Our indolence takes up with pious rapture,Tho’ at the time unconscious of its end,
Only to save the toil of useful deeds.
RECHA.
Oh never leave again thy child alone!—
But can he not be only gone a journey?
NATHAN.
Yes, very likely. There’s a Mussulman
Numbering with curious eye my laden camels,
Do you know who he is?
DAYA.
Oh, your old dervis.
NATHAN.
Who—who?
DAYA.
Your chess companion.
NATHAN.
That, Al-Hafi?
DAYA.
And now the treasurer of Saladin.
NATHAN.
Al-Hafi? Are you dreaming? How was this?
In fact it is so. He seems coming hither.
In with you quick.—What now am I to hear?
Nathan and Hafi.
HAFI.
Aye, lift thine eyes in wonder.
NATHAN.
Is it you?
A dervis so magnificent!—
HAFI.
Why not?
Can nothing then be made out of a dervis?
NATHAN.
Yes, surely; but I have been wont to think
A dervis, that’s to say a thorough dervis,
Will allow nothing to be made of him.
HAFI.
May-be ’tis true that I’m no thorough dervis;
But by the prophet, when we must—
NATHAN.
Must, Hafi?
Needs must—belongs to no man: and a dervis—
HAFI.
When he is much besought, and thinks it right,
A dervis must.
NATHAN.
Well spoken, by our God!
Embrace me, man, you’re still, I trust, my friend.
HAFI.
Why not ask first what has been made of me?
NATHAN.
Ask climbers to look back!
HAFI.
And may I not
Have grown to such a creature in the state
That my old friendship is no longer welcome?
NATHAN.
If you still bear your dervis-heart about you
I’ll run the risk of that. Th’ official robe
Is but your cloak.
HAFI.
A cloak, that claims some honour.
What think’st thou? At a court of thine how great
Had been Al-Hafi?
NATHAN.
Nothing but a dervis.
If more, perhaps—what shall I say—my cook.
HAFI.
In order to unlearn my native trade.
Thy cook—why not thy butler too? The Sultan,
He knows me better, I’m his treasurer.
NATHAN.
You, you?
HAFI.
Mistake not—of the lesser purse—
His father manages the greater still—
The purser of his household.
NATHAN.
That’s not small.
HAFI.
’Tis larger than thou think’st; for every beggar
Is of his household.
NATHAN.
He’s so much their foe—
HAFI.
That he’d fain root them out—with food and raiment—
Tho’ he turn beggar in the enterprize.
NATHAN.
Bravo, I meant so.
HAFI.
And he’s almost such.
His treasury is every day, ere sun-set,
Poorer than empty; and how high so e’er
Flows in the morning tide, ’tis ebb by noon.
NATHAN.
Because it circulates through such canals
As can be neither stopped, nor filled.
HAFI.
Thou hast it.
NATHAN.
I know it well.
HAFI.
Nathan, ’tis woeful doing
