Ascend on high! There, Prince! Does she still charm you? Does she still rouse your appetites?--here, weltering in her blood--which cries for vengeance against you. (_After a pause_.) Doubtless you wait to see the end of this. You expect, perhaps, that I shall turn the steel against myself, and finish the deed like some wretched tragedy. You are mistaken. There! (_Throws the dagger at his feet_.) There lies the blood-stained witness of my crime. I go to deliver myself into the hands of justice. I go to meet you as my judge: then I shall meet you in another world, before the Judge of all. (_Exit_.) PRINCE (_after a pause, during which he surveys the body with a look of horror and despair, turns to_ Marinelli). Here! Raise her. How! Dost thou hesitate? Wretch! Villain! (_Tears the dagger from his grasp_.) No. Thy blood shall not be mixed with such as this. Go: hide thyself for ever. Begone, I say. Oh God! Oh God! Is it not enough for the misery of many that monarchs are men? Must devils in disguise become their friends? NATHAN THE WISE. A DRAMATIC POEM IN FIVE ACTS. (_Translated by R. Dillon Boylan_.) The well-known Goetze Controversy is to be thanked for the appearance of this, the longest, and in many respects the most important of Lessing's dramatic works. It was written in 1778-9, in reply to some of the theological censures of the Hamburg pastor. In 1783, it was first acted at Berlin, but it met with little success there or elsewhere, until in 1801, when it was introduced on the Weimar stage, by Schiller and Goethe. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ Sultan Saladin. Sittah, _his Sister_. Nathan, _a rich Jew of Jerusalem_. Recha, _his adopted Daughter_. Daja, _a Christian woman living in the Jew's house as_ Recha's _companion_. _A young_ Knight Templar. A Dervise. _The_ Patriarch of Jerusalem. A Friar. _An_ Emir _and several of_ Saladin's Mamelukes. _The scene is in Jerusalem_. NATHAN THE WISE. "Introite, nam et heic Dii sunt." _Apud_ Gellium. ACT I. Scene I.--_A Hall in Nathan's House_. Nathan, _returning from a journey_; Daja, _meeting him_. DAJA. 'Tis he! 'Tis Nathan! endless thanks to Heaven That you at last are happily returned. NATHAN. Yes, Daja! thanks to Heaven! But why at _last_? Was it my purpose--was it in my power To come back sooner? Babylon from here, As I was forced to take my devious way, Is a long journey of two hundred leagues; And gathering in one's debts is not--at best, A task that expedites a traveller's steps. DAJA.