Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts

How civilly
We should behave to queens, my brother’s lessons
Have taught me but too well.

SALADIN

Take her, or not,
I stir the piece no more.

SITTAH

Why should I take her?
Check!

SALADIN

Go on.

SITTAH

Check!—

SALADIN

And check-mate?

SITTAH

Hold! not yet.
You may advance the knight, and ward the danger,
Or as you will—it is all one.

SALADIN

It is so.
You are the winner, and Al-Hafi pays.
Let him be called.  Sittah, you was not wrong;
I seem to recollect I was unmindful—
A little absent.  One isn’t always willing
To dwell upon some shapeless bits of wood
Coupled with no idea.  Yet the Imam,
When I play with him, bends with such abstraction—
The loser seeks excuses.  Sittah, ’twas not
The shapeless men, and the unmeaning squares,
That made me heedless—your dexterity,
Your calm sharp eye.

SITTAH

And what of that, good brother,
Is that to be th’ excuse for your defeat?
Enough—you played more absently than I.

SALADIN

Than you!  What dwells upon your mind, my Sittah?
Not your own cares, I doubt—

SITTAH

O Saladin,
When shall we play again so constantly?

SALADIN

An interruption will but whet our zeal.
You think of the campaign.  Well, let it come.
It was not I who first unsheathed the sword.
I would have willingly prolonged the truce,
And willingly have knit a closer bond,
A lasting one—have given to my Sittah
A husband worthy of her, Richard’s brother.

SITTAH

You love to talk of Richard.

SALADIN

Richard’s sister
Might then have been allotted to our Melek.
O what a house that would have formed—the first—
The best—and what is more—of earth the happiest!
You know I am not loth to praise myself;
Why should I?—Of my friends am I not worthy?
O we had then led lives!

SITTAH

A pretty dream.
It makes me smile.  You do not know the Christians.
You will not know them.  ’Tis this people’s pride
Not to be men, but to be Christians.  Even
What of humane their Founder felt, and taught,
And left to savour their found superstition,
They value not because it is humane,
Lovely, and good for man; they only prize it
Because ’twas Christ who taught it, Christ who did it.
’Tis well for them He was so good a man:
Well that they take His goodness all for granted,