The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 2

Act: 3 Scene: 4
Olympia
Come good my Lord, and let us haste from hence
Along the cave that leads beyond the foe,
No hope is left to save this conquered hold.
Olympia
Death, whether art thou gone that both we live?
Come back again (sweet death) and strike us both:
One minute end our daies, and one sepulcher
Containe our bodies: death, why comm'st thou not?
Wel, this must be the messenger for thee. [Dagger.]
Now ugly death stretch out thy Sable wings,
And carte both our soules, where his remaines.
Tell me sweet boie, art thou content to die?
These barbarous Scythians full of cruelty,
And Moores, in whom was never pitie found,
Will hew us peecemeale, put us to the wheele,
Or els invent some torture worse than that.
Therefore die by thy loving mothers hand,
Who gently now wil lance thy Ivory throat,
And quickly rid thee both of paine and life.
Olympia
Ah sacred Mahomet, if this be sin,
Intreat a pardon of the God of heaven,
And purge my soule before it come to thee.
Olympia
Killing my selfe, as I have done my sonne,
Whose body with his fathers I have burnt,
Least quell Scythians should dismember him.
Olympie
My Lord deceast, was dearer unto me,
Than any Viceroy, King or Emperour.
And for his sake here will I end my daies.
Olympia
Take pitie of a Ladies ruthfull teares,
That humbly craves upon her knees to stay,
And cast her bodie in the burning flame,
That feeds upon her sonnes and husbands flesh.
Olympia
Then carie me I care not where you will,
And let the end of this my fatall journey,
Be likewise end to my accursed life.
Act: 4 Scene: 2
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Olympia
Now stab my Lord, and mark your weapons point
That wil be blunted if the blow be great.