The Complete Plays (23 page)

Your honours, liberties, and lives, were weighed

In equal care and balance with our own,

Endure as we the malice of our stars,

The wrath of Tamburlaine and power of wars;

Or be the means the
overweighing heavens

Have kept to
qualify these
hot extremes,

And bring us pardon in your cheerful looks.

SECOND VIRGIN

Then here, before the majesty of heaven

And
holy patrons of
Egyptia,

50   With knees and hearts submissive we entreat

Grace to our words and pity to our looks,

That this device may prove propitious,

And through the eyes and ears of Tamburlaine

Convey events of
mercy to his heart.

Grant that these
signs of victory we
yield

May bind the temples of his conquering head

To hide the folded furrows of his brows,

And
shadow his
displeasèd countenance

With happy looks of ruth and lenity.

Leave us, my lord, and loving countrymen;

60   What simple virgins may persuade, we will.

GOVERNOR

Farewell, sweet virgins, on whose safe return

Depends our city, liberty, and lives!

Exeunt [all except the
VIRGINS
.
Enter
]
TAMBURLAINE
,
TECHELLES
,
THERIDAMAS
,
USUMCASANE
,
with Others;
TAMBURLAINE
all in black, and very melancholy
.

TAMBURLAINE

What, are the
turtles frayed
out of their nests?

Alas, poor fools, must you
be first shall
feel

The sworn destruction of Damascus?

They know my custom. Could they not as well

Have sent ye out
when first my
milk-white flags

Through which sweet mercy threw her gentle beams,

Reflexing them on your disdainful eyes,

70   As now when fury and incensèd hate

Flings slaughtering terror from my coal-black tents

And tells for truth submissions comes too late?

FIRST VIRGIN

Most happy king and emperor of the earth,

Image of honour and nobility,

For whom the powers divine have made the world

And on whose throne
the holy Graces sit
,

In
whose sweet
person is comprised the sum

Of nature's skill and heavenly majesty:

Pity our plights, O, pity poor Damascus!

80   Pity old age, within whose silver hairs

Honour and reverence evermore have reigned!

Pity the marriage bed, where many a lord,

In prime and glory of his loving joy,

Embraceth now with tears of ruth and blood

The jealous body of his fearful wife,

Whose cheeks and hearts – so punished with conceit

To think thy puissant
never-stayèd arm

Will part their bodies and
prevent their
souls

90                 From heavens of comfort yet their age might bear –

Now wax all pale and withered to the death,

As well for grief our ruthless governor

Have thus refused the mercy of thy hand

(Whose sceptre angels kiss and Furies dread)

As for their liberties, their loves, or lives.

O then, for these, and such as we ourselves,

For us, for infants, and for all our bloods,

That never nourished thought against thy rule,

Pity, O, pity, sacred emperor,

100   The
prostrate service of
this wretched town;

And take in sign thereof this gilded wreath

Whereto each man
of rule hath
given his hand

And wished, as
worthy subjects, happy means

To be investors of thy royal brows,

Even with the true Egyptian diadem.

[
She offers a laurel wreath
.]

TAMBURLAINE

Virgins, in vain ye labour to prevent

That which mine honour swears shall be per
formed
.

Behold my sword – what see you at the point?

VIRGINS

Nothing but fear and fatal steel, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE

110   Your fearful minds are thick and misty, then,

For there sits Death, there sits imperious Death,

Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.

But I am pleased you shall not see him there;

He now is seated on my horsemen's spears,

And on their points his
fleshless body feeds
.

Techelles, straight go
charge a
few of them

To charge these dames, and show my servant Death,

Sitting in
scarlet on
their armèd spears.

VIRGINS

O, pity us!

TAMBURLAINE

120   Away with them, I say, and show them Death.

They
[
TECHELLES
and others] take them away
.

I will not spare these proud Egyptians,

Nor change my martial
observations

For all the wealth of
Gihon's
golden waves,

Or for the love of Venus, would she leave

The angry
god of arms and
lie with me.

They have refused the offer of their lives,

And know my customs are as
peremptory

As wrathful planets, death, or destiny.

Enter
TECHELLES
.

What, have your horsemen shown the virgins Death?

TECHELLES

They have, my lord, and on Damascus' walls

130   Have hoisted up their slaughtered carcasses.

TAMBURLAINE

A sight as baneful to their souls, I think,

As are
Thessalian drugs
or mithridate.

But go, my lords, put the rest to the sword.

Exeunt;
[
TAMBURLAINE
remains
].

Ah, fair Zenocrate, divine
Zenocrate!

Fair is too foul an epithet for thee

That, in thy
passion for
thy country's love

And fear to see thy kingly father's harm,

With hair dishevelled wip'st thy watery cheeks,

And like to Flora in her morning's pride,

140   Shaking her silver tresses in the air,

Rain'st on the earth
resolvèd pearl in
showers

And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face

Where
Beauty, mother
to the Muses, sits

And comments volumes with her ivory pen,

Taking instructions from
thy flowing eyes –

Eyes, when that
Ebena steps
to heaven

In silence of thy solemn evening's walk,

Making the mantle of the richest night,

The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light.

150           
There angels in
their crystal armours fight

A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts

For Egypt's freedom and the Sultan's life –

His life that so consumes Zenocrate,

Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul

Than all my army to Damascus' walls;

And neither Persians' sovereign nor the Turk

Troubled my senses with
conceit of foil

So much by much as doth Zenocrate.

160           
What is beauty
, saith my sufferings, then?

If all the pens that ever poets held

Had
fed the feeling of
their masters' thoughts,

And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,

Their minds and muses on admirèd themes;

If all the heavenly quintessence they
still

From their immortal flowers of poesy,

Wherein as in a mirror we perceive

The highest reaches of a human wit;

If these had made one poem's
period,

170   And all combined in beauty's worthiness,

Yet should there hover in their restless heads,

One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,

Which into words no virtue
can digest
.

But how unseemly is it for my sex,

My discipline of arms and chivalry,

My nature, and the terror of my name,

To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint!

Save only that in beauty's just applause,

With
whose instinct the
soul of man is touched,

180   And every warrior that is rapt with love

Of fame, of valour, and of victory,

Must needs have beauty
beat on his conceits,

I thus
conceiving and subduing, both,

That which hath
stopped the tempest of
the gods,

Even from the fiery spangled veil of heaven,

To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames

And march in cottages of
strewèd weeds,

Shall give the world to note, for all my birth,

That virtue solely is the sum of glory

190   And fashions men with true nobility.

Who's within there?

Enter two or three
[
ATTENDANTS
].

Hath Bajazeth been fed today?

ATTENDANT
Ay, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE
Bring him forth, and let us know if the town be ransacked.

[
Exeunt
ATTENDANTS
.]

Enter
TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE
,
and others
.

TECHELLES

The town is ours, my lord, and fresh supply

Of conquest and of spoil is offered us.

TAMBURLAINE

That's well, Techelles, what's the news?

TECHELLES

The Sultan and the Arabian king together,

March on us with such eager violence

200   As if there were
no way but one with
us.

TAMBURLAINE

No more there is not, I warrant thee, Techelles.

They bring in the
TURK [BAJAZETH
,
in his cage, followed by
ZABINA
].

THERIDAMAS

We know the victory is ours, my lord.

But let us save the reverend Sultan's life

For fair Zenocrate that so laments his state.

TAMBURLAINE

That will we chiefly see unto, Theridamas,

For sweet Zenocrate, whose worthiness

Deserves a conquest over every heart.

And now, my footstool, if I lose the field,

You hope of liberty and restitution.

210   Here let him stay, my masters, from the tents,

Till we have made us ready for the field.

Pray for us, Bajazeth, we are going.

Exeunt
, [
BAJAZETH
and
ZABINA
remain
.]

BAJAZETH

Go, never to return with victory!

Millions of men encompass thee about

And gore thy body with as many wounds!

Sharp, forkèd arrows light upon thy horse!

Furies from
the black Cocytus lake

Break up the earth, and with their firebrands

220   Enforce thee run upon the baneful pikes!

Volleys of shot pierce through thy charmèd skin,

And every bullet dipped in poisoned drugs!

Or roaring cannons sever all thy joints,

Making thee mount as high as eagles soar!

ZABINA

Let all the swords and lances in the field

Stick in his breast as in their
proper rooms!

At every pore let blood come dropping forth,

That ling'ring pains may massacre his heart

And madness send his damnèd soul to hell!

BAJAZETH

230   Ah, fair Zabina, we may curse his power,

The heavens may frown, the earth for anger quake,

But such a star hath influence in his sword

As rules the skies, and countermands the gods

More than
Cimmerian Styx or
Destiny.

And then shall we in this detested guise,

With shame, with hunger, and with horror aye

Griping
our bowels with retorquèd thoughts,

And have no hope to end our ecstasies.

ZABINA

Then is there left no Mahomet, no God,

240   No
fiend, no
Fortune, nor no hope of end

To our
infamous, monstrous
slaveries?

Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view

A hell as hopeless and as full of fear

As are the blasted banks of
Erebus,

Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans

Hover about the ugly
ferryman

To get a passage to Elysium!

Why should we live, O, wretches, beggars, slaves,

Why live we, Bajazeth, and
build up nests

250   So high within the region of the air,

By living long in this oppression,

That all the world will see and laugh to scorn

The former triumphs of our mightiness

In this obscure infernal servitude?

BAJAZETH

O life more loathsome to my vexèd thoughts

Than
noisome parbreak of
the Stygian snakes

Which fills the nooks of hell with
standing air
,

Infecting all the ghosts with cureless griefs!

O dreary
engines of
my loathèd sight

That sees my crown, my honour, and my name

260   Thrust under yoke and thraldom of a thief,

Why feed ye still on day's accursèd beams

And sink not quite into my tortured soul?

You see my wife, my queen and emperess,

Brought up and proppèd by the hand of fame,

Queen of fifteen contributory queens,