NATHANAEL. Can any good come out of Nazareth? Can this be the Messiah?
PHILIP.
Come and see.
NATHANAEL. The summer sun grows hot: I am anhungered. How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast Of Wheat Sheaves! How the bearded, ripening ears Toss in the roofless temple of the air; As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest Waved them before Mount Tabor as an altar! It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat.
PHILIP. How wonderful it is to walk abroad With the Good Master! Since the miracle He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast, His fame hath gone abroad through all the land, And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt see How his own people will receive their Prophet, And hail him as Messiah! See, he turns And looks at thee.
CHRISTUS.
Behold an Israelite
In whom there is no guile.
NATHANAEL.
Whence knowest thou me?
CHRISTUS. Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee.
NATHANAEL.
Rabbi!
Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King
Of Israel!
CHRISTUS.
Because I said I saw thee
Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee,
Believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things.
Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens unclosed,
The angels of God ascending and descending
Upon the Son of Man!
PHAIRISEES, passing.
Hail, Rabbi!