Nathan Then the most selfish were the shrewdest too;
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
He inquired for a lodging at an inn, where
.
he was answered that they had indeed empty rooms, but that
they could not recommend any of them to him, because the house
was haunted every night by a spirit, which treated all strangers
very ill that were rash enough to lodge there. This did not at
all balk the sergeant.
(Put me in what chamber you please,'
said he, “but give me a candle, wine, pipes, and tobacco; and as
for the spirit, never trouble yourself about it,-ghosts have a
respect for men of war who are grown old in the service. '
"As he seemed so resolute, he was shown into a chamber,
where all that he desired was brought to him. He fell to drink-
ing and sinoking till midnight, and no spirit had yet disturbed
the profound silence that reigned in the house. One would have
imagined he feared this new guest; but betwixt one and two, the
sergeant all of a sudden heard a terrible noise like the rattling
of old iron, and immediately saw entering his chamber an appari-
tion clothed in black and laden all round with iron chains. Our
smoker, not in the least affrighted at this sight, drew his sword,
advanced towards the spirit, and with the flat side of it gave him
a very severe blow on the head.
“The apparition, not much used to meet with such bold guests,
cried out; and perceiving the soldier going to begin with him
again, he most humbly prostrated himself at his feet. (Mr.
Sergeant,' said he, for God's sake do not give me any more;
but have mercy on a poor devil that casts himself at your feet.
I conjure you by St. James, who, as you are, was a great soldier. '
If you are willing to save your life,' answered the soldier, you
must tell me who you are, and speak without the least prevarica-
tion; or else this moment I cut you down the middle, as your
## p. 9003 (#639) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9003
(
knights of old were used to serve the giants they encountered. '
At these words, the ghost, finding what sort of man he had to do
with, resolved to own all.
«I am the principal servant of this inn,' replied the spirit;
(my name is Gụillermo; I am in love with my master's only
daughter, and she does not dislike me: but the father and mother
having a better match in view, the girl and I have agreed, in
order to compel them to make me their son-in-law, that I shall
every night act the part which I now do. I wrap myself up in a
long black cloak and hang the jack-chain about my neck. Thus
equipped, I run up and down the house from the cellar to the
garret, and make all the noise which you have heard. When I
am at my master's and mistress's chamber-door, I stop and cry
out: “Do not hope that I will ever let you rest till you marry
Juanna to Guillermo, your upper drawer. ” "After having pro-
nounced these words with a hoarse, broken voice, I continue my
noise, and at a window enter the closet where Juanna lies alone,
to give her an account of what I have done. — Mr. Sergeant,' con-
tinued Guillermo, you see I have told you the whole truth. I
know that after this confession you may ruin me by discovering
it to my master; but if you please to serve instead of undoing
me, I swear that my acknowledgments —
« Alas, what service can I do thee? ' interrupted the soldier.
You need do no more,' returned Guillermo, than to say to-
morrow that you have seen the spirit, that it so terribly affrighted
you How ? terribly affrighted! ' interrupted the soldier;
would you have Sergeant Annibal Antonio Quebrantador own
such a thing as fear? I had rather ten thousand devils should —
“That's not absolutely necessary,' interrupted Guillermo; (and
after all it is not much matter what you say, provided you
second my design. And when I have married Juanna and am
settled, I promise to treat you and all your friends nobly for
nothing every day. —You are a very tempting person, Mr.
Guillermo,' said the soldier. You propose to me to support a
tribe: it is a serious affair, which requires mature deliberation;
but the consequences hurry me on. So continue your noise; give
your account to Juanna, and I will take care of the rest. '
"Accordingly, next morning he said to his landlord and land-
lady: I have seen the spirit and have talked with it.
It is a
very honest fellow. “I am,” said he, “the great-grandfather of
the master of this house. I had a daughter whom I promised to
(
>
(
1
(
## p. 9004 (#640) ###########################################
9004
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
the father of the grandfather of this drawer. However, neglecting
the word I had given him, I married her to another, and died
soon after, and ever since am tormented as the punishment of
my perjury, and shall never be at rest till one of my family
shall marry one of Guillermo's; and it is for this reason I walk
here every night. Yet it is to no purpose that I bid them marry
Juanna to their head drawer. The son of my grandson and his
wife turn the deaf ear to all I can say. But tell them, if you
please, Mr. Sergeant, that if they do not immediately comply
with my desires, I shall proceed to action and will torment them
both in an extraordinary manner. ”)
“ The host, being silly enough, was terrified at this discourse;
but the hostess, yet more silly than her husband, fancying that
the spirit was always at her heels, consented to the match, and
Guillermo married Juanna the next day, and set up in another
part of the town. Sergeant Quebrantador did not fail to visit
him often; and he, in acknowledgment of the service he had done
him, gave him as much wine as he cared for. This so pleased
the soldier that he brought thither not only all his friends, but
listed his men there, and made all his recruits drunk.
“But at last Guillermo, grown weary of satiating such a crew
of drunkards, told his mind to the soldier; who, without ever
thinking that he had exceeded his agreement, was so unjust as to
call Guillermo a little ungrateful rascal. The host answered; the
sergeant replied; and the dialogue ended with several strokes
with the flat side of the sword, which Guillermo received. Sev-
eral persons passing by took the vintner's part; the sergeant
wounded three or four, but was suddenly fallen on by a crowd
of alguazils, who seized him as a disturber of the public peace
and carried him to prison. He there declared what I have told
you: and upon his deposition, the officers have also seized Guil-
lermo; the father-in-law requires the annulling of the marriage;
and the Holy Office being informed that Guillermo is rich, have
thought fit to take cognizance of it. ”
“As I hope to be saved,” said Don Cleofas, “this same Holy
Inquisition is very alert. The moment they see the least glimpse
of profit->
“Softly,” interrupted the cripple; “have a care what freedom
you take with this tribunal, for it has its spies everywhere,
even of things that were never spoken. I myself dare not speak
of it without trembling. ”
## p. 9004 (#641) ###########################################
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## p. 9004 (#643) ###########################################
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## 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?
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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
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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) ###########################################
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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.
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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.
.
he was answered that they had indeed empty rooms, but that
they could not recommend any of them to him, because the house
was haunted every night by a spirit, which treated all strangers
very ill that were rash enough to lodge there. This did not at
all balk the sergeant.
(Put me in what chamber you please,'
said he, “but give me a candle, wine, pipes, and tobacco; and as
for the spirit, never trouble yourself about it,-ghosts have a
respect for men of war who are grown old in the service. '
"As he seemed so resolute, he was shown into a chamber,
where all that he desired was brought to him. He fell to drink-
ing and sinoking till midnight, and no spirit had yet disturbed
the profound silence that reigned in the house. One would have
imagined he feared this new guest; but betwixt one and two, the
sergeant all of a sudden heard a terrible noise like the rattling
of old iron, and immediately saw entering his chamber an appari-
tion clothed in black and laden all round with iron chains. Our
smoker, not in the least affrighted at this sight, drew his sword,
advanced towards the spirit, and with the flat side of it gave him
a very severe blow on the head.
“The apparition, not much used to meet with such bold guests,
cried out; and perceiving the soldier going to begin with him
again, he most humbly prostrated himself at his feet. (Mr.
Sergeant,' said he, for God's sake do not give me any more;
but have mercy on a poor devil that casts himself at your feet.
I conjure you by St. James, who, as you are, was a great soldier. '
If you are willing to save your life,' answered the soldier, you
must tell me who you are, and speak without the least prevarica-
tion; or else this moment I cut you down the middle, as your
## p. 9003 (#639) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9003
(
knights of old were used to serve the giants they encountered. '
At these words, the ghost, finding what sort of man he had to do
with, resolved to own all.
«I am the principal servant of this inn,' replied the spirit;
(my name is Gụillermo; I am in love with my master's only
daughter, and she does not dislike me: but the father and mother
having a better match in view, the girl and I have agreed, in
order to compel them to make me their son-in-law, that I shall
every night act the part which I now do. I wrap myself up in a
long black cloak and hang the jack-chain about my neck. Thus
equipped, I run up and down the house from the cellar to the
garret, and make all the noise which you have heard. When I
am at my master's and mistress's chamber-door, I stop and cry
out: “Do not hope that I will ever let you rest till you marry
Juanna to Guillermo, your upper drawer. ” "After having pro-
nounced these words with a hoarse, broken voice, I continue my
noise, and at a window enter the closet where Juanna lies alone,
to give her an account of what I have done. — Mr. Sergeant,' con-
tinued Guillermo, you see I have told you the whole truth. I
know that after this confession you may ruin me by discovering
it to my master; but if you please to serve instead of undoing
me, I swear that my acknowledgments —
« Alas, what service can I do thee? ' interrupted the soldier.
You need do no more,' returned Guillermo, than to say to-
morrow that you have seen the spirit, that it so terribly affrighted
you How ? terribly affrighted! ' interrupted the soldier;
would you have Sergeant Annibal Antonio Quebrantador own
such a thing as fear? I had rather ten thousand devils should —
“That's not absolutely necessary,' interrupted Guillermo; (and
after all it is not much matter what you say, provided you
second my design. And when I have married Juanna and am
settled, I promise to treat you and all your friends nobly for
nothing every day. —You are a very tempting person, Mr.
Guillermo,' said the soldier. You propose to me to support a
tribe: it is a serious affair, which requires mature deliberation;
but the consequences hurry me on. So continue your noise; give
your account to Juanna, and I will take care of the rest. '
"Accordingly, next morning he said to his landlord and land-
lady: I have seen the spirit and have talked with it.
It is a
very honest fellow. “I am,” said he, “the great-grandfather of
the master of this house. I had a daughter whom I promised to
(
>
(
1
(
## p. 9004 (#640) ###########################################
9004
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
the father of the grandfather of this drawer. However, neglecting
the word I had given him, I married her to another, and died
soon after, and ever since am tormented as the punishment of
my perjury, and shall never be at rest till one of my family
shall marry one of Guillermo's; and it is for this reason I walk
here every night. Yet it is to no purpose that I bid them marry
Juanna to their head drawer. The son of my grandson and his
wife turn the deaf ear to all I can say. But tell them, if you
please, Mr. Sergeant, that if they do not immediately comply
with my desires, I shall proceed to action and will torment them
both in an extraordinary manner. ”)
“ The host, being silly enough, was terrified at this discourse;
but the hostess, yet more silly than her husband, fancying that
the spirit was always at her heels, consented to the match, and
Guillermo married Juanna the next day, and set up in another
part of the town. Sergeant Quebrantador did not fail to visit
him often; and he, in acknowledgment of the service he had done
him, gave him as much wine as he cared for. This so pleased
the soldier that he brought thither not only all his friends, but
listed his men there, and made all his recruits drunk.
“But at last Guillermo, grown weary of satiating such a crew
of drunkards, told his mind to the soldier; who, without ever
thinking that he had exceeded his agreement, was so unjust as to
call Guillermo a little ungrateful rascal. The host answered; the
sergeant replied; and the dialogue ended with several strokes
with the flat side of the sword, which Guillermo received. Sev-
eral persons passing by took the vintner's part; the sergeant
wounded three or four, but was suddenly fallen on by a crowd
of alguazils, who seized him as a disturber of the public peace
and carried him to prison. He there declared what I have told
you: and upon his deposition, the officers have also seized Guil-
lermo; the father-in-law requires the annulling of the marriage;
and the Holy Office being informed that Guillermo is rich, have
thought fit to take cognizance of it. ”
“As I hope to be saved,” said Don Cleofas, “this same Holy
Inquisition is very alert. The moment they see the least glimpse
of profit->
“Softly,” interrupted the cripple; “have a care what freedom
you take with this tribunal, for it has its spies everywhere,
even of things that were never spoken. I myself dare not speak
of it without trembling. ”
## p. 9004 (#641) ###########################################
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## 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) ###########################################
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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.
