Scene Nathan (alone) Nathan H’m, h’m. A strange request. Where do I stand? What will the Sultan with me ... what? I come Prepared for money, and he asks for ... Truth! And this he needs must have as bare and bright As if the truth were coin!... Aye, were it coin, [55] Old, well-worn coin, that men tell out by weight, Such might I find him! But new-minted coin— The stamp’s enough: you fling it on the board And there’s an end—not thus can Truth be told! Doth he conceive that truth is to be poured From head to head like gold into a bag? Who’s here the Jew, I or the Sultan?... Yet Suppose in very truth he asks for Truth? How then? And verily it were too little, Too paltry a suspicion, to believe He used the truth but as a snare.... Too little!
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