Read The Complete Plays Online
Authors: Christopher Marlowe
Your honours, liberties, and lives, were weighed
In equal care and balance with our own,
Endure as we the malice of our stars,
The wrath of Tamburlaine and power of wars;
Or be the means the
overweighing heavens
Have kept to
qualify these
hot extremes,
And bring us pardon in your cheerful looks.
SECOND VIRGIN
Then here, before the majesty of heaven
And
holy patrons of
Egyptia,
50Â Â Â With knees and hearts submissive we entreat
Grace to our words and pity to our looks,
That this device may prove propitious,
And through the eyes and ears of Tamburlaine
Convey events of
mercy to his heart.
Grant that these
signs of victory we
yield
May bind the temples of his conquering head
To hide the folded furrows of his brows,
And
shadow his
displeasèd countenance
With happy looks of ruth and lenity.
Leave us, my lord, and loving countrymen;
60Â Â Â What simple virgins may persuade, we will.
GOVERNOR
Farewell, sweet virgins, on whose safe return
Depends our city, liberty, and lives!
Exeunt [all except the
VIRGINS
.
Enter
]
TAMBURLAINE
,
TECHELLES
,
THERIDAMAS
,
USUMCASANE
,
with Others;
TAMBURLAINE
all in black, and very melancholy
.
TAMBURLAINE
What, are the
turtles frayed
out of their nests?
Alas, poor fools, must you
be first shall
feel
The sworn destruction of Damascus?
They know my custom. Could they not as well
Have sent ye out
when first my
milk-white flags
Through which sweet mercy threw her gentle beams,
Reflexing them on your disdainful eyes,
70   As now when fury and incensèd hate
Flings slaughtering terror from my coal-black tents
And tells for truth submissions comes too late?
FIRST VIRGIN
Most happy king and emperor of the earth,
Image of honour and nobility,
For whom the powers divine have made the world
And on whose throne
the holy Graces sit
,
In
whose sweet
person is comprised the sum
Of nature's skill and heavenly majesty:
Pity our plights, O, pity poor Damascus!
80Â Â Â Pity old age, within whose silver hairs
Honour and reverence evermore have reigned!
Pity the marriage bed, where many a lord,
In prime and glory of his loving joy,
Embraceth now with tears of ruth and blood
The jealous body of his fearful wife,
Whose cheeks and hearts â so punished with conceit
To think thy puissant
never-stayèd arm
Will part their bodies and
prevent their
souls
90Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â From heavens of comfort yet their age might bear â
Now wax all pale and withered to the death,
As well for grief our ruthless governor
Have thus refused the mercy of thy hand
(Whose sceptre angels kiss and Furies dread)
As for their liberties, their loves, or lives.
O then, for these, and such as we ourselves,
For us, for infants, and for all our bloods,
That never nourished thought against thy rule,
Pity, O, pity, sacred emperor,
100Â Â Â The
prostrate service of
this wretched town;
And take in sign thereof this gilded wreath
Whereto each man
of rule hath
given his hand
And wished, as
worthy subjects, happy means
To be investors of thy royal brows,
Even with the true Egyptian diadem.
[
She offers a laurel wreath
.]
TAMBURLAINE
Virgins, in vain ye labour to prevent
That which mine honour swears shall be per
formed
.
Behold my sword â what see you at the point?
VIRGINS
Nothing but fear and fatal steel, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE
110Â Â Â Your fearful minds are thick and misty, then,
For there sits Death, there sits imperious Death,
Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.
But I am pleased you shall not see him there;
He now is seated on my horsemen's spears,
And on their points his
fleshless body feeds
.
Techelles, straight go
charge a
few of them
To charge these dames, and show my servant Death,
Sitting in
scarlet on
their armèd spears.
VIRGINS
O, pity us!
TAMBURLAINE
120Â Â Â Away with them, I say, and show them Death.
They
[
TECHELLES
and others] take them away
.
I will not spare these proud Egyptians,
Nor change my martial
observations
For all the wealth of
Gihon's
golden waves,
Or for the love of Venus, would she leave
The angry
god of arms and
lie with me.
They have refused the offer of their lives,
And know my customs are as
peremptory
As wrathful planets, death, or destiny.
Enter
TECHELLES
.
What, have your horsemen shown the virgins Death?
TECHELLES
They have, my lord, and on Damascus' walls
130Â Â Â Have hoisted up their slaughtered carcasses.
TAMBURLAINE
A sight as baneful to their souls, I think,
As are
Thessalian drugs
or mithridate.
But go, my lords, put the rest to the sword.
Exeunt;
[
TAMBURLAINE
remains
].
Ah, fair Zenocrate, divine
Zenocrate!
Fair is too foul an epithet for thee
That, in thy
passion for
thy country's love
And fear to see thy kingly father's harm,
With hair dishevelled wip'st thy watery cheeks,
And like to Flora in her morning's pride,
140Â Â Â Shaking her silver tresses in the air,
Rain'st on the earth
resolvèd pearl in
showers
And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face
Where
Beauty, mother
to the Muses, sits
And comments volumes with her ivory pen,
Taking instructions from
thy flowing eyes â
Eyes, when that
Ebena steps
to heaven
In silence of thy solemn evening's walk,
Making the mantle of the richest night,
The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light.
150Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
There angels in
their crystal armours fight
A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts
For Egypt's freedom and the Sultan's life â
His life that so consumes Zenocrate,
Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul
Than all my army to Damascus' walls;
And neither Persians' sovereign nor the Turk
Troubled my senses with
conceit of foil
So much by much as doth Zenocrate.
160Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
What is beauty
, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that ever poets held
Had
fed the feeling of
their masters' thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds and muses on admirèd themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they
still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem's
period,
170Â Â Â And all combined in beauty's worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue
can digest
.
But how unseemly is it for my sex,
My discipline of arms and chivalry,
My nature, and the terror of my name,
To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint!
Save only that in beauty's just applause,
With
whose instinct the
soul of man is touched,
180Â Â Â And every warrior that is rapt with love
Of fame, of valour, and of victory,
Must needs have beauty
beat on his conceits,
I thus
conceiving and subduing, both,
That which hath
stopped the tempest of
the gods,
Even from the fiery spangled veil of heaven,
To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames
And march in cottages of
strewèd weeds,
Shall give the world to note, for all my birth,
That virtue solely is the sum of glory
190Â Â Â And fashions men with true nobility.
Who's within there?
Enter two or three
[
ATTENDANTS
].
Hath Bajazeth been fed today?
ATTENDANT
Ay, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE
Bring him forth, and let us know if the town be ransacked.
[
Exeunt
ATTENDANTS
.]
Enter
TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE
,
and others
.
TECHELLES
The town is ours, my lord, and fresh supply
Of conquest and of spoil is offered us.
TAMBURLAINE
That's well, Techelles, what's the news?
TECHELLES
The Sultan and the Arabian king together,
March on us with such eager violence
200Â Â Â As if there were
no way but one with
us.
TAMBURLAINE
No more there is not, I warrant thee, Techelles.
They bring in the
TURK [BAJAZETH
,
in his cage, followed by
ZABINA
].
THERIDAMAS
We know the victory is ours, my lord.
But let us save the reverend Sultan's life
For fair Zenocrate that so laments his state.
TAMBURLAINE
That will we chiefly see unto, Theridamas,
For sweet Zenocrate, whose worthiness
Deserves a conquest over every heart.
And now, my footstool, if I lose the field,
You hope of liberty and restitution.
210Â Â Â Here let him stay, my masters, from the tents,
Till we have made us ready for the field.
Pray for us, Bajazeth, we are going.
Exeunt
, [
BAJAZETH
and
ZABINA
remain
.]
BAJAZETH
Go, never to return with victory!
Millions of men encompass thee about
And gore thy body with as many wounds!
Sharp, forkèd arrows light upon thy horse!
Furies from
the black Cocytus lake
Break up the earth, and with their firebrands
220Â Â Â Enforce thee run upon the baneful pikes!
Volleys of shot pierce through thy charmèd skin,
And every bullet dipped in poisoned drugs!
Or roaring cannons sever all thy joints,
Making thee mount as high as eagles soar!
ZABINA
Let all the swords and lances in the field
Stick in his breast as in their
proper rooms!
At every pore let blood come dropping forth,
That ling'ring pains may massacre his heart
And madness send his damnèd soul to hell!
BAJAZETH
230Â Â Â Ah, fair Zabina, we may curse his power,
The heavens may frown, the earth for anger quake,
But such a star hath influence in his sword
As rules the skies, and countermands the gods
More than
Cimmerian Styx or
Destiny.
And then shall we in this detested guise,
With shame, with hunger, and with horror aye
Griping
our bowels with retorquèd thoughts,
And have no hope to end our ecstasies.
ZABINA
Then is there left no Mahomet, no God,
240Â Â Â No
fiend, no
Fortune, nor no hope of end
To our
infamous, monstrous
slaveries?
Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view
A hell as hopeless and as full of fear
As are the blasted banks of
Erebus,
Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans
Hover about the ugly
ferryman
To get a passage to Elysium!
Why should we live, O, wretches, beggars, slaves,
Why live we, Bajazeth, and
build up nests
250Â Â Â So high within the region of the air,
By living long in this oppression,
That all the world will see and laugh to scorn
The former triumphs of our mightiness
In this obscure infernal servitude?
BAJAZETH
O life more loathsome to my vexèd thoughts
Than
noisome parbreak of
the Stygian snakes
Which fills the nooks of hell with
standing air
,
Infecting all the ghosts with cureless griefs!
O dreary
engines of
my loathèd sight
That sees my crown, my honour, and my name
260Â Â Â Thrust under yoke and thraldom of a thief,
Why feed ye still on day's accursèd beams
And sink not quite into my tortured soul?
You see my wife, my queen and emperess,
Brought up and proppèd by the hand of fame,
Queen of fifteen contributory queens,