Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts

by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY

NATHAN THE WISE
A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts

Translated by William Taylor of Norwich

FROM THE GERMAN OF

LESSING

CASSELL & COMPANY Limited
LONDON PARIS & MELBOURNE
1893

INTRODUCTION

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born on the 22nd of January, 1729, eldest of ten sons of a pious and learned minister of Camenz in the Oberlausitz, who had two daughters also. As a child Lessing delighted in books, and had knowledge beyond his years when he went to school, in Meissen, at the age of twelve. As a school-boy he read much Greek and Latin that formed no part of the school course; read also the German poets of his time, wrote a “History of Ancient Mathematics,” and began a poem of his own on the “Plurality of Worlds.”