their ring's powers could be proven true, to live a life that is pleasant in the eyes of God and mankind rather than expecting the ring's miraculous powers to do so. Nathan compares this to religion, saying that each of us lives by the religion we have learned from those we respect. Background The character of Nathan is to a large part modeled after Lessing’s lifelong friend, the eminent philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Like Nathan the Wise and Saladin, whom Lessing brings together over the chessboard, they shared a love for the game of chess. The motif of the Ring Parable is derived from a complex of medieval tales. The first version of the story to appear in German was the tale of Saladin's table in the Weltchronik by Jans der Enikel. Lessing probably first read an older version of the “Ring Parable” in Boccaccio's Decameron. English language translations and stage adaptations Nathan the Wise: a Philosophical Drama, translated by Rudolf Erich Raspe. London, J. Fielding, 1781. Nathan the Wise: a Dramatic Poem, translated by William Taylor. London, R. Philips, 1805. Nathan the Wise: a dramatic poem in five acts, translated by Adolph Reich. London, A. W. Bennett, 1860. Nathan, the Wise. A dramatic poem of five acts, translated by Isidor Kalisch. New York, Waldheimer & Zenn, 1869. Plays of Lessing: Nathan the Wise and Minna von Barnhelm, translated by Ernest Bell. London, G. Bell, 1888. Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts, translated and edited by Leo Markun. Girard, Kan., Haldeman-Julius Co., 1926. Laocoon, Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, translated by William A. Steel. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, ltd.; New York, E. P. Dutton & co., inc., 1930. Nathan the Wise, translated by Berthold August Eisenlohr. Ann Arbor, Mich., Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, inc., 1942. Nathan the Wise, translated by Guenther Reinhardt. Brooklyn, Barron's Educational Series, inc., 1950. Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts, translated into English verse by Bayard Quincy Morgan. New York, Ungar, 1955. Morgan's translation was subsequently collected in Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, and Other Plays and Writings, edited by Peter Demetz with a Foreword by Hannah Arendt. New York: Continuum, 1991. Nathan the Wise, with Related Documents, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Ronald Schechter. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. Nathan the Wise, adapted and translated by Edward Kemp. Nick Hern Books, 2004. . The