Nathan

Nathan, a wealthy and aging man in Cattajo, is the exemplary host at the center of Filostrato’s story. His fame rests not simply on lavish entertainment but on a hospitality so persistent that he welcomes a would-be murderer, conceals who he is, and shows him how to find him alone. When Mithridanes recognizes the man he has come to kill, Nathan’s generosity changes the story’s expected outcome: the threatened death gives way to shame, forgiveness, and friendship.

Identity and reputation

Nathan is of noble lineage and possesses extraordinary wealth. His estate lies beside a highway used by travelers passing between the Ponant and the Levant, a position that makes hospitality a practical as well as a public undertaking. He gathers many artificers and has them build, in a short time, a great and splendid palace furnished to receive and entertain gentlemen.

With a large household at his command, Nathan welcomes those who come and go with honor, pleasure, and good cheer. He is not a passing benefactor: even after he has grown old, he has not tired of the practice. His generosity is deliberate and visible, and he wants his works to make it known. Reports of his hospitality spread beyond the Levant through much of the Ponant, turning the palace into the material sign of a reputation that travels farther than its owner.

Generosity tested at the gates

A small episode makes Nathan’s reputation tangible. While he is alone in the middle court of his palace, a poor woman enters through one gate, asks for alms, and receives them. She returns through another gate and asks again. She repeats the circuit until she has approached him thirteen times; on the thirteenth, Nathan observes that she is diligent in asking, but gives her another alms nonetheless.

The woman answers by comparing this reception with her experience at Nathan’s palace. Its thirty-two gates had allowed her to approach and ask repeatedly without being recognized; at Mithridanes’s residence, after only thirteen approaches, she has been recognized and reproved. She leaves and does not return. The contrast is not simply between a large and a small gift: Nathan’s practice makes room for repeated requests without turning the recipient into an object of rebuke. The incident also exposes the limit of Mithridanes’s attempt to surpass him. Extravagant hospitality can imitate Nathan’s visible works, but the woman’s account presents Nathan’s generosity as a steadier habit.

The guest who intends to kill him

Mithridanes, a rich young man from a nearby country, hears of Nathan and grows envious of his fame and virtues. He builds a similar palace and offers extraordinary courtesies to travelers, becoming famous in turn. Yet the poor woman’s comparison convinces him that he cannot reach Nathan even in the smallest acts, much less surpass him in great ones. He concludes that Nathan must be removed, and sets out with a small company, keeping his purpose secret.

After three days he arrives near Nathan’s estate. At eventide, while Nathan is walking alone without splendid clothes or display, Mithridanes asks him where Nathan lives, not knowing the person before him. Nathan cheerfully offers to take him there. Mithridanes asks not to be seen or identified by his host, and Nathan agrees. At the palace, Nathan arranges for the servants to keep his identity secret, puts the visitor in a fine chamber where only designated attendants see him, and personally keeps him company. The intended assassin is therefore treated as a protected guest, while the host he seeks remains unrecognized in his own house.

Counsel in the coppice

When Mithridanes asks who he is, Nathan presents himself as an old servant who has never been advanced by his master. The answer encourages Mithridanes to confide in him. After first asking for secrecy, the young man discloses his identity and explains that he has come to kill Nathan. Nathan is inwardly shaken by the plan, but keeps a firm countenance. He praises Mithridanes’s ambition to be liberal rather than covetous and agrees to keep the secret.

Nathan says he can give useful counsel, if not much practical help. He directs Mithridanes to a coppice about half a mile away, where Nathan walks alone almost every morning. He even advises the young man to leave by a path on the coppice’s left, which is wilder but nearer and safer for the journey home. The guidance is exact enough to make the plan possible. Nathan does not merely decline to defend himself: he treats the request for his life as a request he should satisfy as far as he can. His welcome and counsel extend the logic of hospitality to its most dangerous test.

Recognition, forgiveness, and the story’s reversal

At the coppice, Mithridanes recognizes Nathan as the host who received and advised him. His fury gives way to shame. He casts away the sword he has drawn, dismounts, weeps, and falls at Nathan’s feet, asking him to take whatever vengeance he judges fitting. The recognition reverses the encounter: the man who had seemed a helpful servant is revealed as the intended victim, and the victim’s generosity has brought his attacker face to face with the person he meant to destroy.

Nathan raises Mithridanes, embraces and kisses him, and tells him that forgiveness need not be requested or granted. He interprets the attempt not as hatred but as a misguided effort to become better known, and tells Mithridanes not to be ashamed of having sought his death for fame. Nathan further observes that emperors and kings have enlarged their realms and reputations by killing multitudes, burning countries, and razing cities; killing one man would therefore be no unprecedented act. The comparison does not excuse Mithridanes’s design, which he does not consider himself absolved of, but it places private ambition beside the violence by which rulers commonly seek fame.

When Mithridanes marvels that Nathan could accept the danger and show him how to reach it, Nathan explains that he has always tried to satisfy those who came to his house in what they asked, as far as he was able. Since Mithridanes wanted his life, Nathan resolved to give it rather than let him be the only visitor to leave without his wish. The tale’s decisive generosity is thus not merely a gift made safely from abundance: Nathan offers himself, then receives the would-be killer as a son. Mithridanes commends his answer, and the story’s stated outcome is their friendship.