The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 1


Act: 3 Scene: 3
Bassoes and Janisaries of my Guard,
Attend upon the person of your Lord,
The greatest Potentate of Affrica.
Kings of Fesse, Moroccus and Argier,
He cals me Bajazeth, whom you call Lord.
Note the presumption of this Scythian slave:
I tell thee villaine, those that lead my horse
Have to their names tytles of dignity,
And dar'st thou bluntly call me Bajazeth?
By Mahomet, my Kinsmans sepulcher,
And by the holy Alcaron I sweare,
He shall be made a chest and lustlesse Eunuke,
And in my Sarell tend my Concubines:
And all his Captaines that thus stoutly stand,
Shall draw the chariot of my Emperesse,
Whom I have brought to see their overthrow.
Wel said my stout contributory kings,
Your threefold armie and my hugie hoste,
Shall swallow up these base borne Perseans.
Zabina, mother of three braver boies,
Than Hercules, that in his infancie
Did pash the jawes of Serpents venomous:
Whose hands are made to gripe a warlike Lance,
Their shoulders broad, for complet armour fit,
Their lims more large and of a bigger size
Than all the brats ysprong from Typhons loins:
Who, when they come unto their fathers age,
Will batter Turrets with their manly fists.
Sit here upon this royal chaire of state,
And on thy head weare my Emperiall crowne,
Untill I bring this sturdy Tamburlaine,
And all his Captains bound in captive chaines.
Now shalt thou feel the force of Turkish arms,
Which lately made all Europe quake for feare:
I have of Turkes, Arabians, Moores and Jewes
Enough to cover all Bythinia .
Let thousands die, their slaughtered Carkasses
Shall serve for walles and bulwarkes to the rest:
And as the heads of Hydra, somy power
Subdued, shall stand as mighty as before:
If they should yeeld their necks unto the sword,
Thy souldiers armes could not endure to strike
So many blowes as I have heads for thee.
Thou knowest not (foolish hardy Tamburlaine)
What tis to meet me in the open field,
That leave no ground for thee to martch upon.
Come Kings and Bassoes, let us glut our swords
That thirst to drinke the feble Perseans blood.
Thou, by the fortune of thisdamned foile.
Ah faire Zabina, we have lost the field.
And never had the Turkish Emperour
So great a foile by any forraine foe.
Now will the Christian miscreants be glad,
Ringing with joy their superstitious belles:
And making bonfires for my overthrow.
But ere I die those foule Idolaters
Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones,
For though the glorie of this day be lost,
Affrik and Greece have garrisons enough
To make me Soveraigne of the earth againe.
Yet set a ransome on me Tamburlaine.
Ah villaines, dare ye touch my sacred armes?
O Mahomet, Oh sleepie Mahomet.