Nathan the Wise

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Nathan the Wise (original German title Nathan der Weise) is a play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, published in 1779. It is a fervent plea for religious tolerance. Its performance was forbidden by the church during Lessing's lifetime and along with another of his works, The Jews (German title: Die Juden, was also banned by the Nazis.

Set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, it describes how the wise Jewish merchant Nathan, the enlightened sultan Saladin and the (initially anonymous) Templar bridge their gaps between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Its major themes are friendship, tolerance, relativism of God, a rejection of miracles and a need for communication.

Contents 1 Ring Parable 2 Background 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] Ring Parable

The centerpiece of the work is the Ring Parable (German: Ringparabel), narrated by Nathan when asked by Saladin which religion is true: An heirloom ring with the magical ability to render its owner pleasant in the eyes of God and mankind had been passed from father to the son he loved most. When it came to a father of three sons whom he loved equally, he promised it (in "pious weakness") to each of them. Looking for a way to keep his promise, he had two replicas made, which were indistinguishable from the original, and gave on his deathbed a ring to each of them.

The brothers quarrelled over who owned the real ring. A wise judge admonished them that it was impossible to tell at that time – that it even could not be discounted that all three rings were replicas, the original one having been lost at some point in the past – and that, to find out whether one of them had the real ring, it was up to them to live in such a way that their ring's powers could prove true, to live a life that is pleasant in the eyes of God and mankind (rather than expecting the ring's miraculous powers to do so). Nathan compares this to religion, saying that each of us lives by the religion we have learned from those we respect.

[edit] Background

The character of Nathan is to a large part modeled after Lessing's lifelong friend, the eminent philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Similar to Nathan the Wise and Saladin, whom Lessing makes meet over the chess-board; they both shared a love for the game.^[1]

The motif of the Ring Parable is derived from a complex of medieval tales which first appeared in the German language in the story of Saladin's table in the Weltchronik of Jans der Enikel. Lessing probably has the story in the first instance from Boccaccio's Decameron.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Nathan der Weise at Project Gutenberg
• Nathan the Wise at Project Gutenberg (English translation by William Taylor)
• Unabridged German text at Zeno.org