Templar: Who?
Saladin: Who? Nathan
Templar (coldly): No.
Saladin: Why so cold?
Templar: I've nothing against Nathan,
But I am angry with myself alone
For dreaming that a Jew could be no Jew.
He was so cautious of my suit that I,
In swift resentment, though unwitting, gave
Him over to the Patriarch's bloody rage.
Sultan, the maiden is no child of his;
She is a Christian whom the Jew hath reared
In ignorance of her faith. The Patriarch
Foredooms him to the stake.
Saladin: Go to, go to.
The case is scarcely hopeless. Summon Nathan,
And I shall reconcile you. If indeed
You're earnest for the maid, she shall be thine.
Scene III.—The hall in Nathan's house. Nathan and the friar, Bonafides.
Bonafides: The Patriarch hath ever work for me,
And some I like not. Listen. He hath heard
That hereabouts there dwells a certain Jew
Who hath brought up a Christian as his child.
Nathan: How?
Bonafides: Hear me out. I fear me that I gave
Occasion for this sin, when I, a squire,
Brought you, full eighteen years ago, the babe,
The orphan babe of Leonard, Lord of Filnek.
He fell at Askalon.