The broad white
fluttering
mantle of the Templar.
World's Greatest Books - Volume 17 - Poetry and Drama
My conscience bids me speak----
NATHAN: See what a charming silk I bought for you
In Babylon, and these Damascus jewels.
DAYA: I shall be silent.
NATHAN: Say, does Recha know I am arrived?
DAYA: This morn of you she dreamed; Her thoughts have only been with
you and him Who saved her from the fire.
NATHAN: Ah, who is he?
DAYA: A young knight Templar lately captive ta'en,
But pardoned by the sultan. He it was
Who burst through flame and smoke; and she believes
Him but a transient inmate of the earth--
A guardian angel! Stay, your daughter comes!
[_Enter_ RECHA.
RECHA: My very father's self! Oh, how I feared
Perils of flood for thee, until the fire
Came nigh me. Now, I think it must be balm
To die by water! But you are not drowned:
I am not burned! We'll praise the God Who bade
My angel _visibly_ on his white wing
Athwart the roaring flame----
NATHAN (_aside_): White wing? Oh, ay.
The broad white fluttering mantle of the Templar.
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.
NATHAN: See what a charming silk I bought for you
In Babylon, and these Damascus jewels.
DAYA: I shall be silent.
NATHAN: Say, does Recha know I am arrived?
DAYA: This morn of you she dreamed; Her thoughts have only been with
you and him Who saved her from the fire.
NATHAN: Ah, who is he?
DAYA: A young knight Templar lately captive ta'en,
But pardoned by the sultan. He it was
Who burst through flame and smoke; and she believes
Him but a transient inmate of the earth--
A guardian angel! Stay, your daughter comes!
[_Enter_ RECHA.
RECHA: My very father's self! Oh, how I feared
Perils of flood for thee, until the fire
Came nigh me. Now, I think it must be balm
To die by water! But you are not drowned:
I am not burned! We'll praise the God Who bade
My angel _visibly_ on his white wing
Athwart the roaring flame----
NATHAN (_aside_): White wing? Oh, ay.
The broad white fluttering mantle of the Templar.
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.
