The Complete Plays (27 page)

140   I here present thee with the crown of Fez

And with an host of Moors trained to the war,

Whose coal-black faces make their foes retire

And quake for fear, as if
infernal Jove
,

Meaning to aid
thee
in these Turkish arms,

Should pierce the black circumference of hell

With ugly Furies bearing fiery flags

And millions of his strong tormenting spirits.

From strong Tesella unto Biledull

All Barbary is unpeopled for thy sake.

TAMBURLAINE
[
returning
TECHELLES
's
crown
]

Thanks, King of Fez. Take here thy crown again.

150   Your presence, loving friends and fellow kings,

Makes me
to surfeit in conceiving joy.

If all the crystal gates of Jove's high court

Were opened wide, and I might enter in

To see the state and majesty of heaven,

It could not more delight me than your sight.

Now will we banquet on these plains a while

And after march to Turkey with our camp,

In number more than are the drops that fall

When Boreas rents a thousand swelling clouds;

160   And proud Orcanes of Natolia

With all his viceroys shall be so afraid

That though the stones, as at Deucalion's flood,

Were turned to men, he should be overcome.

Such
lavish
will I make of Turkish blood

That Jove shall send
his wingèd messenger

To bid me sheathe my sword and leave the field.

The sun, unable to sustain the sight,

Shall hide his head in
Thetis'
watery lap

And leave his steeds to fair
Boötes
' charge;

170   For half the world shall perish in this fight.

But now, my friends, let me examine ye.

How have ye spent your absent time from me?

USUMCASANE

My lord
, our men of Barbary have marched

Four hundred miles with armour on their backs

And
lain in leaguer
fifteen months and more.

For since we left you at the Sultan's court,

We have subdued the southern Guallatia

And all the land unto the coast of Spain.

We kept the narrow Strait of Gibraltar,

180  And made Canarea call us kings and lords,

Yet never did they
recreate
themselves

Or cease one day from war and hot alarms;

And therefore let them rest a while, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE

They shall, Casane, and 'tis time, i'faith.

TECHELLES

And I have marched along the river Nile

To Machda, where the mighty Christian priest

Called
John the Great
, sits in a milk-white robe,

Whose
triple mitre
I did take by force

190   And made him swear obedience to my crown.

From thence unto Cazates did I march,

Where
Amazonians
met me in the field,

With whom, being women, I
vouchsafed a league;

And with my power did march to
Zanzibar
,

The western part of Afric, where I viewed

The
Ethiopian sea
, rivers and lakes,

But neither man nor child in all the land.

Therefore
I took my course to Manico,

Where, unresisted, I removed my camp;

200   And by the coast of Byather at last

I came to Cubar, where the negroes dwell,

And, conquering that, made haste to
Nubia
.

There, having sacked Borno, the kingly seat,

I took the king and led him bound in chains

Unto Damasco, where I stayed before.

TAMBURLAINE

Well done, Techelles. What saith Theridamas?

THERIDAMAS

I left the confines and the bounds of Afric

And made a voyage into Europe,

Where by the river
Tyros
I subdued

210   Stoka, Podalia, and Codemia,

Then crossed the sea and came to Oblia,

And
Nigra Silva
, where the devils dance,

Which in despite of them I set on fire.

From thence I crossed the gulf called by the name

Mare Maggiore
of th'inhabitants.

Yet shall my soldiers make no
period

Until Natolia kneel before your feet.

TAMBURLAINE

Then will we triumph, banquet, and carouse;

Cooks shall have pensions to provide us cates

And glut us with the dainties of the world.

220    
Lachryma Christi
and Calabrian wines

Shall common soldiers drink in quaffing bowls –

Ay, liquid gold when we have conquered him,

Mingled with coral and with
orient
pearl.

Come, let us banquet and carouse
the whiles
.

Exeunt
.

[
Enter
]
SIGISMOND
,
FREDERICK
,
BALDWIN
,
with their train
.

SIGISMOND

Now say, my lords of Buda and Bohemia,

What
motion
is it that inflames your thoughts

And stirs your valours to such sudden arms?

FREDERICK

Your majesty remembers, I am sure,

What cruel slaughter of our Christian bloods

These heathenish Turks and pagans lately made

Betwixt the city Zula and Danubius,

How through the midst of
Varna
and Bulgaria

And almost to the very walls of Rome

10   They have, not long since, massacred our camp.

It resteth now, then, that your majesty

Take all advantages of time and power,

And work revenge upon these infidels.

Your highness knows for Tamburlaine's repair –

That strikes a terror to all Turkish hearts –

Natolia
hath dismissed the greatest part

Of all his army, pitched against our power

Betwixt Cutheia and Orminius' mount,

And sent them marching up to Belgasar,

20   Acantha, Antioch, and Caesaria,

To aid the kings of
Soria
and Jerusalem.

Now then, my lord, advantage take hereof,

And issue suddenly upon the rest,

That, in the fortune of their overthrow,

We may discourage all the pagan troop

That dare attempt to war with Christians.

SIGISMOND

But calls not, then, your grace to memory

The league we lately made with King Orcanes,

Confirmed by oath and articles of peace,

And calling Christ for record of our truths?

30   This
should
be treachery and violence

Against the grace of our
profession
.

BALDWIN

No whit, my lord. For with such infidels,

In whom no faith nor true religion rests,

We are not bound to
those accomplishments

The holy laws of Christendom enjoin;

But as
the faith which they profanely plight

Is not by necessary policy

To be esteemed assurance for ourselves,

So what we vow to them should not infringe

40   Our liberty of arms and victory.

SIGISMOND

Though I confess the oaths they undertake

Breed little strength to our security,

Yet those infirmities that thus defame

Their faiths, their honours, and their religion

Should not give us presumption to the like.

Our faiths are sound and must be
consummate
,

Religious, righteous, and inviolate.

FREDERICK

Assure your grace, 'tis superstition

To stand so strictly on
dispensive faith
.

50   And should we lose the opportunity

That God hath given to venge our Christians' death

And scourge their foul blasphemous paganism?

As fell to
Saul
, to Balaam, and the rest

That would not kill and curse at God's command,

So surely will the vengeance of the Highest,

And jealous anger of His fearful arm,

Be poured with rigour on our sinful heads

If we neglect this offered victory.

SIGISMOND

60   Then arm, my lords, and issue suddenly,

Giving commandment to our general host

With expedition to assail the pagan

And take the victory our God hath given.

Exeunt
.

[
Enter
]
ORCANES
,
GAZELLUS
,
URIBASSA
,
with their train
.

ORCANES

Gazellus, Uribassa, and the rest,

Now will we march from proud Orminius' mount

To fair Natolia, where our neighbour kings

Expect our power and our royal presence,

T'encounter with the cruel Tamburlaine

That nigh Larissa sways a mighty host

And with the thunder of his martial tools

Makes earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaven.

GAZELLUS

And now come we to make his sinews shake

10   With greater power than erst his pride hath felt.

An hundred kings
by scores
will bid him arms,

And hundred thousands subjects to each score –

Which, if a shower of wounding thunderbolts

Should break out of the bowels of the clouds

And fall as thick as hail upon our heads

In partial aid of that proud Scythian,

Yet should our courages and steelèd crests

And numbers more than infinite of men

Be able to withstand and conquer him.

URIBASSA

Methinks I see how glad the Christian king

20   Is made for joy of your admitted truce,

That could not but before be terrified

With unacquainted power of our host.

Enter a
MESSENGER
.

MESSENGER

Arm, dread sovereign, and my noble lords!

The treacherous army of the Christians,

Taking advantage of your slender power,

Comes marching on us and determines straight

To bid us battle for our dearest lives.

ORCANES

Traitors, villains, damnèd Christians!

Have I not here the articles of peace

30   And solemn covenants we have both confirmed,

He by his Christ and I by Mahomet?

GAZELLUS

Hell and confusion light upon their heads

That with such treason seek our overthrow

And cares so little for their prophet, Christ!

ORCANES

Can there be such deceit in Christians,

Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,

Whose shape is figure of the highest god?

Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say

(But in their deeds deny him for their Christ),

40   If he be son to everliving
Jove

And hath the power of his outstretched arm,

If he be jealous of his name and honour

As is our holy prophet Mahomet,

Take here
these papers
as our sacrifice

And witness of thy servant's perjury!

[
He burns the articles of peace
.]

Open, thou
shining veil of Cynthia
,

And make a passage from the empyreal heaven,

That He that sits on high and never sleeps,

50   Nor
in one
place is circumscriptible,

But everywhere fills every
continent

With strange infusion of his sacred vigour,

May in his endless power and purity

Behold and venge this traitor's perjury!

Thou Christ, that art esteemed omnipotent,

If thou wilt prove thyself a perfect God

Worthy the worship of all faithful hearts,

Be now revenged upon this traitor's soul,

And make the power I have left behind

60   (Too little to defend our guiltless lives)

Sufficient to discomfort and confound

The trustless force of those false Christians.

To arms, my lords! On Christ still let us cry.

If there be Christ, we shall have victory.

[
Exeunt
.]

Sound to the battle
,
and
SIGISMOND
comes out wounded
.

SIGISMOND

Discomfited is all the Christian host,

And God hath thundered vengeance from on high

For my accurst and hateful perjury.

O just and dreadful punisher of sin,

Let the dishonour of the pains I feel

In this my mortal well-deservèd wound

End all my penance in my sudden death,

And let this death,
wherein
to sin I die,

Conceive a second life in endless mercy!

[
He dies
.]

Enter
ORCANES
,
GAZELLUS
,
URIBASSA
,
with others
.

ORCANES

10   Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods,

And Christ or Mahomet hath been my friend.

GAZELLUS

See here the perjured traitor, Hungary,

Bloody and breathless for his villainy.

ORCANES

Now shall his barbarous body be a prey

To beasts and fowls, and all the winds shall breathe

Through shady leaves of every senseless tree

Murmurs and hisses for his heinous sin.

Now scalds his soul in the
Tartarian
streams

And feeds upon the baneful tree of hell,