Odoardo.
Why not? Most willingly. Ha! ha! ha! (Looks wildly around.) Who laughed? By Heaven I believe it was myself. 'Tis well. I will be merry. The game is near an end. Thus must it be, or thus. But--(pauses)--how if she were in league with him? How if this were the usual deception? How if she were not worthy of what I am about to do for her? (Pauses again.) And what am I about to do for her? Have I a heart to name it even to myself? A thought comes to me--a thought which can be but a thought. Horrible!--I will go. I will not wait until she comes. (Raises his eyes towards Heaven.) If she be innocent, let Him who plunged her into this abyss, extricate her from it. He needs not my hand. I will away. (As he is going he espiesEmilia.) Ha! 'Tis too late. My hand is required--He requires it.
Emilia, Odoardo.
EnterEmilia.
How! Ton here, my father? And you alone--without the Count--without my mother? So uneasy, too, my father?
And you so much at ease, my daughter?
Why should I not be so, my father? Either all is lost, or nothing. To be able to be at ease, and to be obliged to be at ease, do they not come to the same thing!
But what do you suppose to be the case?
That all is lost--therefore that we must be at ease, my father.
And you are at ease, because necessity requires it? Who are you? A girl; my daughter? Then should the man and the father be ashamed of you. But let me hear. What mean you when you say that all is lost?--that Count Appiani is dead?
And why is he dead? Why? Ha! It is, then, true, my father--the horrible tale is true which I read in my mother's tearful and wild looks. Where is my mother? Where has she gone?
She is gone before us--if we could but follow her.
Oh, the sooner the better. For if the Count be dead--if he was doomed to die on that account--Ha! Why do we stay here? Let us fly, my father.
Fly! Where is the necessity? You are in the hands of your ravisher, and will there remain.
I remain in his hands?
And alone--without your mother--without me.
I remain alone in his hands? Never, my father--or you are not my father. I remain alone in his hands? 'Tis well. Leave me, leave me. I will see who can detain me--who can compel me. What human being can compel another?
I thought, my child, you were tranquil.
I am so. But what do you call tranquillity?--To lay my hands in my lap, and patiently bear what cannot be borne, and suffer what should be suffered.
Ha! If such be thy thoughts, come to my arms, my daughter. I have ever said, that Nature, when forming woman, wished to form her master-piece. She erred in that the clay she chose was too plastic. In every other respect man is inferior to woman. Ha! If this be thy composure, I recognize my daughter again. Come to my arms. Now, mark me. Under the pretence of legal examination, the Prince--tears thee (the hellish fool's play!) tears thee from our arms, and places thee under the protection of Grimaldi.
Tears me from your arms? Takes me--would tear me--take me--would--would----As if we ourselves had no will, father.
So incensed was I, that I was on the point of drawing forth this dagger (produces it), and plunging it into the hearts of both the villains.
Heaven forbid it! my father. This life is all the wicked can enjoy. Give me, give me the dagger.
Child, it is no bodkin.
If it were, it would serve as a dagger. 'Twere the same.
What! Is it come to that? Not yet, not yet. Reflect. You have but one life to lose, Emilia.
And but one innocence.
Which is proof against all force.
But not against all seduction. Force! Force! What is that? Who may not defy force? What you call force is nothing. Seduction is the only real force. I have blood, my father, as youthful and as warm as that of others. I have senses too. I cannot pledge myself: I guarantee nothing. I know the house of Grimaldi. It is a house of revelry--a single hour spent in that society, under the protection of my mother, created such a tumult in my soul, that all the rigid exercises of religion could scarcely quell it in whole weeks. Religion! And what religion? To avoid no worse snares thousands have leapt into the waves, and now are saints. Give me the dagger, then, my father, give it to me.
And didst thou but know who armed me with this dagger----
That matters not. An unknown friend is not the less a friend. Give me the dagger, father, I beseech you.
And if I were to give it you?--what then? There! (He presents it)
And there! (She seizes it with ardour, and is about to stab herself whenOdoardowrests it from her.)
See how rash----No; it is not for thy hand.
Tis true; then with this bodkin will I! (she searches for one in her hair, and feels the rose in her head). Art thou still there? Down, down! thou shouldst not deck the head of one, such as my father wishes me to be!
Oh! my daughter!
Oh, my father! if I understand you. But no, you will not do it, or why so long delayed. (In a bitter tone, while she plucks the leaves of the rose.) In former days there was a father, who, to save his daughter from disgrace plunged the first deadly weapon which he saw, into his daughter's heart--and thereby gave her life, a second time. But those were deeds of ancient times. Such fathers exist not now.
They do, they do, my daughter (stabs her). God of heaven! What have I done? (supports her in his arms as she sinks.)
Broken a rose before the storm had robbed it of its bloom. Oh, let me kiss this kind parental hand.
The Prince, Marinelli, Odoardo, Emilia.
What means this? Is Emilia not well?
Very well, very well.
What do I see? Oh, horror!
I am lost!
Cruel father, what hast thou done.
Broken a rose before the storm had robbed it of its bloom. Said you not so, my daughter?
Not you, my father. I, I myself----
Not thou my daughter--not thou! Quit not this world with falsehood on thy lips. Not thou, my daughter--thy father, thy unfortunate father.
Ah!--My father----(Dies in his arms. He lays her gently on the floor.)
Ascend on high! There, Prince! Does she still charm you? Does she still rouse your appetites?--here, weltering in her blood--which cries for vengeance against you. (After a pause.) Doubtless you wait to see the end of this. You expect, perhaps, that I shall turn the steel against myself, and finish the deed like some wretched tragedy. You are mistaken. There! (Throws the dagger at his feet.) There lies the blood-stained witness of my crime. I go to deliver myself into the hands of justice. I go to meet you as my judge: then I shall meet you in another world, before the Judge of all. (Exit.)
Here! Raise her. How! Dost thou hesitate? Wretch! Villain! (Tears the dagger from his grasp.) No. Thy blood shall not be mixed with such as this. Go: hide thyself for ever. Begone, I say. Oh God! Oh God! Is it not enough for the misery of many that monarchs are men? Must devils in disguise become their friends?
The well-known Goetze Controversy is to be thanked for the appearance of this, the longest, and in many respects the most important of Lessing's dramatic works. It was written in 1778-9, in reply to some of the theological censures of the Hamburg pastor. In 1783, it was first acted at Berlin, but it met with little success there or elsewhere, until in 1801, when it was introduced on the Weimar stage, by Schiller and Goethe.
Sultan Saladin.Sittah,his Sister.Nathan,a rich Jew of Jerusalem.Recha,his adopted Daughter.Daja,a Christian woman living in the Jew's house asRecha'scompanion.A youngKnight Templar.A Dervise.ThePatriarch of Jerusalem.A Friar.AnEmirand several ofSaladin's Mamelukes.
Sultan Saladin.
Sittah,his Sister.
Nathan,a rich Jew of Jerusalem.
Recha,his adopted Daughter.
Daja,a Christian woman living in the Jew's house asRecha'scompanion.
A youngKnight Templar.
A Dervise.
ThePatriarch of Jerusalem.
A Friar.
AnEmirand several ofSaladin's Mamelukes.
The scene is in Jerusalem.
"Introite, nam et heic Dii sunt."
ApudGellium.