The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Tamburlaine Part 2


Act: 3 Scene: 3
Thus have wee martcht Northwarde from Tamburlaine,
Unto the frontier point of Soria :
And this is Balsera their chiefest hold,
Wherein is all the treasure of the land.
But stay a while, summon a parle, Drum,
It may be they will yeeld it quietly,
Knowing two kings, the friends to Tamburlain,
Stand at the walles, with such a mighty power.
Captaine, that thou yeeld up thy hold to us.
These Pioners of Argier in Affrica ,
Even in the cannons face shall raise a hill
Of earth and fagots higher than thy Fort,
And over thy Argins and covered waies
Shal play upon the bulwarks of thy hold
Volleies of ordinance til the breach be made,
That with his wine fils up all the trench.
And when we enter in, not heaven it selfe
Shall ransome thee, thy wife and family.
Pioners away, and where I stuck the stake,
Intrench with those dimensions I prescribed:
Cast up the earth towards the castle wall,
Which til it may defend you, labour low:
And few or none shall perish by their shot.
Then see the bringing of our ordinance
Along the trench into the battery,
Where we will have Gabions of sixe foot broad,
To save our Cannoniers from musket shot,
Betwixt which, shall our ordinance thunder foorth,
And with the breaches fall, smoake, fire, and dust,
The cracke, the Ecchoe and the souldiers crie
Make deafe the aire, and dim the Christall Sky.

Act: 3 Scene: 4
How now Madam, what are you doing?
But Lady goe with us to Tamburlaine,
And thou shalt see a man greater than Mahomet ,
In whose high lookes is much more majesty
Than from the Concave superficies,
Of Joves vast pallace the imperiall Orbe,
Unto the shining bower where Cynthia sits,
Like lovely Thetis in a Christall robe:
That treadeth Fortune underneath his feete,
And makes the mighty God of armes his slave:
On whom death and the fatall sisters waite,
With naked swords and scarlet liveries:
Before whom (mounted on a Lions backe)
Rhamnusia beares a helmet ful of blood,
And strowes the way with braines of slaughtered men:
By whose proud side the ugly furies run,
Harkening when he shall bid them plague the world.
Over whose Zenith cloth'd in windy aire,
And Eagles wings join'd to her feathered breast,
Fame hovereth, sounding of her golden Trumpe:
That to the adverse poles of that straight line,
Which measureth the glorious frame of heaven,
The name of mightie Tamburlain is spread:
And him faire Lady shall thy eies behold.
Come.
Madam, I am so far in love with you,
That you must goe with us, no remedy.
Souldiers now let us meet the Generall,
Who by this time is at Natolie,
Ready to charge the army of the Turke.
The gold, the silver, and the pearle ye got,
Rifling this Fort, device in equall shares:
This Lady shall have twice so much againe,
Out of the coffers of our treasurie.

Act: 3 Scene: 5
I, my Lord, he was Calapines keeper. Theridamas, when we are fighting, least hee hide his crowne as the foolish king of Persea did.