TheStationersRegister

The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 2

Act: 4 Scene: 1<<

Alarme: Amyras and Celebinus, issues from the tent where Caliphas sits a sleepe.

Amyras

Now in their glories shine the golden crownes

Of these proud Turks, much like so many suns

That halfe dismay the majesty of heaven:

Now brother, follow we our fathers sword,

That flies with fury swifter than our thoughts,

And cuts down armies with his conquering wings.

Celebinus

Call foorth our laisie brother from the tent,

For if my father misse him in the field,

Wrath kindled in the furnace of his breast,

Wil send a deadly lightening to his heart.

Amyras

Brother, ho, what, given so much to sleep

You cannot leave it, when our enemies drums

And ratling cannons thunder in our eares.

Our proper ruine, and our fathers foile?

Calyphas

Away ye fools, my father needs not me,

Nor you in faith, but that you wil be thought

More childish valourous than manly wise:

If halfe our campe should sit and sleepe with me,

My father were enough to scar the foe:

You doo dishonor to his majesty,

To think our helps will doe him any good.

Amyras

What, dar'st thou then be absent from the fight,

Knowing my father hates thy cowardice,

And oft hath warn'd thee to be stil in field,

When he himselfe amidst the thickest troopes

Beats downe our foes to flesh our taintlesse swords?

Calyphas

I know sir, what it is to kil a man,

It works remorse of conscience in me,

I take no pleasure to be murtherous,

Nor care for blood when wine wil quench my thirst.

Celebinus

O cowardly boy, fie for shame, come foorth.

Thou doost dishonor manhood, and thy house.

Calyphas

Goe, goe tall stripling, fight you for us both,

And take my other toward brother here,

For person like to proove a second Mars .

Twill please my mind as wel to heare both you

Have won a heape of honor in the field,

And left your slender carkasses behind,

As if I lay with you for company.

Amyras

You wil not goe then?

Calyphas

You say true.

Amyras

Were all the lofty mounts of Zona mundi,

That fill the midst of farthest Tartary,

Turn'd into pearle and proffered for my stay,

I would not bide the furie of my father:

When made a victor in these hautie arms ,

He comes and findes his sonnes have had no shares

In all the honors he proposde for us.

Calyphas

Take you the honor, I will take my ease,

My wisedome shall excuse my cowardise:

I goe into the field before I need?

Alarme, and Amyras and Celebinus run in.

The bullets fly at random where they list.

And should I goe and kill a thousand men,

I were as soone rewarded with a shot,

And sooner far than he that never fights.

And should I goe and do nor harme nor good,

I might have harme, which all the good I have

Join'd with my fathers crowne would never cure.

Ile to cardes: Perdicas.

[Enter Perdicas.]

Perdicas

Here my Lord.

Calyphas

Come, thou and I wil goe to cardes to drive away the time.

Perdicas

Content my Lord, but what shal we play for?

Calyphas

Who shal kisse the fairest of the Turkes Concubines first, when my father hath conquered them.

Perdicas

Agreed yfaith.

They play.

Calyphas

They say I am a coward, (Perdicas) and I feare as litle their tara, tantaras, their swordes or their cannons, as I doe a naked Lady in a net of golde, and for feare I should be affraid, would put it off and come to bed with me.

Perdicas

Such a feare (my Lord) would never make yee retire.

Calyphas

I would my father would let me be put in the front of such a battaile once, to trie my valour. Alarme. What a coyle they keepe, I beleeve there will be some hurt done anon amongst them.

[They go in the tent.]

Enter [with Souldiers] Tamburlain, Theridamas, Techelles, Usumcasane, Amyras, Celebinus, leading the Turkish kings.

Tamburlaine

See now ye slaves, my children stoops your pride

And leads your glories sheep-like to the sword.

Bring them my boyes, and tel me if the warres

Be not a life that may illustrate Gods,

And tickle not your Spirits with desire

Stil to be train'd in armes and chivalry?

Amyras

Shal we let goe these kings again my Lord

To gather greater numbers gainst our power,

That they may say, it is not chance doth this,

But matchlesse strength and magnanimity?

Tamburlaine

No, no Amyras, tempt not Fortune so,

Cherish thy valour stil with fresh supplies:

And glut it not with stale and daunted foes.

But wher's this coward, villaine, not my sonne,

But traitor to my name and majesty.

He goes in and brings him out.

Image of sloth, and picture of a slave,

The obloquie and skorne of my renowne,

How may my hart, thus fired with mine eies,

Wounded with shame, and kill'd with discontent,

Shrowd any thought may horde my striving hands

From martiall justice on thy wretched soule.

Theridamas

Yet pardon him I pray your Majesty.

Techelles and Usumcasane

Let al of us intreat your highnesse pardon.

Tamburlaine

Stand up, ye base unworthy souldiers,

Know ye not yet the argument of Armes?

Amyras

Good my Lord, let him be forgiven for once,

And we wil force him to the field hereafter.

Tamburlaine

Stand up my boyes, and I wil teach ye arms,

And what the jealousie of warres must doe.

O Samarcanda, where I breathed first,

And joy'd the fire of this martiall flesh,

Blush, blush faire citie, at thine honors foile,

And shame of nature which Jaertis streame,

Embracing thee with deepest of his love,

Can never wash from thy distained browes.

Here Jove, receive his fainting soule againe,

A Forme not meet to give that subject essence,

Whose matter is the flesh of Tamburlaine,

Wherein an incorporeall spirit mooves,

Made of the mould whereof thy selfe consists,

Which makes me valiant, proud, ambitious,

Ready to levie power against thy throne,

That I might moove the turning Spheares of heaven,

For earth and al this aery region

Cannot containe the state of Tamburlaine.

[Stabs Calyphas.]

By Mahomet, thy mighty friend I sweare,

In sending to my issue such a soule,

Created of the messy dregges of earth,

The scum and tartar of the Elements,

Wherein was neither corrage, strength or wit,

But follie, sloth, and damned idlenesse:

Thou hast procur'd a greater enemie,

Than he that darted mountaines at thy head,

Shaking the burthen mighty Atlas beares:

Whereat thou trembling hid'st thee in the aire,

Cloth'd with a pitchy cloud for being seene.

And now ye cankred curres of Asia,

That will not see the strength of Tamburlaine,

Although it shine as brightly as the Sun.

Now you shal feele the strength of Tamburlain,

And by the state of his supremacie,

Approove the difference twixt himself and you.

Orcanes

Thou shewest the difference twixt our selves and thee

In this thy barbarous damned tyranny.

Jerusalem

Thy victories are growne so violent,

That shortly heaven, fild with the meteors

Of blood and fire thy tyrannies have made,

Will poure down blood and fire on thy head:

Whose scalding drops wil pierce thy seething braines,

And with our bloods, revenge our bloods on thee.

Tamburlaine

Villaines, these terrours and these tyrannies

(If tyrannies wars justice ye repute)

I execute, enjoin'd me from above,

To scourge the pride of such as heaven abhors:

Nor am I made Arch-monark of the world,

Crown'd and invested by the hand of Jove,

For deeds of bounty or nobility:

But since I exercise a greater name,

The Scourge of God and terrour of the world,

I must apply my selfe to fit those tearmes,

In war, in blood, in death, in crueltie,

And plague such Pesants as resist in me

The power of heavens eternall majesty.

Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane ,

Ransacke the tents and the pavilions

Of these proud Turks, and take their Concubines,

Making them burie this effeminate brat,

For not a common Souldier shall defile

His manly fingers with so faint a boy.

Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent,

And Ile dispose them as it likes me best,

Meane while take him in.

Souldiers

We will my Lord.

[Exeunt with the body of Calyphas.]

Jerusalem

O damned monster, nay a Feend of Hell,

Whose cruelties are not so harsh as shine,

Nor yet imposd, with such a bitter hate.

Orcanes

Revenge it Radamanth and Eacus,

And let your hates extended in his paines,

Expell the hate wherewith he paines our soules.

Trebizon

May never day give vertue to his eies,

Whose sight composde of furie and of fire

Doth send such sterne affections to his heart.

Soria

May never spirit, vaine or Artier feed

The cursed substance of that cruel heart,

But (wanting moisture and remorsefull blood)

Drie up with anger, and consume with heat.

Tamburlaine

Wel, bark ye dogs. Ile bridle al your tongues

And bind them close with bits of burnisht steele,

Downe to the channels of your hatefull throats,

And with the paines my rigour shall inflict,

Ile make ye roare, that earth may eccho foorth

The far resounding torments ye sustaine,

As when an heard of lusty Cymbrian Buls,

Run mourning round about the Femals misse,

And stung with furie of their following,

Fill all the aire with troublous bellowing:

I will with Engines, never exercisde,

Conquer, sacke, and utterly consume

Your cities and your golden pallaces,

And with the flames that beat against the clowdes

Incense the heavens, and make the starres to melt,

As if they were the teares of Mahomet

For hot consumption of his countries pride:

And til by vision, or by speech I heare

Immortall Jove say, Cease my Tamburlaine,

I will persist a terrour to the world,

Making the Meteors, that like armed men

Are seene to march upon the towers of heaven,

Run tilting round about the firmament,

And breake their burning Lances in the aire,

For honor of my woondrous victories.

Come bring them in to our Pavilion.

Exeunt.

Act: 4 Scene: 2<<

[Enter] Olympia alone.

Olympia

Distrest Olympia, whose weeping eies

Since thy arrivall here beheld no Sun,

But closde within the compasse of a tent,

Hath stain'd thy cheekes, and made thee look like death,

Devise some meanes to rid thee of thy life,

Rather than yeeld to his detested suit,

Whose drift is onely to dishonor thee.

And since this earth, dew'd with thy brinish teares,

Affoords no hearbs, whose taste may poison thee,

Nor yet this seer, beat often with thy sighes,

Contagious smels, and vapors to infect thee,

Nor thy close Cave a sword to murther thee,

Let this invention be the instrument.

Enter Theridamas.

Theridamas

Wel met Olympia, I sought thee in my tent,

But when I saw the place obscure and darke,

Which with thy beauty thou wast woont to light,

Enrag'd I ran about the fields for thee,

Supposing amorous Jove had sent his sonne,

The winged Hermes, to convey thee hence:

But now I finde thee, and that feare is past.

Tell me Olympia, wilt thou graunt my suit?

Olympia

My Lord and husbandes death, with my sweete sons,

With whom I buried al affections,

Save griefe and sorrow which torment my heart,

Forbids my mind to entertaine a thought

That tends to love, but meditate on death,

A fitter subject for a pensive soule.

Theridamas

Olympia, pitie him, in whom thy looks

Have greater operation and more force

Than Cynthias in the watery wildernes,

For with thy view my joyes are at the full,

And eb againe, as thou departst from me.

Olympia

Ah, pity me my Lord, and draw your sword,

Making a passage for my troubled soule,

Which beates against this prison to get out,

And meet my husband and my loving sonne.

Theridamas

Nothing, but stil thy husband and thy sonne?

Leave this my Love, and listen more to me.

Thou shalt be stately Queene of faire Argier,

And cloth'd in costly cloath of messy gold,

Upon the marble turrets of my Court

Sit like to Venus in her chaire of state,

Commanding all thy princely eie desires,

And I will cast off armes and sit with thee,

Spending my life in sweet discourse of love.

Olympia

No such discourse is pleasant in mine eares,

But that where every period ends with death,

And every line begins with death againe:

I cannot love to be an Emperesse.

Theridamas

Nay Lady, then if nothing wil prevaile,

Ile use some other means to make you yeeld,

Such is the sodaine fury of my love,

I must and wil be pleasde, and you shall yeeld:

Come to the tent againe.

Olympia

Stay good my Lord, and wil you save my honor,

Ile give your Grace a present of such price,

As all the world cannot affoord the like.

Theridamas

What is it?

Olympia

An ointment which a cunning Alcumist

Distilled from the purest Balsamum,

And simplest extracts of all Minerals,

In which the essentiall fourme of Marble stone,

Tempered by science metaphisicall,

And Spels of magicke from the mouthes of spirits,

With which if you but noint your tender Skin,

Nor Pistol, Sword, nor Lance can pierce your flesh.

Theridamas

Why Madam, thinke ye to mocke me thus palpably?

Olympia

To proove it, I wil noint my naked throat,

Which when you stab, looke on your weapons point,

And you shall se't rebated with the blow.

Theridamas

Why gave you not your husband some of it,

If you loved him, and it so precious?

Olympia

My purpose was (my Lord) to spend it so,

But was prevented by his sodaine end.

And for a present easie proofe hereof,

That I dissemble not, trie it on me.

Theridamas

I wil Olympia, and will keep it for

The richest present of this Easterne world.

She noints her throat.

Olympia

Now stab my Lord, and mark your weapons point

That wil be blunted if the blow be great.

Theridamas

Here then Olympia. [Stabs her.]

What, have I slaine her? Villaine, stab thy selfe:

Cut off this arme that murthered my Love:

In whom the learned Rabies of this age,

Might find as many woondrous myracles,

As in the Theoria of the world.

Now Hell is fairer than Elisian,

A greater Lamp than that bright eie of heaven,

From whence the starres doo borrow all their light,

Wanders about the black circumference,

And now the damned soules are free from paine,

For every Fury gazeth on her lookes:

Infernall Dis is courting of my Love,

Inventing maskes and stately showes for her,

Opening the doores of his rich treasurie,

To entertaine this Queene of chastitie,

Whose body shall be tomb'd with all the pompe

The treasure of my kingdome may affoord.

Exit, taking her away.

Act: 4 Scene: 3<<

[Enter] Tamburlaine drawen in his chariot by Trebizon and Soria with bittes in their mouthes, reines in his left hand, in his right hand a whip, with which he scourgeth them, Techelles, Theridamas, Usumcasane, Amyras, Celebinus: [Orcanes king of] Natolia, and Jerusalem led by with five or six common souldiers.

Tamburlaine

Holla, ye pampered Jades of Asia:

What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day,

And have so proud a chariot at your heeles,

And such a Coachman as great Tamburlaine?

But from Asphaltis, where I conquer'd you,

To Byron here where thus I honor you?

The horse that guide the golden eie of heaven,

And blow the morning from their nosterils,

Making their fiery gate above the cloudes,

Are not so honoured in their Governour,

As you (ye slaves) in mighty Tamburlain.

The headstrong Jades of Thrace, Alcides tam'd,

That King Egeus fed with humaine flesh,

And made so wanton that they knew their strengths,

Were not subdew'd with valour more divine,

Than you by this unconquered arme of mine.

To make you fierce, and fit my appetite,

You shal be fed with flesh as raw as blood,

And drinke in pailes the strongest Muscadell:

If you can live with it, then live, and draw

My chariot swifter than the racking cloudes:

If not, then dy like beasts, and fit for nought

But perches for the black and fatall Ravens.

Thus arn I right the Scourge of highest Jove

And see the figure of my dignitie,

By which I hold my name and majesty.

Amyras

Let me have coach my Lord, that I may ride,

And thus be drawen with these two idle kings.

Tamburlaine

Thy youth forbids such ease my kingly boy,

They shall to morrow draw my chariot,

While these their fellow kings may be refresht.

Orcanes

O thou that swaiest the region under earth,

And art a king as absolute as Jove,

Come as thou didst in fruitfull Scicilie,

Survaieng all the glories of the land:

And as thou took'st the faire Proserpina,

Joying the fruit of Ceres garden plot,

For love, for honor, and to make her Queene,

So for just hate, for shame, and to subdew

This proud contemner of thy dreadfull power,

Come once in furie and survey his pride,

Haling him headlong to the lowest hell.

Theridamas

Your Majesty must get some byts for these,

To bridle their contemptuous cursing tongues,

That like unruly never broken Jades,

Breake through the hedges of their hateful mouthes,

And passe their fixed bounces exceedingly.

Techelles

Nay, we wil break the hedges of their mouths

And pul their kicking colts out of their pastures.

Usumcasane

Your Majesty already hath devisde

A meane, as fit as may be to restraine

These coltish coach-horse tongues from blasphemy.

Celebinus

How like you that sir king? why speak you not?

Jeruselem

Ah cruel Brat, sprung from a tyrants loines,

How like his cursed father he begins,

To practize tauntes and bitter tyrannies?

Tamburlaine

I Turke, I tel thee, this same Boy is he,

That must (advaunst in higher pompe than this)

Rifle the kingdomes I shall leave unsackt,

If Jove esteeming me too good for earth,

Raise me to match the faire Aldeboran,

Above the threefold Astracisme of heaven,

Before I conquere all the triple world.

Now fetch me out the Turkish Concubines,

I will prefer them for the funerall

They have bestowed on my abortive sonnet

The Concubines are brought in.

Where are my common souldiers now that fought

So Lion-like upon Asphaltis plaines?

Souldiers

Here my Lord.

Tamburlaine

Hold ye tal souldiers, take ye Queens apeece

(I meane such Queens as were kings Concubines)

Take them, devide them and their jewels too,

And let them equally serve all your turnes.

Souldiers

We thank your majesty.

Tambulaine

Brawle not (I warne you) for your lechery,

For every man that so offends shall die.

Orcanes

Injurious tyrant, wilt thou so defame

The hatefull fortunes of thy victory,

To exercise upon such guiltlesse Dames,

The violence of thy common Souldiours lust?

Tamburlaine

Live continent then (ye slaves) and meet not me

With troopes of harlots at your sloothful heeles.

Ladies

O pity us my Lord, and save our honours.

Tamburlaine

Are ye not gone ye villaines with your spoiles?

They run away with the Ladies.

Jerusalem

O mercilesse infernall cruelty.

Tamburlaine

Save your honours? twere but time indeed,

Lost long before you knew what honour meant.

Theridamas

It seemes they meant to conquer us my Lord,

And make us jeasting Pageants for their Trulles.

Tamburlaine

And now themselves shal make our Pageant,

And common souldiers jest with all their Truls.

Let them take pleasure soundly in their spoiles,

Till we prepare our martch to Babylon,

Whether we next make expedition.

Techelles

Let us not be idle then my Lord,

But presently be press to conquer it.

Tamburlaine

We wil Techelles, forward then ye Jades:

Now crowch ye kings of greatest Asia,

And tremble when ye heare this Scourge wil come,

That whips downe cities, and controwleth crownes,

Adding their wealth and treasure to my store.

The Euxine sea North to Natolia,

The Terrene west, the Caspian north north-east,

And on the south Senus Arabicus ,

Shal al be loden with the martiall spoiles

We will convey with us to Persea.

Then shal my native city Samarcanda

And christall waves of fresh Jaertis streame,

The pride and beautie of her princely seat,

Be famous through the furthest continents,

For there my Pallace royal shal be plac'd:

Whose shyning Turrets shal dismay the heavens,

And cast the fame of Ilions Tower to hell.

Thorow the streets with troops of conquered kings,

Ile ride in golden armour like the Sun,

And in my helme a triple plume shal spring,

Spangled with Diamonds dancing in the aire,

To note me Emperour of the three fold world:

Like to an almond tree ymounted high,

Upon the lofty and celestiall mount,

Of ever greene Selinus queintly dect

With bloomes more white than Hericinas browes,

Whose tender blossoms tremble every one,

At every little breath that thorow heaven is blowen:

Then in my coach like Saturnes royal son,

Mounted his shining chariot, gilt with fire,

And drawen with princely Eagles through the path,

Pav'd with bright Christall, and enchac'd with starres,

When all the Gods stand gazing at his pomp:

So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,

Until my soule dissevered from this flesh,

Shall mount the milk-white way and meet him there.

To Babylon my Lords, to Babylon.

Exeunt

Nav.