The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 2


Act: 2 Scene: 2<< <>>>
[Enter] Orcanes, Gazellus, Uribassa with their traine.
Gazellus, Uribassa, and the rest,
Now will we march from proud Orminius mount
To faire Natolia, where our neighbour kings
Expect our power and our royall presence,
T'incounter with the quell Tamburlain,
That nigh Larissa swaies a mighty hoste,
And with the thunder of his martial tooles
Makes Earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaven.
And now come we to make his sinowes shake,
With greater power than erst his pride hath felt,
An hundred kings by scores wil bid him armes,
And hundred thousands subjects to each score:
Which if a shower of wounding thunderbolts
Should breake out off the bowels of the clowdes
And fall as thick as haile upon our heads,
In partiall aid of that proud Scythian,
Yet should our courages and steeled crestes,
And numbers more than infinit of men,
Be able to withstand and conquer him.
Me thinks I see how glad the christian King
Is made, for joy of your admitted truce:
That could not but before be terrified:
With unacquainted power of our hoste.
Enter a Messenger.
Arme dread Soveraign 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 battaile for our dearest lives.
Traitors, villaines, damned Christians.
Have I not here the articles of peace,
And solemne covenants we have both confirm'd,
He by his Christ, and I by Mahomet?
Hel and confusion light upon their heads,
That with such treason seek our overthrow,
And cares so litle for their prophet Christ.
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:
If he be son to everliving Jove,
And hath the power of his outstretched arme,
If he be jealous of his name and honor,
As is our holy prophet Mahomet,
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And wimesse of thy servants perjury.
Open thou shining vaile of Cynthia
And make a passage from the imperiall heaven
That he that sits on high and never sleeps,
Nor in one place is circumscriptible,
But every where fils every Continent,
With strange infusion of his sacred vigor,
May in his endlesse power and puritie
Behold and venge this Traitors perjury.
Thou Christ that art esteem'd omnipotent,
If thou wilt proove thy selfe a perfect God,
Worthy the worship of all faithfull hearts,
Be now reveng'd upon this Traitors soule,
And make the power I have left behind
(Too litle to defend our guiltlesse lives)
Sufficient to discomfort and confound
The trustlesse force of those false Christians.
To armes my Lords, on Christ still let us crie,
If there be Christ, we shall have victorie.
[Exeunt.]
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