The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 1


Act: 4 Scene: 2
Ye holy Priests of heavenly Mahomet,
That sacrificing slice and cut your flesh,
Staining his Altars with your purple blood:
Make heaven to frowne and every fixed starre
To sucke up poison from the moorish Fens,
And poure it in this glorious Tyrants throat.
First shalt thou rip my bowels with thy sword,
And sacrifice my heart to death and hell,
Before I yeeld to such a slavery.
Then as I look downe to the damned Feends,
Feends looke on me, and thou dread God of hell,
With Eban Scepter strike this hatefull earth,
And make it swallow both of us at once.
Great Tamburlaine, great in my overthrow,
Ambitious pride shall make thee fall as low,
For treading on the back of Bajazeth,
That should be horsed on fower mightie kings.
Is this a place for mighty Bajazeth?
Confusion light on him that helps thee thus.

Act: 4 Scene: 4
I, such a stomacke (cruel Tambulaine) as I could willinglyfeed upon thy blood-raw hart.
Fall to, and never may your meat digest.
Ye Furies that can maske invisible,
Dive to the bottome of Avernus poole,
And in your hands bring hellish poison up,
And squease it in the cup of Tamburlain
Or winged snakes of Lerna cast your stings,
And leave your venoms in this Tyrants dish.
First legions of devils shall teare thee in peeces.
My empty stomacke ful of idle heat,
Drawes bloody humours from my feeble parses,
Preserving life, by hastingquell death.
My vaines are pale, my sinowes hard and drie,
My jointes benumb'd, unlesse I eat, I die.
I Tyrant, and more meat.
Nor shall they long be shine, I warrant them.