Mithridanes’ attempted murder of Nathan

Mithridanes’ attempted murder of Nathan is a test of whether generosity can be surpassed by envy—and whether an intended victim can answer violence by making himself wholly vulnerable. Mithridanes comes to kill the man whose fame he cannot equal, but Nathan’s hospitality and willingness to surrender his life overturn the contest: the would-be murderer recognizes his host, casts away his sword, and leaves with his purpose transformed.## The reputation that provokes the attempt Nathan’s liberality is established through an incident that turns generosity into something almost impossible to measure. A poor old woman repeatedly enters his palace by different gates to ask for alms. Nathan gives to her twelve times and continues giving when she returns on the thirteenth, merely remarking on her persistence. The woman contrasts this with her experience at another household: Nathan’s palace has thirty-two gates, she says, and she passed through each without being recognized or refused, whereas the other man recognized and reproached her after only thirteen visits. The episode makes Nathan’s giving striking not only for its abundance but for its consistency: even repetition does not exhaust his willingness to give.

Mithridanes hears the woman’s account as a measure of his own inadequacy. He has set himself the ambitious task of matching, then surpassing, Nathan’s liberality, yet cannot approach him even in this small instance. Rather than abandon the rivalry, he decides that Nathan’s death will remove the standard against which he is measured. His motive is therefore not presented as ordinary hatred: envy of Nathan’s virtue and the desire to become more renowned drive the attempt. The story makes that motive especially unstable by showing how an aspiration to generosity turns into a plan to kill the person whose generosity inspired it.## Nathan receives his would-be killer Mithridanes rides for three days with a small company, keeping his purpose secret. At evening he leaves his followers to find lodging and encounters Nathan walking alone, without splendid dress or display. Not recognizing him, Mithridanes asks where Nathan lives and requests that he be brought there without being seen or identified. Nathan agrees, leads him to the palace, and sustains the concealment: he instructs a servant to ensure that nobody tells the visitor who he is, and arranges for him to stay in a fine chamber attended only by trusted servants.

Nathan’s welcome is not a performance that ends when the visitor is safely inside. He keeps Mithridanes company and entertains him with honor. When the young man asks who he is, Nathan claims to be a long-serving but unrewarded servant of Nathan, supposedly one of the few people with reason to complain about him. That invented grievance gives Mithridanes confidence that his host may assist his plan. Nathan, meanwhile, asks about his guest and offers advice and help. Mithridanes eventually trusts him enough to disclose his identity, his jealousy, and his intention to kill Nathan.

Nathan is inwardly shaken by the confession, but does not expose himself or attempt to escape. Instead, he praises the ambition behind Mithridanes’ wish to become generous, while agreeing to keep the murderous design secret. He tells him that Nathan walks alone almost every morning in a nearby copse and explains how to find the route that would allow Mithridanes to return safely afterward. The advice is precise enough to serve the attack; Nathan does not merely fail to resist the danger, but makes it easier for his guest to reach him.## The meeting in the copse The next morning Nathan goes alone to the copse, just as he said he would. Mithridanes takes his bow and sword, rides out, and sees the old man walking by himself. Before striking, he runs up, seizes Nathan by the headband, and declares that he is dead. Nathan answers that he must have deserved it. The reply does not delay the recognition: Mithridanes looks at the face of the man he has seized and recognizes the host who had welcomed, accompanied, and advised him.

Recognition reverses the scene at the moment of violence. Mithridanes’ fury gives way to shame; he throws away the sword he had drawn, dismounts, and weeps at Nathan’s feet. He understands Nathan’s arrival in the copse as a deliberate offer of his life, made in response to a desire that Mithridanes had no right to satisfy. He attributes his change of mind to a sudden opening of his understanding, previously closed by envy, and asks Nathan to exact whatever punishment he considers appropriate. The attack ends without a blow, but not because Mithridanes has defeated Nathan or been physically restrained. He recognizes the person he is about to kill and can no longer carry out the act.## Nathan’s answer to violence Nathan raises Mithridanes and embraces and kisses him. He refuses to make forgiveness a bargaining point, arguing that Mithridanes sought his life not from hatred but in the hope of becoming famous. Nathan even places the proposed murder beside the history of emperors and kings, who have enlarged their realms and reputations by killing multitudes, burning countries, and destroying cities. In that comparison, killing one old man would be neither unprecedented nor extraordinary. The argument does not make the attempt harmless; rather, it exposes the fame-seeking logic that can dress violence in the language of ambition.

Mithridanes is still abashed and asks how Nathan could have faced death, provided directions for finding him, and helped his intended killer. Nathan explains that he has always tried to satisfy those who came to his house as far as he could. Once he learned what Mithridanes wanted, he decided to give it to him rather than let him be the only visitor to leave unsatisfied. His directions, he says, were meant to help Mithridanes obtain Nathan’s life without losing his own. The story thus carries Nathan’s habitual generosity to its most extreme object: he is willing to give not merely wealth or hospitality but the life the other man has requested.

Nathan also frames that offer through his age. He has used his life for eighty years and believes that nature can leave him only a few more—perhaps six or eight. Since life will eventually be taken from him unwillingly, he says, he would rather give it as he has given his other treasures. Mithridanes refuses, wishing instead that he could add years of his own to Nathan’s. The shift is decisive: where the meeting began with a demand to take Nathan’s life, it ends with Mithridanes expressing a wish to give him more life.## The failed succession and its meaning Nathan proposes a practical exchange: Mithridanes could remain in Nathan’s house and take Nathan’s name, while Nathan went to Mithridanes’ home and lived under his name. The offer would make their rivalry literal, placing the younger man inside the position and reputation he had hoped to win by killing its original bearer. Mithridanes declines. He doubts that he could act as Nathan does and fears that his own conduct would diminish Nathan’s fame; he will not take another man’s place when he cannot manage that life himself.

After further courteous conversation, the two return to Nathan’s palace. Nathan entertains Mithridanes with the utmost honor for several days and encourages his generous ambition through wit and wisdom. When Mithridanes wishes to return home with his company, Nathan lets him go, having made clear that he cannot outdo him in liberality. The ending replaces the violent removal of a rival with an encounter that leaves the rivalry intact but changes its terms: Mithridanes has seen the cost and character of Nathan’s generosity directly, and Nathan’s example has survived the attempt to erase it.

The episode’s reversals depend on Nathan’s concealment and on the delayed recognition in the copse. His guest first receives him as an anonymous guide and supposed servant; only when the sword is drawn does the identity of the host become undeniable. The same liberality that aroused Mithridanes’ envy then governs every stage of the danger: Nathan welcomes him, keeps his confidence, gives him the means to find his target, and finally offers the life at stake. Mithridanes’ refusal of that gift and of Nathan’s name marks the limit of imitation. He can admire Nathan and wish to equal him, but the story ends by showing that a reputation built through repeated acts of giving cannot simply be seized as an inheritance.