No More Learning

RECHA: Yes, visibly he bore me through the fire
O'ershadowed by his pinions--face to face
I've seen an angel, father, my own angel!

NATHAN: A man had seemed an angel in such case!

RECHA: He was no real knight; no captive Templar
Appears alive in wide Jerusalem.

DAYA: Yet Saladin granted this youth his life,
For his great likeness to a dear dead brother.

NATHAN: Why need you, then, call angels into play?

DAYA: But then he wanted nothing, nothing sought;
Was in himself sufficient, like an angel.

RECHA: And when at last he vanished----

NATHAN: Vanished! Have you not sought him?
What if he--
That is, a Frank, unused to this fierce sun--
Now languish on a sick-bed, friendless, poor?

RECHA: Alas, my father!

NATHAN: What if he, unfriended,
Lies ill and unrelieved; the hapless prey
Of agony and death; consoled alone
In death by the remembrance of this deed.

DAYA: You kill her!

NATHAN: You kill him.

RECHA: Not dead, not dead!

NATHAN: Dead, surely not, for God rewards the good
E'en here below.
But ah, remember well
That rapt devotion is an easier thing
Than one good action. Ha! What Mussulman
Numbers my camels yonder? Why, for sure,
It's my old chess companion, my old Dervish,
Al Hafi!

DAYA: Treasurer now to Saladin.

[_Enter_ HAFI.

Ay, lift thine eyes and wonder!

NATHAN: Is it you?
A Dervish so magnificent?

HAFI: Why not?
Is Dervish, then, so hopeless? Rather ask
What had been made of me. I'm treasurer
To Saladin, whose coffers ever ebb
Ere sunset; such his bounty to the poor!
It brings me little, truly; but to thee
'Twas great advantage, for when money's low
Thou couldst unlock thy sluices; ay, and charge
Interest o'er interest!

NATHAN: Till my capital
Becomes all interest?

HAFI: Nay, but that's unworthy,
My friend; write _finis_ to our book of friendship
If that's thy view.