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The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 1

Act: 4 Scene: 3

Me thinks we martch as Meliager did,

Environed with brave Argolian knightes,

To chace the savage Calidonian Boare:

Or Cephalus with lustie Thebane youths,

Against the Woolfe that angrie Themis sent,

To waste and spoile the sweet Aonian fieldes.

A monster of five hundred thousand heades,

Compact of Rapine, Pyracie, and spoile,

The Scum of men, the hate and Scourge of God,

Raves in Egyptia, and annoyeth us.

My Lord it is the bloody Tamburlaine ,

A sturdy Felon and a base-bred Thiefe,

By murder raised to the Persean Crowne,

That dares controll us in our Territories.

To tame the pride of this presumptuous Beast,

Joine your Arabians with the Souldans power:

Let us unite our royall bandes in one,

And hasten to remoove Damascus siege.

It is a blemish to the Majestie

And high estate of mightie Emperours,

That such a base usurping vagabond

Should brave a king, or weare a princely crowne.

I have, and sorrow for his bad successe:

But noble Lord of great Arabia,

Be so perswaded, that the Souldan is

No more dismaide with tidings of his fall,

Than in the haven when the Pilot stands

And viewes a strangers ship rent in the winds,

And shivered against a craggie rocke.

Yet in compassion of his wretched state,

A sacred vow to heaven and him I make,

Confirming it with Ibis holy name,

That Tamburlaine shall rue the day, the hower,

Wherein he wrought such ignominious wrong,

Unto the hallowed person of a prince,

Or kept the faire Zenocrate so long,

As Concubine I feare to feed his lust.

Capolin, hast thou survaid our powers?

Then reare your standardes, let your sounding Drummes

Direct our Souldiers to Damascus walles.

Now Tamburlaine, the mightie Souldane comes,

And leads with him the great Arabian King ,

To dim thy basenesse and obscurity,

Famous for nothing but for theft and spoile,

To race and scatter thy inglorious crue,

Of Scythians and slavish Persians.