to the father's inquiry concerning his son's
proficiency, the rector replied: “He is a horse that needs double
fodder. The lessons, which are hard for others, are nothing for him.
We cannot use him much longer. ” On September 20th, 1746, he was
matriculated as a student of theology in the University of Leipsic.
Two years later he went to Wittenberg, thence to Berlin, and again
to Wittenberg, where he took the degree of master of arts on April
29th, 1752.
During these half a dozen years of quite varied and rather vagrant
academical life, he devoted himself with energy and enthusiasm to
## p. 9006 (#646) ###########################################
9006
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
>>
literary pursuits, and developed a marked talent for dramatic com-
position. He wrote a comedy entitled “The Young Scholar. ' The
juvenile pedant, as he afterwards states, “was the only kind of ninny
which at that time it was impossible for me not to be intimately
acquainted with”; his play was therefore a study from life, rendered
more realistic and vivid by a dawning consciousness of the danger to
which he was himself exposed. The piece was given with great
applause by the troupe of the celebrated Madame Neuber at Leipsic,
whose citizens were only too familiar with the original of Damis. The
best of his earlier plays is unquestionably Miss Sara Sampson,' a
tragedy in five acts, first represented at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, July
10th, 1755, when, as we are told, the spectators “sat four hours like
statues, and wept and wept. Nowadays its high-flown sentimentalism
would excite laughter rather than tears; and although it was a theat-
rical success, and even had the distinction of being translated into
French, it has long since fallen into oblivion. Its present importance
is purely historical, as the first specimen of the tragedy of middle-
class life on the German stage. Of Lessing's later and riper contri-
butions to dramatic literature, three may be said to have an intrinsic
and permanent value, Minna von Barnhelm,' (Emilia Galotti,' and
(Nathan the Wise': a comedy, a tragedy, and what might be called
a didactic drama, although each of these productions is pervaded by
an earnest and quite obvious moral purpose.
The salient feature of Minna von Barnhelm,' published in 1767,
is its national character,- so far as the term “national” can be
applied to anything German at that time. Chiefly for this reason it
appeared as “a shining meteor” to the eyes of Goethe, who was
then a student in Leipsic, and who, in his talks with Eckermann in
the last years of his life, recalled with reminiscent enthusiasm the
immense influence it exerted upon the young people of his day. The
hero, Major Tellheim, an officer in the service of Frederick the Great,
has during the Seven Years' War advanced the money for the pay-
ment of a heavy contribution levied on a poor Saxon province. This
noble and generous act so deeply impresses Minna von Barnhelm, a
wealthy young lady of the neighborhood, that she seeks his acquaint-
ance and becomes his betrothed. On the conclusion of peace, the
draft given by the Saxon authorities to Tellheim is construed by
the Prussian government into evidence of his having been bribed by
the enemy; and he is therefore cashiered. His fine sense of honor
makes him unwilling to involve the young lady in his disgrace, and
he accordingly releases her from her engagement. As all her pro-
tests against such a proceeding prove unavailing, she resolves to
accomplish her purpose by artifice, and pretends that she has been
disinherited by her uncle on account of her betrothal. The cunning
## p. 9007 (#647) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9007
device succeeds. Believing her to be poor and deserted, Tellheim is
eager to wed her and take her under his protection; especially as
meanwhile he has received a letter from the King, recognizing the
true state of the case as regards the draft, ordering it to be paid,
and offering to restore him to his former rank in the army. It is
now Minna's turn to scruple at such an unequal marriage, and to
urge against it all the arguments which he had used, but of which
he would not admit the force in their present application. Finally
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy. The subordinate characters — Just, Werner, Franziska, and
the sordid innkeeper are admirably drawn; and the introduction of
le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière is a happy hit at the petty
German rulers, whose courts swarmed with titled adventurers of this
sort, and even at Frederic the Great, who admitted them to his
army. Underlying the love story is a deeper political meaning; and
the nuptial union of Tellheim and Minna is made to symbolize the
natural ties of race which should bind together the different members
of the German family, then alienated and antagonized by dynastic
jealousies and interests.
In (Emilia Galotti' the scene is laid in Italy, and the catastrophe
recalls the days of the old Roman Republic; but the play is wholly
German in spirit, and holds the mirror up to the frivolous and
tyrannical princelings of Lessing's own time and nation. The hero-
ine, the daughter of a colonel and the betrothed of Count Appiani,
has excited the admiration and passion of the reigning sovereign, an
effeminate and sentimental young man, whose few generous impulses
have been checked and stunted by the consciousness of irresponsible
power and the servile flattery of courtiers, and who has grown up
into a pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous egotist. On learning that
Emilia is about to marry Appiani, he gives his chamberlain, the
sycophantic and utterly unprincipled Marinelli, carte blanche to use
every means to prevent it; the result of which is the assassination of
the groom on his wedding-day and the abduction of the bride, who,
under the pretext of protecting her from the bandits, is carried off
to the prince's castle. Her father hastens thither, and learns the
real cause of Appiani's taking-off in an accidental interview with the
prince's discarded mistress, Countess Orsina, who gives him a dag-
ger and bids him do his duty. The father, disarmed by a gracious
word of his Serene Highness, lets the favorable opportunity pass, and
finally thrusts the dagger into the heart of his daughter, who, fearing
lest she might yield to the seductions of the court and to the suit of
her princely lover, entreats him to do the deed. This dénouement
is the weak point in the play. Times have changed since the age of
## p. 9008 (#648) ###########################################
9008
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Virginius; and the heroic act of a father to whom the law gave the
power of life and death over his children does not fit into the plot
of a modern tragedy. The sentimental metaphor of “a rose broken
from its stem before the storm strips it of its leaves,” first used by
the daughter and repeated by the father, hardly suits the case. The
characters Appiani and Odoardo Galotti, in contrast to Marinelli, the
type of contemporary court vermin,” are admirably portrayed; the
dialogue is simple and compact, and the dramatic movement remark-
ably direct and rapid. The piece was first represented at Brunswick,
March 13th, 1772, and has kept its place on the German stage ever
since.
Still more remote from Lessing's age and country is the action of
Nathan the Wise'; the scene of which is laid in Jerusalem during
the Third Crusade, in the latter half of the twelfth century, but
which nevertheless bore the closest relation to his own intellectual
life and to that of his time. The germ of the drama is the tale of
Saladin and the Jew Melchizedek in Boccaccio's (Decameron,' which
Lessing used as a parable to illustrate and enforce his views of reli-
gious toleration. Indeed, the whole play is little more than a dia-
logue in iambics on this subject, which came to his hand as a new and
effective weapon in the warfare which he had been waging against
theological bigotry, in his controversy with the Hamburg pastor Götze.
It was published in 1779, and represented in Berlin four years later.
Lessing's last word in this polemical discussion was his essay of
a hundred paragraphs entitled “The Education of the Human Race,'
and containing a complete philosophy of religion in a nutshell. These
acute and suggestive theses will still be read with interest, although
the recent comparative study of religions has rendered some of them
untenable.
An additional evidence of the vigor and versatility of his genius
is seen in the acute and comprehensive spirit with which he handled
æsthetical topics. His Laocoön' (published in May 1766), although
a fragment, still remains an unrivaled masterpiece of art criticism;
and the line of demarcation which he drew between the speaking
and the imaging arts has never been disturbed. He fixed the limits
of poetry and painting as different modes of representation, and set
aside once for all the famous dictum of Simonides, Ut pictura poesis,
which had received the indorsement of Winckelmann and which he
himself had formerly accepted. The fruitfulness of this “splendid
thought,” as Goethe calls it, is perceptible in the subsequent devel-
opment of the principles of criticism as applied to literature and the
fine arts in Germany.
Even more fugitive and fragmentary than "Laocoon' is Lessing's
"Dramaturgy,' written during his brief connection with the Hamburg
((
## p. 9009 (#649) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9009
theatre as critic in 1767, and concluded in the following year after
the financial failure of that ill-starred enterprise. But here too the
good seed, which seemed then to have been sown among thorns or
on stony places, has sprung up and borne fruit a hundredfold. This
is the result which Lessing wished to attain. Number 95 of this
series of papers ends as follows: "Just here I remind my readers
that these pages are by no means intended to contain a dramatic
system. I am therefore not bound to solve all the difficulties which
I raise. I am quite willing that my thoughts should seem to want
connection, and even to contradict each other, if they are only
thoughts in which the readers may find material for thinking them-
selves. I aim at nothing more than to scatter fermenta cognitionis. ”
In the performance of this useful function he has seldom been sur-
passed.
Lessing possessed a clearness of insight and a vigor of mind bor-
dering on genius; he was a master of creative criticism, an original
thinker, and what is more, a man of sterling character and strictest
intellectual integrity: but he was not of imagination all compact,”
not a great poet, and never claimed to be. The manly stride of his
prose easily turns to mincing steps in his verse. His epigrams and
odes and lyrics are rhythmically correct, but purely mechanical and
often exceedingly stiff; and his plays, although dramatically well con-
structed, lack the qualities which he as a critic appreciated in Shake-
speare, but which the keenest critical faculty can never supply. But
with all these deficiencies on the poetic side of ķis nature, of which
no one was more fully conscious than himself, he still remains one of
the noblest figures and most permanent influences for good in Ger-
man literature.
EN Enan
NAMES
I
ASKED my maiden fair one day :-
« What shall I call thee in my lay?
Wilt thou be as Daphne famed ?
Wilt thou Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris
By posterity be named ? >
"Ah! ” replied my maiden fair,
“Names are naught but empty air.
XV-564
## p. 9010 (#650) ###########################################
9010
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Choose the one that suits the line:
Call me Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris, -
Call me anything, in fine,
If thou only call'st me Thine. ”
EPIGRAM
HO will not mighty Klopstock praise ?
Will everybody read him ? Nay!
A little less extol our lays,
And read a little more, we pray.
W"
[This epigram evidently suggested to James Russell Lowell his pithy char-
acterization of Klopstock as “an immortality of unreadableness. ” Lessing also,
in a letter to Gleim (October 20, 1757), asks: «What do you say to Klop-
stock's sacred songs ? If you condemn them, I shall suspect your Christianity;
if you approve of them, I shall question your taste. ”]
THUNDER
Hº
.
O, FRIENDS! it thunders! Let us drink!
Fill up the bowl! For what care we?
Let hypocrites and villains shrink,
And minions bend the servile knee!
It thunders! drain the glasses dry!
Nor start like women with affright:
Just Jove may lash the sea-surge high,
His nectar he will never smite.
BENEFITS
'En if a vicious man were like a leaky vat,
That wastes what it receives, pour in, for all of that!
If vat and man are not in too decrepit plight,
Keep pouring in thy gifts! How soon a crack soaks tight!
E
ON MR. R
*
THA
WHAT you're a poet, sir, I'm very glad;
But are you nothing more? Ah! that's too bad.
* Probably Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
## p. 9011 (#651) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9011
FROM (NATHAN THE WISE)
SALAD
ALADIN
Draw nearer, Jew! Still nearer! Close to me,
And have no fear!
Nathan
Let that be for thy foe!
Saladin Thy name is Nathan.
Nathan
Yes.
Saladin
Nathan the Wise ?
Nathan No.
Saladin
Well! if not by thee thyself so called,
The people call thee so.
Nathan
Maybe, the people.
Saladin Thou dost not think, forsooth, that I
The people's voice do scornfully disdain ?
Indeed, I have long wished to know the man
The people call the Wise.
Nathan -
What if they mean
By wise that he is only shrewd, and knows
His own advantage craftily to gain ?
Saladin His true advantage meanest thou thereby ?
Nathan Then the most selfish were the shrewdest too;
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Saladin - I hear thee prove what thou wouldst contradict.
Man's truest gain, which people do not know,
Thou knowest or at least hast sought to know;
This thou hast pondered, and 'tis this alone
That makes man wise.
Nathan
And which each deems himself
To be.
Saladin
And now of modesty enough!
To hear it evermore, where one expects
Dry reason, sickens.
[He springs up.
To the matter now!
But be honest, yes, be honest!
Nathan –
Sultan,
It surely is my wish to serve thee so,
That worthy of thy further custom I
May still remain.
Saladin
To serve me ? how?
Nathan
The best
Of all shalt thou receive, and have it at
The fairest price.
## p. 9012 (#652) ###########################################
9012
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Saladin
What dost thou speak of, Jew?
Not of thy wares! The chafferer with thee
Shall be my sister. [Aside: That for the eavesdropper. ]
With thee as merchant have I naught to do.
Nathan Then doubtless thou thyself would'st know what I
Have on my journey, of the foe, who seems
To stir again, observed or happened on?
If plainly I-
Saladin
That too is not my drift
With thee. Of that I know already what
I require. - In short-
Nathan -
Command me, Sultan.
Saladin — In something else that's wholly different
I now desire thy teaching. –Since thou art
So wise, pray tell me once what faith, what law
Has seemed to thee most genuine.
Nathan -
Sultan,
I am a Jew.
Saladin
And I a Mussulman.
Between us is the Christian. Of these three
Religions, one alone can be the true.
A man like thee remains not standing there,
Where merely chance of birth has cast his lot;
Or if he there remain, then he remains
Through insight, reason, or through better choice.
Come now, impart to me thy insight, let
Me hear the reasons which I've lacked the time
Minutely to examine. Let me know-
Of course in strictest confidence – the grounds
That have availed to fix thy final choice,
That I may make it mine. How? Thou dost start?
Dost weigh me with thy eye? It may well be
That I'm the first of Sultans who e'er had
A whim like this, which yet methinks is not
Unworthy of a Sultan. — Is't not so ?
Give answer! Speak! Or wishest thou to have
A moment to reflect? I give it thee.
Reflect, quickly reflect. I shall return
Without delay.
[Retires to an adjoining room. ]
Nathan -
Hm! hm! How very strange!
How dazed I am! What does the Sultan want?
What? I thought 'twas money, and he wishes — Truth.
## p. 9013 (#653) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9013
And wishes it cash down and unalloyed,
As though 'twere coin — yes, ancient coin that's weighed.
And that perhaps might do; but coin so new,
Which by the stamp alone is made to pass,
And may be counted out upon the board, -
That it is surely not. Can truth be put
Into the head like coin into a bag ?
Who then is here the Jew? Is't I or he?
How then ? If he in truth demand the truth?
For the distrust that he employs the truth
But as a trap, would be too mean! Too mean?
And what then for a magnate is too mean?
He rushed into the house and burst the door,
'Tis true — people should knock and listen first,
If they approach as friends. I must proceed
With care. But how? To be a downright Jew
Will never do. And not to be at all
A Jew, will do still less. If I'm no Jew,
Might he then ask why not a Mussulman?
That's it! That can save me! Not children only
Are fed with tales. - He comes. Well, let him come.
Saladin returns
Saladin
[Aside — Here then the field is clear. ] I've not returned
Too soon for thee?
Are thy reflections ended ?
If so, speak out. There's none that hears us here.
Nathan -- Would the whole world might hear us.
Saladin
Is Nathan
So certain of his cause? Ha! that I call
A wise man! never to conceal the truth!
For it to hazard all — body and life,
Estate and blood!
Nathan
If it be needful, yes!
Or be of use.
Saladin -
Henceforth then I may hope
That I rightly bear one of my titles:
“Reformer of the world and of the law. ”
Nathan - Faith, 'tis a splendid title; yet before,
O Sultan, I may quite confide in thee,
Permit me to relate a tale.
Saladin -
Why not?
I'm always fond of tales if they're well told.
Nathan - To tell them well is not my strongest point.
Saladin — Again so proudly modest ? Make haste! the tale!
- - - -
## p. 9014 (#654) ###########################################
9014
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
-
Nathan In olden times a man lived in the East,
Who from a loving hand possessed a ring
Of priceless worth. An opal was the stone,
In which a hundred brilliant colors played,
And which the hidden virtue also had
Of making him who wore it, in this trust,
Pleasing to God and well beloved by man.
What wonder then that this man in the East
The ring upon his finger always kept,
And so disposed that it should be for aye
An heirloom in his house ? He left the ring
Bequeathed unto the dearest of his sons,
Ordaining that he too the ring should leave
To that one of his sons whom he most loved,
And that this dearest one, without regard
To birth, by virtue of the ring alone
Should ever be the house's head and prince.
Thou understandest, Sultan ?
Saladin
Yes; go on!
Nathan — Thus the ring came, from son to son, at last
To one who was the father of three sons,
Who all alike were dutiful to him,
And all of whom he therefore could not help
But love alike. Only from time to time
Now this one, now the other, now the third -
As each might chance to be alone with him,
And his effusive heart the other two
Did not divide — seemed worthier of the ring,
Which through fond weakness he'd to each of them
Promised in turn. Thus it went on as long
As it would do. But when he neared his death,
The kindly father was most sore perplexed.
It gave him pain to grieve two of his sons,
Who on his word relied. What should he do?
In secret to a jeweler he sends,
And orders him to make two other rings
According to the pattern of the first.
And bids him spare nor cost nor toil, that they
May prove to be alike and just like it.
The jeweler in this succeeds so well,
That when he brings the rings, the model ring
Not e'en the father longer can discern.
With joy he calls his sons, each one apart,
And gives to each his blessing and his ring -
And dies. Thou hear'st me, Sultan?
## p. 9015 (#655) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9015
Saladin (who has turned away astonished] -
Yes, I hear!
Make haste and bring thy story to an end.
Will it be
Nathan
Already I have ended;
For what is still to follow, comes of course.
Scarce was the father dead, when each son comes
And brings his ring, and each would of the house
Be lord. They search, they quarrel, they accuse:
In vain; the right ring could not now be proved, —
[After a pause, in which he awaits the Sultan's answer]
Almost as little as to us can be
The right belief.
Saladin
How so? And that shall be
The answer to my question ?
Nathan
It shall serve
Merely as my excuse, if I presume
Not to discriminate between the rings
The father ordered made with the intent
That they should indiscriminate remain.
Saladin — The rings! Sport not with me! I should have thought
That the religions, which I named to thee,
Were easy to distinguish, e'en to dress
And e'en to meat and drink.
Nathan
But only not
As to the grounds on which they're thought to rest.
For are they not all based on history,
Traditional or written? And history
Must be received on trust – is it not so ?
In whom now are we likeliest to trust ?
In our own people, surely; in those men
Whose blood we are, and who from infancy
Have proved their love and never us deceived,
Unless 'twere wholesomer to be deceived.
How can I my forefathers less believe
Than thou dost thine? Or on the other hand,
Can ask of thee to say thy fathers lied,
In order not to contradict my own?
The same is true of Christians — is it not?
Saladin (aside]—
Now by the living God, the man is right,
And I'm struck dumb.
Nathan
Now to our rings let us
Return. As I have said, the sons brought suit
Against each other, and before the judge
## p. 9016 (#656) ###########################################
9016
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Each truly swore that he'd received the ring
Directly from his father's hand, and swore
Not the less true — that also long before
He had by him been solemnly assured
That he one day the ring's prerogative
Should certainly enjoy. And each declared
The father ne'er could have been false to him.
Ere such a loving father he'd suspect,
He'd sooner charge his brothers with foul play,
Though hitherto of them the very best
He always had been ready to believe;
And now he wished to find the traitors out,
That he might on them be avenged.
Saladin
And now
The judge? I long to hear what thou wilt make
The judge reply. Relate!
Nathan
The judge spoke thus:-
“If you the father cannot soon produce,
Then I dismiss you from my judgment-seat.
Think you that to solve riddles I sit here?
Or wait you till the right ring opes its mouth?
Yet stay! I hear the right ring doth possess
The magic power of making one beloved,
To God and man well pleasing. That alone
Must now decide. For surely the false rings
Will fail in that. Now whom love two of you
The most ? Make haste and speak! Why are you mute?
Is't only inward that the rings do work,
Not outward ? Does each one love himself the most ?
Deceived deceivers are you then all three!
And of your rings all three are not the true.
Presumably the true ring being lost,
The father to conceal or to repair
The loss had three rings made for one. ”
Saladin
Grand! grand!
Nathan - And thereupon the judge went on to say:-
“If you'll, instead of sentence, take advice,
This is my counsel: Let the matter rest
Just as it lies. If each of you has had
A ring presented by his father, then
Let each believe his own the genuine ring.
'Tis possible the father did not wish
To suffer any longer in his house
The one ring's tyranny! And certainly,
## p. 9017 (#657) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9017
As he all three did love, and all alike,
He would not willingly oppress the two
To favor one. Well, then! Let each one strive
To imitate that love, so pure and free
From prejudice! Let each one vie with each
In showing forth the virtue of the stone
That's in his ring! Let him assist its might
With gentleness, forbearance, love of peace,
And with sincere submission to his God!
And if the virtues of the stones remain,
And in your children's children prove their power,
After a thousand years have passed
Let them appear again before this seat.
A wiser man than I will then sit here
And speak. Depart! ) Thus said the modest judge.
ON LOVE OF TRUTH
From "Eine Duplik)
I
KNOW not whether it be a duty to offer up fortune and life
to the truth: certainly the courage and resolution necessary
to such a sacrifice are not gifts which we can bestow upon
ourselves. But I know it is a duty, if one undertake to teach
the truth, to teach the whole of it or none at all, to teach it
clearly and roundly, without enigmas or reserves, and with per-
fect confidence in its efficacy and utility; and the gifts required
for such a decision are in our power. Whoever will not acquire
these, or when acquired will not use them, shows that he has
a very poor opinion of the human intellect; and he deserves to
lose the confidence of his hearers, who, while he frees them from
some gross errors, yet withholds the entire truth, and thinks to
satisfy them by a compromise with falsehood. For the greater
the error, the shorter and straighter the way to the truth. On
the other hand, subtle error can prevent our recognition of its
nature, and forever blind us to the truth.
The man who is faithless to Truth in threatening dangers,
may yet love her much; and Truth forgives him his infidelity
for the sake of his love. But whosoever thinks of prostituting
Truth under all sorts of masks and rouge, may indeed be her
pimp, but he has never been her lover.
## p. 9018 (#658) ###########################################
9018
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Not the truth of which any one is, or supposes himself to be,
possessed, but the upright endeavor he has made to arrive at
truth, makes the worth of the man. For not by the possession
but by the pursuit of truth are his powers expanded, wherein
alone his ever-growing perfection consists. Possession makes us
easy, indolent, proud.
If God held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left
nothing but the ever-restless search after truth, although with
the condition of for ever and ever erring, and should say to
me, "Choose! ” I should bow humbly to his left hand and say,
“Father, give! pure truth is for Thee alone! ”
THE MEANING OF HERESY
W***
is called a heretic has a very good side.
It is a man
who wishes to see with his own eyes. The only question
is whether he has good eyes. In certain ages the name
of heretic is the best title that a scholar can transmit to poster-
ity; far better than that of sorcerer, magian, exorcist, for these
serve to conceal many an impostor.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
WT.
2.
That education is to the individual, revelation is to the whole
human race.
Education is revelation which is given to the individual;
revelation is education which has been and is still given to the
human race.
3.
Whether education, regarded from this point of view,
can be of any use in pedagogics, I will not discuss here; but in
theology it can surely be of very great use and remove many
difficulties, if revelation can be conceived of as an education of
the human race.
4. Education does not give to man anything which he could
not acquire of himself, but only gives it to him more quickly and
more easily. So too revelation does not give anything to the
human race which human reason, if left to itself, would not at-
tain; but it has given and still gives the most important of these
things earlier.
## p. 9019 (#659) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9019
5.
As in education it is not a matter of indifference in what
order the powers of the individual are developed, and as it can-
not impart to him everything at once, so God in his revelation
must observe a certain order and due moderation.
6. If the first man were immediately provided with the
conception of one God, it would be impossible for the concep-
tion thus communicated and not acquired to preserve its original
purity. As soon as human reason left to itself began to act upon
it, it would divide the one infinite into several finites and give to
each a designation.
7. It was thus that polytheism and idolatry naturally arose.
And who knows how many millions of years human reason might
have wandered in these erring ways, although some individuals
in all lands and at all times knew them to be erring ways, if it
had not pleased God by a new impulse to give it a better direc-
tion ?
8. But since God could not or would not reveal himself
any longer to each single individual, he chose a single people for
special education, the rudest and most uncivilized, in order to
train it from the very beginning.
[Paragraphs 9 to 52 show how monotheism, or the doctrine of one God,
was revealed to the Jews, and this moral education promoted by a system of
temporal rewards and punishments, according as they obeyed or transgressed
the commands of the Almighty. But when the Hebrew Bible, as an ele-
mentary hornbook, became gradually unsuited to the growing intellect of the
children of Israel, their teachers the Rabbins resorted to mystical and alle-
gorical interpretations, and forced new ideas into the text wholly foreign to
their original meaning. This course of instruction warped the mind of the
pupil, making him petty, crafty, captious, fond of subtleties and sophistries,
and incapable of seeing things in their true light-in short, cabalistic and
superstitious. ]
53. It was therefore necessary for a better teacher to come
and snatch the obsolete primer from the hands of the child.
Christ came.
[In paragraphs 54-77, Lessing discusses the tenets of this new teacher and
his disciples, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the dogmas of
the Trinity, of Original Sin, and of the Atonement; and arrives at the con-
clusion that “the development of real truths into truths of the reason is abso-
lutely necessary if they are to be of any help to the human race. ”]
78. It is not true that speculations concerning these things
have ever wrought mischief or been hurtful to civil society.
## p. 9020 (#660) ###########################################
9020
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
This reproach should be made, not to the speculations themselves,
but to the folly and tyranny that would hinder these speculations
and grudge to men the free exercise of their thoughts.
79. On the contrary, such speculations, however they may
result in individual cases, are incontestably the fittest exercises
of the human mind, so long as the human heart is at most only
capable of loving virtue for the sake of its consequences in con-
ferring eternal happiness.
80. For since this selfishness of the human heart exists, the
desire to exercise the mind exclusively on that which concerns
our physical necessities would tend rather to dull it than to
sharpen it. The mind must in sooth be exercised on intellect-
ual objects, if it is to attain its full illumination and produce
that purity of heart which makes us capable of loving virtue for
its own sake.
81. Or shall the human race never attain this highest degree
of enlightenment and purity? Never ?
82. Never ? Let me not be guilty of such blasphemy even
in my thoughts, All-gracious One! Education has its purpose in
the race not less than in the individual. What is educated, is
educated for something.
83. The flattering prospects which are offered to the youth,
the honor and prosperity which are pictured to him,- what are
these but means of training him up to be a man who will be
able to do his duty, even when these prospects of honor and
prosperity fail!
84. This is the aim of human education, and may not divine
education attain as much ? What art succeeds in doing with the
individual, shall not nature succeed in doing with the whole ?
Blasphemy! Blasphemy! [In other words, it is blasphemy to
doubt this. ]
85. No! it will come, it will surely come, the time of perfect
development: when man, the more firmly he feels convinced of
an ever better future, will have less need of borrowing from this
future the motives of his actions; when he will do good because
it is good, not because he expects arbitrary rewards, which were
formerly designed merely to fix and strengthen his inconstant
recognition of the inner and better rewards of virtue.
86. It will surely come, the time of a new, eternal gospel,
which is promised us even in the elementary books of the New
Covenant.
## p. 9021 (#661) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9021
94. Why may not each individual have already existed once
in this world ?
95. Is this hypothesis so absurd because it is the oldest, or
because the human mind hit upon it before the mental powers
had been dissipated and weakened by the sophistry of the schools ?
96. Why may not I already have taken all the steps towards
perfection which mere temporal rewards and punishments can
induce man to take ?
97. And why not again all those which the prospects of
eternal reward so strongly aid us to perform?
98. Why should I not return as often as I am fitted to
acquire new knowledge and new capacities? Do I take away
with me so much at once that it is perhaps not worth the while
to come again ?
99. Or because I forget that I have been here? Well for
me that I forget it! The remembrance of my former state would
permit me to make only a poor use of the present. And what I
must forget now, have I forgotten it forever?
Or because too much time would thereby be lost to me?
Lost ? What have I then to lose? Is not all eternity mine?
100.
THE DIFFERING SPHERES OF POETRY AND PAINTING
From Laocoön)
I
F it be true that painting uses for its imitations wholly differ-
ent means or signs from poetry, - namely, forms and colors
in space instead of articulate tones in time,-if it be incon-
testable that these signs must bear a suitable relation to the
thing signified, then coexistent signs can represent only coexistent
objects, and successive signs only successive objects.
Coexistent objects are called bodies; consequently bodies with
their visible attributes are the proper objects of painting.
Successive objects are called in general actions; consequently
actions are the proper objects of poetry.
Bodies exist, however, not only in space, but also in time.
They continue, and at every moment of their duration appear
differently and in different relations to each other. Each of
these momentary appearances and relations is the effect of a pre-
ceding and can be the cause of a succeeding one, and therefore
the centre of an action; consequently painting can imitate actions,
but only suggestively through bodies.
## p. 9022 (#662) ###########################################
9022
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
use
On the other hand, actions cannot exist in themselves, but
must inhere in certain beings.
1:1 astT
priency, the lector
feculi. Tue Feinons, whics -
Visi21lot use him n: 11:11 H
Distrir111 itert as a st11
18. ) pars liter le Wert
to litterdengi where iei
th, 1,5? .
ܢܐ ,f746
of Lein
L
and az
; f( 1. 011) ܂ ܃ ؛
D) iper theme raiudiz
edino ai jie, le cevi,
railer vermelt
Athlüsili tu
## p. 9004 (#644) ###########################################
LESSING
## p. 9005 (#645) ###########################################
9005
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
(1729-1781)
BY E. P. EVANS
ESSING was born January 22d, 1729, at Camenz in the Saxon
province of Upper Lusatia, and died at Brunswick, February
15th, 1781. His father was a clergyman and his mother the
daughter of a clergyman; and his earliest known ancestor, Clarence
Lessigk, a curate in the Saxon Erzgebirge, was one of the signers of
the formula concordia published in 1580, and designed to allay certain
doctrinal dissensions which had arisen soon after the death of the
reformer. From this ecclesiastical progenitor his line of descent ran
unbroken through six generations of theologians, jurists, burgomas-
ters, and other men of culture; and in illustration of the “survival of
the fittest,” the family name and characteristics were in our own day
the heritage of one of the most eminent historical painters of Ger-
many. Lessing belonged therefore to what Oliver Wendell Holmes
used to call the “Academic Races,” in whom scholarly tastes and
aptitudes are inbred and transmitted from father to son, and who take
to learning almost as instinctively as a cat takes to mousing. It
is the scions of such a stock that constitute the largest contingent of
those who pursue university studies, and fill the ranks of the learned
professions; producing a horde of pedants like Lessing's younger
brother Theophilus, and at rare intervals a man of genius like him-
self.
In June 1741, when he was scarcely thirteen, he was sent to the
then celebrated grammar school at Meissen (Fürstenschule zu St.
Afra), where he completed the prescribed six-years' course of study
in five years. In answer to the father's inquiry concerning his son's
proficiency, the rector replied: “He is a horse that needs double
fodder. The lessons, which are hard for others, are nothing for him.
We cannot use him much longer. ” On September 20th, 1746, he was
matriculated as a student of theology in the University of Leipsic.
Two years later he went to Wittenberg, thence to Berlin, and again
to Wittenberg, where he took the degree of master of arts on April
29th, 1752.
During these half a dozen years of quite varied and rather vagrant
academical life, he devoted himself with energy and enthusiasm to
## p. 9006 (#646) ###########################################
9006
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
>>
literary pursuits, and developed a marked talent for dramatic com-
position. He wrote a comedy entitled “The Young Scholar. ' The
juvenile pedant, as he afterwards states, “was the only kind of ninny
which at that time it was impossible for me not to be intimately
acquainted with”; his play was therefore a study from life, rendered
more realistic and vivid by a dawning consciousness of the danger to
which he was himself exposed. The piece was given with great
applause by the troupe of the celebrated Madame Neuber at Leipsic,
whose citizens were only too familiar with the original of Damis. The
best of his earlier plays is unquestionably Miss Sara Sampson,' a
tragedy in five acts, first represented at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, July
10th, 1755, when, as we are told, the spectators “sat four hours like
statues, and wept and wept. Nowadays its high-flown sentimentalism
would excite laughter rather than tears; and although it was a theat-
rical success, and even had the distinction of being translated into
French, it has long since fallen into oblivion. Its present importance
is purely historical, as the first specimen of the tragedy of middle-
class life on the German stage. Of Lessing's later and riper contri-
butions to dramatic literature, three may be said to have an intrinsic
and permanent value, Minna von Barnhelm,' (Emilia Galotti,' and
(Nathan the Wise': a comedy, a tragedy, and what might be called
a didactic drama, although each of these productions is pervaded by
an earnest and quite obvious moral purpose.
The salient feature of Minna von Barnhelm,' published in 1767,
is its national character,- so far as the term “national” can be
applied to anything German at that time. Chiefly for this reason it
appeared as “a shining meteor” to the eyes of Goethe, who was
then a student in Leipsic, and who, in his talks with Eckermann in
the last years of his life, recalled with reminiscent enthusiasm the
immense influence it exerted upon the young people of his day. The
hero, Major Tellheim, an officer in the service of Frederick the Great,
has during the Seven Years' War advanced the money for the pay-
ment of a heavy contribution levied on a poor Saxon province. This
noble and generous act so deeply impresses Minna von Barnhelm, a
wealthy young lady of the neighborhood, that she seeks his acquaint-
ance and becomes his betrothed. On the conclusion of peace, the
draft given by the Saxon authorities to Tellheim is construed by
the Prussian government into evidence of his having been bribed by
the enemy; and he is therefore cashiered. His fine sense of honor
makes him unwilling to involve the young lady in his disgrace, and
he accordingly releases her from her engagement. As all her pro-
tests against such a proceeding prove unavailing, she resolves to
accomplish her purpose by artifice, and pretends that she has been
disinherited by her uncle on account of her betrothal. The cunning
## p. 9007 (#647) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9007
device succeeds. Believing her to be poor and deserted, Tellheim is
eager to wed her and take her under his protection; especially as
meanwhile he has received a letter from the King, recognizing the
true state of the case as regards the draft, ordering it to be paid,
and offering to restore him to his former rank in the army. It is
now Minna's turn to scruple at such an unequal marriage, and to
urge against it all the arguments which he had used, but of which
he would not admit the force in their present application. Finally
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy. The subordinate characters — Just, Werner, Franziska, and
the sordid innkeeper are admirably drawn; and the introduction of
le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière is a happy hit at the petty
German rulers, whose courts swarmed with titled adventurers of this
sort, and even at Frederic the Great, who admitted them to his
army. Underlying the love story is a deeper political meaning; and
the nuptial union of Tellheim and Minna is made to symbolize the
natural ties of race which should bind together the different members
of the German family, then alienated and antagonized by dynastic
jealousies and interests.
In (Emilia Galotti' the scene is laid in Italy, and the catastrophe
recalls the days of the old Roman Republic; but the play is wholly
German in spirit, and holds the mirror up to the frivolous and
tyrannical princelings of Lessing's own time and nation. The hero-
ine, the daughter of a colonel and the betrothed of Count Appiani,
has excited the admiration and passion of the reigning sovereign, an
effeminate and sentimental young man, whose few generous impulses
have been checked and stunted by the consciousness of irresponsible
power and the servile flattery of courtiers, and who has grown up
into a pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous egotist. On learning that
Emilia is about to marry Appiani, he gives his chamberlain, the
sycophantic and utterly unprincipled Marinelli, carte blanche to use
every means to prevent it; the result of which is the assassination of
the groom on his wedding-day and the abduction of the bride, who,
under the pretext of protecting her from the bandits, is carried off
to the prince's castle. Her father hastens thither, and learns the
real cause of Appiani's taking-off in an accidental interview with the
prince's discarded mistress, Countess Orsina, who gives him a dag-
ger and bids him do his duty. The father, disarmed by a gracious
word of his Serene Highness, lets the favorable opportunity pass, and
finally thrusts the dagger into the heart of his daughter, who, fearing
lest she might yield to the seductions of the court and to the suit of
her princely lover, entreats him to do the deed. This dénouement
is the weak point in the play. Times have changed since the age of
## p. 9008 (#648) ###########################################
9008
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Virginius; and the heroic act of a father to whom the law gave the
power of life and death over his children does not fit into the plot
of a modern tragedy. The sentimental metaphor of “a rose broken
from its stem before the storm strips it of its leaves,” first used by
the daughter and repeated by the father, hardly suits the case. The
characters Appiani and Odoardo Galotti, in contrast to Marinelli, the
type of contemporary court vermin,” are admirably portrayed; the
dialogue is simple and compact, and the dramatic movement remark-
ably direct and rapid. The piece was first represented at Brunswick,
March 13th, 1772, and has kept its place on the German stage ever
since.
Still more remote from Lessing's age and country is the action of
Nathan the Wise'; the scene of which is laid in Jerusalem during
the Third Crusade, in the latter half of the twelfth century, but
which nevertheless bore the closest relation to his own intellectual
life and to that of his time. The germ of the drama is the tale of
Saladin and the Jew Melchizedek in Boccaccio's (Decameron,' which
Lessing used as a parable to illustrate and enforce his views of reli-
gious toleration. Indeed, the whole play is little more than a dia-
logue in iambics on this subject, which came to his hand as a new and
effective weapon in the warfare which he had been waging against
theological bigotry, in his controversy with the Hamburg pastor Götze.
It was published in 1779, and represented in Berlin four years later.
Lessing's last word in this polemical discussion was his essay of
a hundred paragraphs entitled “The Education of the Human Race,'
and containing a complete philosophy of religion in a nutshell. These
acute and suggestive theses will still be read with interest, although
the recent comparative study of religions has rendered some of them
untenable.
An additional evidence of the vigor and versatility of his genius
is seen in the acute and comprehensive spirit with which he handled
æsthetical topics. His Laocoön' (published in May 1766), although
a fragment, still remains an unrivaled masterpiece of art criticism;
and the line of demarcation which he drew between the speaking
and the imaging arts has never been disturbed. He fixed the limits
of poetry and painting as different modes of representation, and set
aside once for all the famous dictum of Simonides, Ut pictura poesis,
which had received the indorsement of Winckelmann and which he
himself had formerly accepted. The fruitfulness of this “splendid
thought,” as Goethe calls it, is perceptible in the subsequent devel-
opment of the principles of criticism as applied to literature and the
fine arts in Germany.
Even more fugitive and fragmentary than "Laocoon' is Lessing's
"Dramaturgy,' written during his brief connection with the Hamburg
((
## p. 9009 (#649) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9009
theatre as critic in 1767, and concluded in the following year after
the financial failure of that ill-starred enterprise. But here too the
good seed, which seemed then to have been sown among thorns or
on stony places, has sprung up and borne fruit a hundredfold. This
is the result which Lessing wished to attain. Number 95 of this
series of papers ends as follows: "Just here I remind my readers
that these pages are by no means intended to contain a dramatic
system. I am therefore not bound to solve all the difficulties which
I raise. I am quite willing that my thoughts should seem to want
connection, and even to contradict each other, if they are only
thoughts in which the readers may find material for thinking them-
selves. I aim at nothing more than to scatter fermenta cognitionis. ”
In the performance of this useful function he has seldom been sur-
passed.
Lessing possessed a clearness of insight and a vigor of mind bor-
dering on genius; he was a master of creative criticism, an original
thinker, and what is more, a man of sterling character and strictest
intellectual integrity: but he was not of imagination all compact,”
not a great poet, and never claimed to be. The manly stride of his
prose easily turns to mincing steps in his verse. His epigrams and
odes and lyrics are rhythmically correct, but purely mechanical and
often exceedingly stiff; and his plays, although dramatically well con-
structed, lack the qualities which he as a critic appreciated in Shake-
speare, but which the keenest critical faculty can never supply. But
with all these deficiencies on the poetic side of ķis nature, of which
no one was more fully conscious than himself, he still remains one of
the noblest figures and most permanent influences for good in Ger-
man literature.
EN Enan
NAMES
I
ASKED my maiden fair one day :-
« What shall I call thee in my lay?
Wilt thou be as Daphne famed ?
Wilt thou Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris
By posterity be named ? >
"Ah! ” replied my maiden fair,
“Names are naught but empty air.
XV-564
## p. 9010 (#650) ###########################################
9010
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Choose the one that suits the line:
Call me Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris, -
Call me anything, in fine,
If thou only call'st me Thine. ”
EPIGRAM
HO will not mighty Klopstock praise ?
Will everybody read him ? Nay!
A little less extol our lays,
And read a little more, we pray.
W"
[This epigram evidently suggested to James Russell Lowell his pithy char-
acterization of Klopstock as “an immortality of unreadableness. ” Lessing also,
in a letter to Gleim (October 20, 1757), asks: «What do you say to Klop-
stock's sacred songs ? If you condemn them, I shall suspect your Christianity;
if you approve of them, I shall question your taste. ”]
THUNDER
Hº
.
O, FRIENDS! it thunders! Let us drink!
Fill up the bowl! For what care we?
Let hypocrites and villains shrink,
And minions bend the servile knee!
It thunders! drain the glasses dry!
Nor start like women with affright:
Just Jove may lash the sea-surge high,
His nectar he will never smite.
BENEFITS
'En if a vicious man were like a leaky vat,
That wastes what it receives, pour in, for all of that!
If vat and man are not in too decrepit plight,
Keep pouring in thy gifts! How soon a crack soaks tight!
E
ON MR. R
*
THA
WHAT you're a poet, sir, I'm very glad;
But are you nothing more? Ah! that's too bad.
* Probably Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
## p. 9011 (#651) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9011
FROM (NATHAN THE WISE)
SALAD
ALADIN
Draw nearer, Jew! Still nearer! Close to me,
And have no fear!
Nathan
Let that be for thy foe!
Saladin Thy name is Nathan.
Nathan
Yes.
Saladin
Nathan the Wise ?
Nathan No.
Saladin
Well! if not by thee thyself so called,
The people call thee so.
Nathan
Maybe, the people.
Saladin Thou dost not think, forsooth, that I
The people's voice do scornfully disdain ?
Indeed, I have long wished to know the man
The people call the Wise.
Nathan -
What if they mean
By wise that he is only shrewd, and knows
His own advantage craftily to gain ?
Saladin His true advantage meanest thou thereby ?
Nathan Then the most selfish were the shrewdest too;
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Saladin - I hear thee prove what thou wouldst contradict.
Man's truest gain, which people do not know,
Thou knowest or at least hast sought to know;
This thou hast pondered, and 'tis this alone
That makes man wise.
Nathan
And which each deems himself
To be.
Saladin
And now of modesty enough!
To hear it evermore, where one expects
Dry reason, sickens.
[He springs up.
To the matter now!
But be honest, yes, be honest!
Nathan –
Sultan,
It surely is my wish to serve thee so,
That worthy of thy further custom I
May still remain.
Saladin
To serve me ? how?
Nathan
The best
Of all shalt thou receive, and have it at
The fairest price.
## p. 9012 (#652) ###########################################
9012
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Saladin
What dost thou speak of, Jew?
Not of thy wares! The chafferer with thee
Shall be my sister. [Aside: That for the eavesdropper. ]
With thee as merchant have I naught to do.
Nathan Then doubtless thou thyself would'st know what I
Have on my journey, of the foe, who seems
To stir again, observed or happened on?
If plainly I-
Saladin
That too is not my drift
With thee. Of that I know already what
I require. - In short-
Nathan -
Command me, Sultan.
Saladin — In something else that's wholly different
I now desire thy teaching. –Since thou art
So wise, pray tell me once what faith, what law
Has seemed to thee most genuine.
Nathan -
Sultan,
I am a Jew.
Saladin
And I a Mussulman.
Between us is the Christian. Of these three
Religions, one alone can be the true.
A man like thee remains not standing there,
Where merely chance of birth has cast his lot;
Or if he there remain, then he remains
Through insight, reason, or through better choice.
Come now, impart to me thy insight, let
Me hear the reasons which I've lacked the time
Minutely to examine. Let me know-
Of course in strictest confidence – the grounds
That have availed to fix thy final choice,
That I may make it mine. How? Thou dost start?
Dost weigh me with thy eye? It may well be
That I'm the first of Sultans who e'er had
A whim like this, which yet methinks is not
Unworthy of a Sultan. — Is't not so ?
Give answer! Speak! Or wishest thou to have
A moment to reflect? I give it thee.
Reflect, quickly reflect. I shall return
Without delay.
[Retires to an adjoining room. ]
Nathan -
Hm! hm! How very strange!
How dazed I am! What does the Sultan want?
What? I thought 'twas money, and he wishes — Truth.
## p. 9013 (#653) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9013
And wishes it cash down and unalloyed,
As though 'twere coin — yes, ancient coin that's weighed.
And that perhaps might do; but coin so new,
Which by the stamp alone is made to pass,
And may be counted out upon the board, -
That it is surely not. Can truth be put
Into the head like coin into a bag ?
Who then is here the Jew? Is't I or he?
How then ? If he in truth demand the truth?
For the distrust that he employs the truth
But as a trap, would be too mean! Too mean?
And what then for a magnate is too mean?
He rushed into the house and burst the door,
'Tis true — people should knock and listen first,
If they approach as friends. I must proceed
With care. But how? To be a downright Jew
Will never do. And not to be at all
A Jew, will do still less. If I'm no Jew,
Might he then ask why not a Mussulman?
That's it! That can save me! Not children only
Are fed with tales. - He comes. Well, let him come.
Saladin returns
Saladin
[Aside — Here then the field is clear. ] I've not returned
Too soon for thee?
Are thy reflections ended ?
If so, speak out. There's none that hears us here.
Nathan -- Would the whole world might hear us.
Saladin
Is Nathan
So certain of his cause? Ha! that I call
A wise man! never to conceal the truth!
For it to hazard all — body and life,
Estate and blood!
Nathan
If it be needful, yes!
Or be of use.
Saladin -
Henceforth then I may hope
That I rightly bear one of my titles:
“Reformer of the world and of the law. ”
Nathan - Faith, 'tis a splendid title; yet before,
O Sultan, I may quite confide in thee,
Permit me to relate a tale.
Saladin -
Why not?
I'm always fond of tales if they're well told.
Nathan - To tell them well is not my strongest point.
Saladin — Again so proudly modest ? Make haste! the tale!
- - - -
## p. 9014 (#654) ###########################################
9014
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
-
Nathan In olden times a man lived in the East,
Who from a loving hand possessed a ring
Of priceless worth. An opal was the stone,
In which a hundred brilliant colors played,
And which the hidden virtue also had
Of making him who wore it, in this trust,
Pleasing to God and well beloved by man.
What wonder then that this man in the East
The ring upon his finger always kept,
And so disposed that it should be for aye
An heirloom in his house ? He left the ring
Bequeathed unto the dearest of his sons,
Ordaining that he too the ring should leave
To that one of his sons whom he most loved,
And that this dearest one, without regard
To birth, by virtue of the ring alone
Should ever be the house's head and prince.
Thou understandest, Sultan ?
Saladin
Yes; go on!
Nathan — Thus the ring came, from son to son, at last
To one who was the father of three sons,
Who all alike were dutiful to him,
And all of whom he therefore could not help
But love alike. Only from time to time
Now this one, now the other, now the third -
As each might chance to be alone with him,
And his effusive heart the other two
Did not divide — seemed worthier of the ring,
Which through fond weakness he'd to each of them
Promised in turn. Thus it went on as long
As it would do. But when he neared his death,
The kindly father was most sore perplexed.
It gave him pain to grieve two of his sons,
Who on his word relied. What should he do?
In secret to a jeweler he sends,
And orders him to make two other rings
According to the pattern of the first.
And bids him spare nor cost nor toil, that they
May prove to be alike and just like it.
The jeweler in this succeeds so well,
That when he brings the rings, the model ring
Not e'en the father longer can discern.
With joy he calls his sons, each one apart,
And gives to each his blessing and his ring -
And dies. Thou hear'st me, Sultan?
## p. 9015 (#655) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9015
Saladin (who has turned away astonished] -
Yes, I hear!
Make haste and bring thy story to an end.
Will it be
Nathan
Already I have ended;
For what is still to follow, comes of course.
Scarce was the father dead, when each son comes
And brings his ring, and each would of the house
Be lord. They search, they quarrel, they accuse:
In vain; the right ring could not now be proved, —
[After a pause, in which he awaits the Sultan's answer]
Almost as little as to us can be
The right belief.
Saladin
How so? And that shall be
The answer to my question ?
Nathan
It shall serve
Merely as my excuse, if I presume
Not to discriminate between the rings
The father ordered made with the intent
That they should indiscriminate remain.
Saladin — The rings! Sport not with me! I should have thought
That the religions, which I named to thee,
Were easy to distinguish, e'en to dress
And e'en to meat and drink.
Nathan
But only not
As to the grounds on which they're thought to rest.
For are they not all based on history,
Traditional or written? And history
Must be received on trust – is it not so ?
In whom now are we likeliest to trust ?
In our own people, surely; in those men
Whose blood we are, and who from infancy
Have proved their love and never us deceived,
Unless 'twere wholesomer to be deceived.
How can I my forefathers less believe
Than thou dost thine? Or on the other hand,
Can ask of thee to say thy fathers lied,
In order not to contradict my own?
The same is true of Christians — is it not?
Saladin (aside]—
Now by the living God, the man is right,
And I'm struck dumb.
Nathan
Now to our rings let us
Return. As I have said, the sons brought suit
Against each other, and before the judge
## p. 9016 (#656) ###########################################
9016
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Each truly swore that he'd received the ring
Directly from his father's hand, and swore
Not the less true — that also long before
He had by him been solemnly assured
That he one day the ring's prerogative
Should certainly enjoy. And each declared
The father ne'er could have been false to him.
Ere such a loving father he'd suspect,
He'd sooner charge his brothers with foul play,
Though hitherto of them the very best
He always had been ready to believe;
And now he wished to find the traitors out,
That he might on them be avenged.
Saladin
And now
The judge? I long to hear what thou wilt make
The judge reply. Relate!
Nathan
The judge spoke thus:-
“If you the father cannot soon produce,
Then I dismiss you from my judgment-seat.
Think you that to solve riddles I sit here?
Or wait you till the right ring opes its mouth?
Yet stay! I hear the right ring doth possess
The magic power of making one beloved,
To God and man well pleasing. That alone
Must now decide. For surely the false rings
Will fail in that. Now whom love two of you
The most ? Make haste and speak! Why are you mute?
Is't only inward that the rings do work,
Not outward ? Does each one love himself the most ?
Deceived deceivers are you then all three!
And of your rings all three are not the true.
Presumably the true ring being lost,
The father to conceal or to repair
The loss had three rings made for one. ”
Saladin
Grand! grand!
Nathan - And thereupon the judge went on to say:-
“If you'll, instead of sentence, take advice,
This is my counsel: Let the matter rest
Just as it lies. If each of you has had
A ring presented by his father, then
Let each believe his own the genuine ring.
'Tis possible the father did not wish
To suffer any longer in his house
The one ring's tyranny! And certainly,
## p. 9017 (#657) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9017
As he all three did love, and all alike,
He would not willingly oppress the two
To favor one. Well, then! Let each one strive
To imitate that love, so pure and free
From prejudice! Let each one vie with each
In showing forth the virtue of the stone
That's in his ring! Let him assist its might
With gentleness, forbearance, love of peace,
And with sincere submission to his God!
And if the virtues of the stones remain,
And in your children's children prove their power,
After a thousand years have passed
Let them appear again before this seat.
A wiser man than I will then sit here
And speak. Depart! ) Thus said the modest judge.
ON LOVE OF TRUTH
From "Eine Duplik)
I
KNOW not whether it be a duty to offer up fortune and life
to the truth: certainly the courage and resolution necessary
to such a sacrifice are not gifts which we can bestow upon
ourselves. But I know it is a duty, if one undertake to teach
the truth, to teach the whole of it or none at all, to teach it
clearly and roundly, without enigmas or reserves, and with per-
fect confidence in its efficacy and utility; and the gifts required
for such a decision are in our power. Whoever will not acquire
these, or when acquired will not use them, shows that he has
a very poor opinion of the human intellect; and he deserves to
lose the confidence of his hearers, who, while he frees them from
some gross errors, yet withholds the entire truth, and thinks to
satisfy them by a compromise with falsehood. For the greater
the error, the shorter and straighter the way to the truth. On
the other hand, subtle error can prevent our recognition of its
nature, and forever blind us to the truth.
The man who is faithless to Truth in threatening dangers,
may yet love her much; and Truth forgives him his infidelity
for the sake of his love. But whosoever thinks of prostituting
Truth under all sorts of masks and rouge, may indeed be her
pimp, but he has never been her lover.
## p. 9018 (#658) ###########################################
9018
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Not the truth of which any one is, or supposes himself to be,
possessed, but the upright endeavor he has made to arrive at
truth, makes the worth of the man. For not by the possession
but by the pursuit of truth are his powers expanded, wherein
alone his ever-growing perfection consists. Possession makes us
easy, indolent, proud.
If God held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left
nothing but the ever-restless search after truth, although with
the condition of for ever and ever erring, and should say to
me, "Choose! ” I should bow humbly to his left hand and say,
“Father, give! pure truth is for Thee alone! ”
THE MEANING OF HERESY
W***
is called a heretic has a very good side.
It is a man
who wishes to see with his own eyes. The only question
is whether he has good eyes. In certain ages the name
of heretic is the best title that a scholar can transmit to poster-
ity; far better than that of sorcerer, magian, exorcist, for these
serve to conceal many an impostor.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
WT.
2.
That education is to the individual, revelation is to the whole
human race.
Education is revelation which is given to the individual;
revelation is education which has been and is still given to the
human race.
3.
Whether education, regarded from this point of view,
can be of any use in pedagogics, I will not discuss here; but in
theology it can surely be of very great use and remove many
difficulties, if revelation can be conceived of as an education of
the human race.
4. Education does not give to man anything which he could
not acquire of himself, but only gives it to him more quickly and
more easily. So too revelation does not give anything to the
human race which human reason, if left to itself, would not at-
tain; but it has given and still gives the most important of these
things earlier.
## p. 9019 (#659) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9019
5.
As in education it is not a matter of indifference in what
order the powers of the individual are developed, and as it can-
not impart to him everything at once, so God in his revelation
must observe a certain order and due moderation.
6. If the first man were immediately provided with the
conception of one God, it would be impossible for the concep-
tion thus communicated and not acquired to preserve its original
purity. As soon as human reason left to itself began to act upon
it, it would divide the one infinite into several finites and give to
each a designation.
7. It was thus that polytheism and idolatry naturally arose.
And who knows how many millions of years human reason might
have wandered in these erring ways, although some individuals
in all lands and at all times knew them to be erring ways, if it
had not pleased God by a new impulse to give it a better direc-
tion ?
8. But since God could not or would not reveal himself
any longer to each single individual, he chose a single people for
special education, the rudest and most uncivilized, in order to
train it from the very beginning.
[Paragraphs 9 to 52 show how monotheism, or the doctrine of one God,
was revealed to the Jews, and this moral education promoted by a system of
temporal rewards and punishments, according as they obeyed or transgressed
the commands of the Almighty. But when the Hebrew Bible, as an ele-
mentary hornbook, became gradually unsuited to the growing intellect of the
children of Israel, their teachers the Rabbins resorted to mystical and alle-
gorical interpretations, and forced new ideas into the text wholly foreign to
their original meaning. This course of instruction warped the mind of the
pupil, making him petty, crafty, captious, fond of subtleties and sophistries,
and incapable of seeing things in their true light-in short, cabalistic and
superstitious. ]
53. It was therefore necessary for a better teacher to come
and snatch the obsolete primer from the hands of the child.
Christ came.
[In paragraphs 54-77, Lessing discusses the tenets of this new teacher and
his disciples, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the dogmas of
the Trinity, of Original Sin, and of the Atonement; and arrives at the con-
clusion that “the development of real truths into truths of the reason is abso-
lutely necessary if they are to be of any help to the human race. ”]
78. It is not true that speculations concerning these things
have ever wrought mischief or been hurtful to civil society.
## p. 9020 (#660) ###########################################
9020
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
This reproach should be made, not to the speculations themselves,
but to the folly and tyranny that would hinder these speculations
and grudge to men the free exercise of their thoughts.
79. On the contrary, such speculations, however they may
result in individual cases, are incontestably the fittest exercises
of the human mind, so long as the human heart is at most only
capable of loving virtue for the sake of its consequences in con-
ferring eternal happiness.
80. For since this selfishness of the human heart exists, the
desire to exercise the mind exclusively on that which concerns
our physical necessities would tend rather to dull it than to
sharpen it. The mind must in sooth be exercised on intellect-
ual objects, if it is to attain its full illumination and produce
that purity of heart which makes us capable of loving virtue for
its own sake.
81. Or shall the human race never attain this highest degree
of enlightenment and purity? Never ?
82. Never ? Let me not be guilty of such blasphemy even
in my thoughts, All-gracious One! Education has its purpose in
the race not less than in the individual. What is educated, is
educated for something.
83. The flattering prospects which are offered to the youth,
the honor and prosperity which are pictured to him,- what are
these but means of training him up to be a man who will be
able to do his duty, even when these prospects of honor and
prosperity fail!
84. This is the aim of human education, and may not divine
education attain as much ? What art succeeds in doing with the
individual, shall not nature succeed in doing with the whole ?
Blasphemy! Blasphemy! [In other words, it is blasphemy to
doubt this. ]
85. No! it will come, it will surely come, the time of perfect
development: when man, the more firmly he feels convinced of
an ever better future, will have less need of borrowing from this
future the motives of his actions; when he will do good because
it is good, not because he expects arbitrary rewards, which were
formerly designed merely to fix and strengthen his inconstant
recognition of the inner and better rewards of virtue.
86. It will surely come, the time of a new, eternal gospel,
which is promised us even in the elementary books of the New
Covenant.
## p. 9021 (#661) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9021
94. Why may not each individual have already existed once
in this world ?
95. Is this hypothesis so absurd because it is the oldest, or
because the human mind hit upon it before the mental powers
had been dissipated and weakened by the sophistry of the schools ?
96. Why may not I already have taken all the steps towards
perfection which mere temporal rewards and punishments can
induce man to take ?
97. And why not again all those which the prospects of
eternal reward so strongly aid us to perform?
98. Why should I not return as often as I am fitted to
acquire new knowledge and new capacities? Do I take away
with me so much at once that it is perhaps not worth the while
to come again ?
99. Or because I forget that I have been here? Well for
me that I forget it! The remembrance of my former state would
permit me to make only a poor use of the present. And what I
must forget now, have I forgotten it forever?
Or because too much time would thereby be lost to me?
Lost ? What have I then to lose? Is not all eternity mine?
100.
THE DIFFERING SPHERES OF POETRY AND PAINTING
From Laocoön)
I
F it be true that painting uses for its imitations wholly differ-
ent means or signs from poetry, - namely, forms and colors
in space instead of articulate tones in time,-if it be incon-
testable that these signs must bear a suitable relation to the
thing signified, then coexistent signs can represent only coexistent
objects, and successive signs only successive objects.
Coexistent objects are called bodies; consequently bodies with
their visible attributes are the proper objects of painting.
Successive objects are called in general actions; consequently
actions are the proper objects of poetry.
Bodies exist, however, not only in space, but also in time.
They continue, and at every moment of their duration appear
differently and in different relations to each other. Each of
these momentary appearances and relations is the effect of a pre-
ceding and can be the cause of a succeeding one, and therefore
the centre of an action; consequently painting can imitate actions,
but only suggestively through bodies.
## p. 9022 (#662) ###########################################
9022
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
use
On the other hand, actions cannot exist in themselves, but
must inhere in certain beings.
