The Complete Plays (21 page)

And with a troop of thieves and vagabonds

Hath spread his colours to our high disgrace,

While you faint-hearted base Egyptians

Lie slumbering on the flow'ry banks of Nile,

As crocodiles that unaffrighted rest

10   While thund'ring cannons rattle on their skins.

MESSENGER

Nay, mighty Sultan, did your greatness see

The frowning looks of fiery Tamburlaine,

That with his terror and imperious eyes

Commands the hearts of his associates,

It might amaze your royal majesty.

SULTAN

Villain, I tell thee, were that Tamburlaine

As
monstrous as
Gorgon, prince
of hell,

The Sultan would not start a foot from him.

But speak, what power hath he?

MESSENGER
          Mighty lord,

20                 Three hundred thousand men in armour clad

Upon their prancing steeds, disdainfully

With wanton paces trampling on the ground;

Five hundred thousand footmen threat'ning shot,

Shaking their swords, their spears, and iron bills,

Environing their
standard round, that stood

As bristle-pointed as a thorny wood.

Their warlike engines and munition

Exceed the forces of their martial men.

SULTAN

30   Nay, could their numbers countervail the stars,

Or ever-drizzling drops of April showers,

Or withered leaves that Autumn shaketh down,

Yet would the Sultan by his conquering power

So scatter and consume them in his rage

That not a man should live to rue their fall.

CAPOLIN

So might your highness, had you time to sort

Your fighting men and raise your royal host.

But Tamburlaine by expedition

Advantage takes of your unreadiness.

SULTAN

40   Let him take all th'advantages he can.

Were all the world conspired to fight for him,

Nay, were he devil – as he is no man –

Yet in revenge of fair Zenocrate,

Whom he detaineth in despite of us,

This arm should send him down to Erebus

To shroud his shame in darkness of the night.

MESSENGER

Pleaseth your mightiness to understand,

His resolution far exceedeth all.

The first day when he pitcheth down his tents,

50   White is their hue, and on his silver crest

A snowy feather
spangled white he
bears,

To signify the mildness of his mind

That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood.

But when Aurora mounts the second time,

As red as scarlet is his furniture;

Then must his kindled wrath be quenched with blood,

Not sparing any that can manage arms.

But if these threats move not submission,

Black are his colours, black pavilion,

His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes,

60   And
jetty feathers
menace death and hell.

Without respect of sex, degree, or age,

He razeth all his foes with fire and sword.

SULTAN

Merciless villain, peasant ignorant

Of lawful arms or martial discipline!

Pillage and murder are his usual trades;

The slave usurps the glorious name of war.

See, Capolin
, the fair Arabian king,

That hath been disappointed by this slave

Of my fair daughter and his princely love,

70   May have
fresh warning to
go war with us

And be revenged for her disparagement.

[
Exeunt
.]

[A
throne is brought on. Enter
]
TAMBURLAINE
[
all in white
],
TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE, ZENOCRATE, ANIPPE
,
two
MOORS
drawing
BAJAZETH
in his cage, and his wife
[
ZABINA
]
following him
.

TAMBURLAINE
Bring out my footstool.

They take him
[
BAJAZETH
]
out of the cage
.

BAJAZETH

Ye holy priests of heavenly Mahomet,

That,
sacrificing, slice
and cut your flesh,

Staining his altars with your purple blood,

Make heaven to frown, and
every fixèd star

To suck up poison from the moorish fens

And pour it in this
glorious tyrant
's throat!

TAMBURLAINE

The chiefest
God, first
mover of that sphere

Enchased with thousands ever-shining lamps,

10   Will sooner burn the glorious frame of heaven

Than it should so conspire my overthrow.

But, villain, thou that wishest this to me,

Fall prostrate on the low, disdainful earth

And be the footstool of great Tamburlaine,

That I may rise into my royal throne.

BAJAZETH

First shalt thou rip my bowels with thy sword

And sacrifice my heart to death and hell

Before I yield to such a slavery.

TAMBURLAINE

Base villain, vassal, slave to Tamburlaine,

20   Unworthy to embrace or touch the ground

That bears the honour of my royal weight,

Stoop, villain, stoop, stoop, for so he bids

That may command thee piecemeal to be torn

Or scattered like the lofty cedar trees

Struck with the voice of thund'ring Jupiter.

BAJAZETH

Then, as I look down to the damnèd fiends,

Fiends, look on me, and, thou dread
god of hell,

With ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth

And make it swallow both of us at once!

He
[
TAMBURLAINE
]
gets up upon him
[
BAJAZETH
]
to his
chair
.

TAMBURLAINE

30   Now clear the
triple region of the air,

And let the majesty of heaven behold

Their scourge and terror tread on emperors.

Smile, stars that reigned at my nativity,

And dim the brightness of their neighbour lamps!

Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia.

For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth,

First rising in the east with mild
aspect

But fixèd now in the
meridian line,

Will send up fire to your turning spheres

And cause the sun to borrow light of you.

My sword struck fire from his coat of steel

Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk,

As when a
fiery exhalation

Wrapped in the bowels of a freezing cloud,

Fighting for passage, makes the welkin crack,

And casts a flash of lightning to the earth.

But ere I march to wealthy Persia

Or leave Damascus and th'Egyptian fields,

As was the fame of
Clymene's brainsick son

That almost
brent
the axletree of heaven,

So shall our swords, our lances, and our shot

Fill all the air with
fiery meteors.

Then, when the sky shall wax as red as blood,

It shall be said I made it red myself,

To make me think of naught but blood and war.

ZABINA

Unworthy king, that by thy cruelty

Unlawfully usurp'st the Persian seat,

Dar'st thou, that never saw an emperor

Before thou met my husband in the field,

Being thy captive, thus abuse his state,

Keeping his kingly body in a cage

That roofs of gold and sun-bright palaces

Should have prepared to entertain his grace,

And treading him beneath thy loathsome feet

Whose feet the kings of Africa have kissed?

TECHELLES
[
to
TAMBURLAINE
]

You must devise some torment worse, my lord,

To make these captives rein their lavish tongues.

TAMBURLAINE

Zenocrate, look better to your slave.

ZENOCRATE

She is my handmaid's slave, and she shall look

That these abuses flow not from her tongue.

70                 Chide her, Anippe.

ANIPPE
[
to
ZABINA
]

Let these be warnings for you, then, my slave,

How you abuse the person of the king,

Or else I swear to have you whipped stark naked.

BAJAZETH

Great Tamburlaine, great in my overthrow,

Ambitious pride shall make thee fall as low

For treading on the back of Bajazeth,

That should be horsèd on four mighty kings.

TAMBURLAINE

Thy names and titles and thy dignities

80   Are fled from Bajazeth and remain with me,

That will maintain it 'gainst a world of kings.

Put him
in again.

[
They put
BAJAZETH
into the cage
.]

BAJAZETH

Is this a place for mighty Bajazeth?

Confusion light on him that helps thee thus!

TAMBURLAINE

There, whiles he lives, shall Bajazeth be kept,

And where I go be thus in triumph drawn;

And thou, his wife, shalt feed him with the scraps

My servitors shall bring thee from my board.

For he that gives him other food than this

90   Shall sit by him and starve to death himself.

This is my mind, and I will have it so.

Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,

If they would lay their crowns before my feet,

Shall ransom him or take him from his cage.

The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,

Even from this day to
Plato's wondrous year,

Shall talk how I have handled Bajazeth.

These Moors that drew him from Bithynia

To fair Damascus, where we now remain,

100   Shall lead him with us wheresoe'er we go.

Techelles and my loving followers,

Now may we see Damascus' lofty towers,

Like to
the shadows of Pyramides

That with their beauties graced the Memphian fields.

The golden
statue of
their feathered bird

That spreads her wings upon the city walls

Shall not defend it from our battering shot.

The townsmen
mask in
silk and cloth of gold,

And every house is as a treasury.

110   The men, the treasure, and the town is ours.

THERIDAMAS

Your tents of white now pitched before the gates,

And gentle flags of amity displayed,

I doubt not but the governor will yield,

Offering Damascus to your majesty.

TAMBURLAINE

So shall he have his life, and all the rest.

But if he stay until the bloody flag

Be once advanced on my vermilion tent,

He dies, and those that kept us out so long.

And when they see me march in black array,

With mournful streamers hanging down
their heads
,

120   Were in that city all the world contained,

Not one should 'scape, but perish by our swords.

ZENOCRATE

Yet would you have some pity for my sake,

Because it is my country's, and my father's.

TAMBURLAINE

Not for the world, Zenocrate, if I have sworn.

Come, bring in the Turk.

Exeunt
.

[
Enter the
]
SULTAN
, [
the
KING OF
]
ARABIA, CAPOLIN
,
with streaming colours, and
SOLDIERS.

SULTAN

Methinks we
march as Meleager did,

Environèd with
brave Argolian
knights,

To chase the savage Calydonian boar;

Or Cephalus with lusty Theban youths,

Against the wolf that angry Themis sent

To waste and spoil the sweet Aonian fields.

A monster of five hundred thousand heads,

Compact of rapine, piracy, and spoil,

The scum of men, the hate and scourge of God,

10   Raves in Egyptia and annoyeth us.

My lord, it is the bloody Tamburlaine,

A sturdy felon and a base-bred thief

By murder raisèd to the Persian crown,

That dares control us in our territories.

To tame the pride of this presumptuous beast,

Join your Arabians with the Sultan's power;

Let us unite our royal bands in one

And hasten to remove Damascus' siege.

It is a blemish to the majesty

20   And high estate of mighty emperors

That such a base, usurping vagabond

Should brave a king or wear a princely crown.

ARABIA

Renownèd Sultan, have ye lately heard

The overthrow of mighty Bajazeth

About the confines of Bithynia?

The slavery wherewith he persecutes

The noble Turk and his great emperess?

SULTAN

I have, and sorrow for his bad success.

But, noble lord of great Arabia,

30   Be so persuaded that the Sultan is

No more dismayed with tidings of his fall,

Than in the haven when the pilot stands

And views a stranger's ship rent in the winds,

And shiverèd against a craggy rock.

Yet, in compassion of his wretched state,

A sacred vow to heaven and him I make,

Confirming it with
Ibis'
holy name,