The Complete Plays (28 page)

That Zoacum
, that fruit of bitterness,

20   That in the midst of fire is engraft,

Yet flourisheth as Flora in her pride,

With apples like the heads of damnèd fiends.

The devils there in chains of quenchless flame

Shall lead his soul through Orcus' burning gulf

From pain to pain, whose change shall never end.

What sayest thou yet, Gazellus, to his foil,

Which we referred to justice of his Christ

And to His power, which here appears as full

30   As rays of Cynthia to the clearest sight?

GAZELLUS

'Tis but the fortune of the wars, my lord,

Whose power
is often proved a miracle.

ORCANES

Yet in my thoughts shall Christ be honourèd,

Not doing Mahomet an injury,

Whose power had share in this our victory.

And since this miscreant hath disgraced his faith

And died a traitor both to heaven and earth,

We will
both watch and ward shall keep his trunk

Amidst these plains for fowls to prey upon.

40   Go, Uribassa,
give it
straight in charge.

URIBASSA
I will, my lord.

Exit
URIBASSA
[
and
SOLDIERS
,
with the body
].

ORCANES

And now, Gazellus, let us haste and meet

Our army, and our
brother
of Jerusalem,

Of Soria, Trebizond, and Amasia,

And happily, with full Natolian bowls

Of Greekish wine, now let us celebrate

Our happy conquest and
his angry fate
.

Exeunt
.

The arras is drawn
,
and
ZENOCRATE
lies in her bed of state
,
TAMBURLAINE
sitting by her
;
three
PHYSICIANS
about her bed
,
tempering potions
.
THERIDAMAS
,
TECHELLES
,
USUMCASANE
,
and the three
SONS
[
CALYPHAS
,
AMYRAS
,
CELEBINUS
].

TAMBURLAINE

Black is the beauty of the brightest day!

The golden ball of heaven's eternal fire,

That danced with glory on the silver waves,

Now wants the fuel that inflamed his beams,

And all with faintness and for foul disgrace

He binds his temples with a frowning cloud,

Ready to darken earth with endless night.

Zenocrate, that gave him light and life,

Whose eyes shot fire from their
ivory bowers

10   And
tempered
every soul with lively heat,

Now by the malice of the angry skies,

Whose
jealousy
admits no second mate,

Draws in the comfort of her
latest
breath,

All
dazzled
with the hellish mists of death.

Now walk the angels on the walls of heaven,

As sentinels to warn th'immortal souls

To
entertain
divine Zenocrate.

Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaseless lamps

That gently looked upon this loathsome earth

20   Shine downwards now no more, but deck the heavens

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

The crystal springs whose taste illuminates

Refinèd eyes with an eternal sight,

Like
tried
silver, runs through Paradise

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

The cherubins and holy seraphins

That sing and play before the King of Kings,

Use all their voices and their instruments

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

And in this sweet and curious harmony,

30   The god that tunes this music to our souls

Holds out his hand in highest majesty

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts

Up to the place of th'empyreal heaven,

That this my life may be as short to me

As are the days of sweet Zenocrate.

Physicians, will no physic do her good?

PHYSICIAN

My lord, your majesty shall soon perceive;

40   An if she pass this fit, the worst is past.

TAMBURLAINE

Tell me, how fares my fair Zenocrate?

ZENOCRATE

I fare, my lord, as other empresses,

That, when this frail and transitory flesh

Hath sucked the measure of that vital air

That feeds the body with his dated health,

Wanes with enforced and necessary change.

TAMBURLAINE

May never such a change transform my love,

In whose sweet being I repose my life,

Whose heavenly presence, beautified with health,

Gives light to Phoebus and the fixèd stars,

50   Whose absence makes the sun and moon as dark

As when
, opposed in one diameter,

Their spheres are mounted on the serpent's head,

Or else descended to his winding train.

Live still, my love, and so conserve my life,

Or, dying, be the author of my death.

ZENOCRATE

Live still, my lord, O, let my sovereign live,

And sooner
let the fiery element

Dissolve and make your kingdom in the sky

60   Than this base earth should shroud your majesty!

For, should I but
suspect
your death by mine,

The comfort of my future happiness

And hope to meet your highness in the heavens,

Turned to despair, would break my wretched breast,

And fury would confound my present rest.

But let me die, my love, yet let me die,

With love and patience let your true love die.

Your grief and fury hurts my
second life
.

Yet let me kiss my lord before I die,

70   And let me die with kissing of my lord.

But since my life is lengthened yet a while,

Let me take leave of these my loving sons

And of my lords, whose true nobility

Have merited my
latest memory
.

Sweet sons, farewell! In death resemble me,

And in your lives your father's excellency.

Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord.

They call
[
for
]
music
.

TAMBURLAINE

Proud fury and intolerable fit,

That dares torment the body of my love

80   And scourge the scourge of the immortal God!

Now are those
spheres
where Cupid used to sit,

Wounding the world with wonder and with love,

Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death

Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul.

Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven,

And, had she lived before the siege of Troy,

Helen
, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms

And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,

Had not been named in Homer's
Iliads
;

90   
Her
name had been in every line he wrote.

Or, had those wanton poets, for whose birth

Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her,

Nor Lesbia nor Corinna had been named;

Zenocrate had been the argument

Of every epigram or elegy.

The music sounds
,
and she dies
.

What, is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword,

And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,

And we descend into th'infernal vaults

To hale
the Fatal Sisters
by the hair

And throw them in the
triple moat of hell

100  For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.

Casane and Theridamas, to arms!

Raise cavalieros higher than the clouds,

And with the cannon break the frame of heaven,

Batter the shining palace of the sun

And shiver all the starry firmament,

For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence,

Meaning to make her stately queen of heaven.

What god soever holds thee in his arms,

Giving thee nectar and ambrosia,

110   Behold me here, divine Zenocrate,

Raving, impatient, desperate, and mad,

Breaking my steelèd lance with which I burst

The rusty beams of
Janus' temple doors
,

Letting out death and tyrannizing war

To march with me under this bloody flag;

And if
thou
pitiest Tamburlaine the Great,

Come down from heaven and live with me again!

THERIDAMAS

Ah, good my lord, be patient. She is dead,

And all this raging cannot make her live.

120   If words might serve, our voice hath rent the air,

If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth,

If grief, our murdered hearts have strained forth blood.

Nothing prevails, for she is dead, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE

‘For she is dead'! Thy words do pierce my soul.

Ah, sweet Theridamas, say so no more.

Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives

And feed my mind that dies for want of her.

Where'er her soul be, thou shalt stay with me,

130   Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh,

Not
lapped in lead
but in a sheet of gold;

And till I die thou shalt not be interred.

Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus',

We both will rest and have one epitaph

Writ in as many several languages

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword.

This cursed town will I consume with fire

Because this place bereft me of my love.

The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned,

140   And here will I set up her
stature

And march about it with my mourning camp,

Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.

The arras is drawn
. [
Exeunt
.]

Enter the kings of
TREBIZOND
and
SORIA
,
one bringing a sword, and another a sceptre;
next
, [
ORCANES
,
King of
]
Natolia and
[
the King of
]
JERUSALEM
with the imperial crown
;
after
,
CALLAPINE,
and after him other
LORDS
[
and
ALMEDA
],
ORCANES
and
JERUSALEM
crown him
[
CALLAPINE
,]
and the other give him the sceptre
.

ORCANES
Callapinus
Cyricelibes, otherwise Cybelius, son and successive heir to the late mighty emperor Bajazeth, by the aid of God and his friend Mahomet emperor of Natolia, Jerusalem, Trebizond, Soria, Amasia, Thracia, Illyria, Carmonia, and all the hundred and thirty kingdoms late contributory to his mighty father: long live Callapinus, emperor of Turkey!

CALLAPINE

Thrice worthy kings of Natolia, and the rest,

I will requite your royal gratitudes

With all the benefits my empire yields.

10   And, were the sinews of th'imperial seat

So knit and strengthened as when Bajazeth,

My royal lord and father, filled the throne,

Whose cursèd fate hath so dismembered it,

Then should you see this thief of Scythia,

This proud usurping king of Persia,

Do us such honour and supremacy,

Bearing the vengeance of our father's wrongs,

As all the world should
blot our dignities

20   Out of the book of base-born infamies.

And now I doubt not but your royal cares

Hath so provided for this cursèd foe

That, since the heir of mighty Bajazeth,

(An emperor so honoured for his virtues)

Revives the spirit of true Turkish hearts

In grievous memory of his father's shame,

We shall
not need to nourish any doubt

But that proud Fortune, who hath followed long

The martial sword of mighty Tamburlaine,

30   Will not retain her old inconstancy,

And raise our honours to as high a pitch

In this our strong and fortunate encounter.

For so hath heaven provided my escape

From all the cruelty my soul sustained,

By this my friendly keeper's happy means,

That Jove, surcharged with pity of our wrongs,

Will pour it down in showers on our heads,

Scourging the pride of cursèd Tamburlaine.

ORCANES

I have a hundred thousand men in arms,

40   
Some that
, in conquest of the perjured Christian,

Being a handful to a mighty host,

Think them in number yet sufficient

To drink the river Nile or Euphrates,

And, for their power, enow to win the world.

JERUSALEM

And I as many from Jerusalem,

Judaea, Gaza, and
Scalonia's
bounds,

That on Mount Sinai with their ensigns spread,

Look like the parti-coloured clouds of heaven

That show fair weather to the
neighbour
morn.

TREBIZOND

50   And I as many bring
from Trebizond
,

Chio, Famastro, and Amasia,

All bord'ring on the
Mare-Major Sea
,

Riso, Sancina, and the bordering towns

That touch the end of famous Euphrates,

Whose courages are kindled with the flames

The cursèd Scythian sets on all their towns,