Read The Complete Plays Online
Authors: Christopher Marlowe
140Â Â Â 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.
150Â Â Â 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;
160Â Â Â 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;
170Â Â Â 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,
180Â Â 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
190Â Â Â 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;
200Â Â Â 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
210Â Â Â 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.
220Â Â Â Â
Lachryma Christi
and Calabrian wines
Shall common soldiers drink in quaffing bowls â
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
10Â Â Â 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 â
That strikes a terror to all Turkish hearts â
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,
20Â Â Â 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?
30Â Â Â 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
40Â Â Â 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
.
50Â Â Â 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
60Â Â Â 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
10Â Â Â 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 â
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
20Â Â Â 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
30Â Â Â 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),
40Â Â Â 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,
50Â Â Â 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
60Â Â Â (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
10Â Â Â 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,