The Complete Plays (85 page)

Scene
5

3          
Here at Aleppo
: Callapine and his army appear not in fact to be in Syria (indicated by its capital city), but in southern Natolia.

6      
Ida's forest
: Mount Ida, near Troy, is imagined with a royal forest in which the sultan of Turkey hunts.

8          
Natolia's
: I.e. the king's.

14        
play the men
: Act like men.

34        
showed
: Displayed before.

36        
metropolis
: Babylon, rebuilt by Semiramis (N).

40        
Asia the Less
: Asia Minor.

46        
from Halla is repaired
: Have come from Halla (a town south-east of Aleppo).

58        
knot
: Cluster.

65–8  
Hector… his fame
: This chivalric incident comes not from the
Iliad
, but from the post-Homeric tradition, retold, for example, in John Lydgate's
Troy Book
(fifteenth century). The scene is largely concerned with honour and chivalry.

74        
my glove
: The gauntlet thrown down as a challenge to combat.

75–6  
Now… person fight
: Now that you doubt your army's power, you seek victory through single combat.

80–82  
Heaven… world
: Tamburlaine's birth, though humble, was favoured by a conjunction of stars uniquely propitious to a conqueror and never to be repeated.

87        
That villain
: Almeda.

95        
his ancient trade
: Robbery.

100–101  
clog… for
: A heavy weight… to prevent.

115      
journey you
: Drive you hard (like horses).

137      
make up… dozen
: Tamburlaine is scornful of the number of petty kings Callapine has crowned.

138      
give arms
: (i) Display a coat of arms, (ii) fight.

ACT 4

Scene
1

26        
flesh our taintless swords
: Give our unstained swords their first taste of blood.

32        
house
: Family, race.

34        
toward
: (i) Promising, (ii) willing.

39        
lay
: I.e. lay dead.

51.1  SD
run in
: Amyras and Celebinus leave the stage for the battle, not to the tent; Calyphas remains on stage.

68        
taratantaras
: Trumpet calls.

69        
net of gold
: Fine veil of gold thread.

and
: And who.

76    
stoops
: Humiliate. ‘Children' is treated as singular.

87        
fresh supplies
: I.e. new enemies.

95        
may
: Which may.

100      
argument of arms
: Code of military conduct.

104      
jealousy
: Zeal, ardour.

108      
Jaertis' stream
: The river Jaxartes, here supposed to flow through, or around, Samarkand.

112–15  
A form… consists
: Calyphas's soul (‘form') is unworthy of its living connection with Tamburlaine's flesh, which is animated by a spirit like that of Jove himself. (The Aristotelian categories of matter and spirit are confused.)

117      
thy
: Jove's.

12.3  
massy dregs
: Densest and least valued parts (the metaphor continued in the next line is from the fermentation of wine).

12.8  
he
: An unspecified Titan.

129      
the burden
: I.e. the heavens.

131      
for being seen
: To avoid being seen.

132      
cankered curs
: Worm-ridden dogs.

137      
Approve
: (i) Demonstrate, (ii) experience.

157      
resist in
: For O's
resisting.

188      
Cimbrian
: The Cimbri were a Teutonic tribe who, in the second century
BC
, overpowered several Roman armies. Marlowe is imitating Spenser,
Faerie Queene
I.viii.11: ‘As great a noyse, as when in Cymbrian plaine / An heard of Bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting, / Do for the milkie mothers want complaine'.

189      
the females' miss
: For the loss of their females.

190      
their following
: Following them.

198      
For hot… pride
: For the burning of his country's cities and palaces (193–4).

Scene
2

0.1   SD: Olympia may emerge from a tent, like that of Calyphas in the previous scene.

11        
Contagious smells… infect
: Foul air was considered the source of infectious disease.

13        
invention
: (Here) scheme, device.

30        
Cynthia's… wilderness
: The moon's effect on the tides of the sea.

55        
And, will you
: And if you will.

61–3  
simplest extracts… metaphysical
: Olympia claims that the alchemist has distilled the pure essence (the hardness) of marble, worked into an ointment by supernatural (‘metaphysical') knowledge.

86    
theoria of
: Contemplation, survey of (only instance in
OED
).

Scene
3

1          
jades
: Horses (contemptuous). Marlowe borrows from Golding's Ovid (IX, 238): ‘pampered jades of Thrace'.

5          
Asphaltis
: See (N); the bituminous lake near Babylon is now retrospectively identified as the site of Orcanes's defeat.

10        
governor
: Apollo, who drove the horses of the sun.

12–15  
headstrong jades… divine
: The flesh-eating horses belonged to Diomedes of Thrace. Marlowe perhaps confused their owner with King Augeas, whose stables Hercules (‘Alcides') had to clean in one of his labours.

21        
racking clouds
: Clouds driven before the wind.

24        
right
: Indeed.

25        
figure
: Emblem (perhaps his whip).

32–42  
O thou… hell!
: An invocation of Pluto (N).

41        
once
: Once and for all.

46        
hedges
: I.e. their teeth. ‘Hedge of teeth' is, perhaps coincidentally, a formulaic phrase in Homer.

49        
their kicking colts
: Their unruly tongues.

61–2
Raise me… heaven
: Classical heroes were frequently stellified when they died, as Tamburlaine imagines he may be raised to join ‘Aldebaran' (N) in the constellation Taurus.

threefold astracism
: A cluster of three stars also in Taurus,
or
the tripartite division of the universe into earth, planets and stars.

63        
triple world
: Europe, Asia and Africa.

65        
prefer
: Promote (ironic).

70–71  
queens… queens
: Punning on ‘queans' (= whores).

73        
let… your turns
: I.e. take turns raping them.

75        
Brawl not… lechery
: Tamburlaine warns the soldiers against fighting over the concubines.

86        
'Twere but time
: It's a bit late for that (spoken ironically).

89        
jesting pageants
: Laughable spectacles.

104      
Sinus Arabicus
: The Red Sea (
sinus
= gulf).

119–24  
Like… is blown
: Adapted from Spenser's
Faerie Queene
, I.vii.32. For details of the Sicilian place-names, see (N).

125      
Saturn's royal son
: Jupiter.

126      
Mounted
: Mounted on.

127      
the path
: The Milky Way, as in line 132.

ACT 5

Scene
1

0.1   SD
upon the walls
: In the gallery over the stage.

14        
As… conceit
: As anything you esteem valuable.

15        
for all
: Despite.

17–19  
famous lake… stream
: The bituminous lake (seemingly identified with the ‘Asphaltis' of 4.3.5) petrifies anything that falls into it, making fresh defences.

33        
Will
: Who will (the omission of the pronoun makes the verb emphatic).

34        
environèd
: Surrounded (like a city under siege).

54        
I turn… throat
: I return the word ‘traitor' back down your own throat.

64–5  
lofty pillars… the deep
: In reality Babylon was 100 miles from the sea.

66        
Being carried thither
: Blown all the way to Limnasphaltis.

69        
Belus, Ninus… Alexander
: For Tamburlaine's predecessors in Babylon, see (N).

72        
Drawn with
: Drawn by.

75        
trod the measures
: Danced.

87–90  
the region… earth
: Exhalations were believed to catch fire in the region below the circle of fire, and, as comets, to shed disastrous influences from their tails (‘trains').

93        
quailed
: Made to quail.

98        
black Jove
: Pluto.

104      
the anger… Highest
: I.e. the scourge of God.

126      
something quail
: Be somewhat daunted.

158      
like Baghdad's governor
: As beseems the governor of Baghdad (here identified with Babylon): explained in lines 159–60.

165      
Assyria
: For O's
Affrica
(cf. Part One 1.1.89n).

196      
abstracts
: Summaries, digests (i.e. the Koran).

214      
be removed the walls
: From the walls.

217      
distempered
: Unwell.

Scene
2

9          
full from Babylon
: I.e. back to full strength after the siege (cf. 58).

19        
record
: (Here) remember.

58        
Or that
: Before.

Scene
3

19        
retain… holiness
: Still deserve to be worshipped.

22        
Bear… burden
: Do not join in the chorus (‘burden' = refrain).

34        
they think… out
: The devils think their allotted time of suffering is over.

38        note: Mark, sign.

41.1–3  
SD
This entrance could instead be placed at the beginning of the scene.

44        
a man
: A mere mortal.

58        
charge
: Level.

his
: Atlas'.

62        
Apollo
: Here as god of healing.

82        
hypostasis
: Sediment (for O's
Hipostates
).

84        
accidental
: Abnormal.

86        
humidum… calor
: Moisture… natural heat.

91        
critical
: Astrologically unfavourable (but also linked to ‘crisis' (92): the day of the turning-point of an illness).

96        
organons
: Organs (or fluids: the ‘animal spirits') acting as instru ments of the soul.

97        
by argument of art
: According to medical diagnosis.

111      
endure
: Harden, strengthen.

116      
vanished
: Dispelled.

125      
all my wants
: All the conquests I leave incomplete.

145–9  
Look here… Antipodes
: Tamburlaine imagines conquering the western hemisphere, from the point (near the Canary Islands) where the Greenwich meridian intersects the Tropic of Cancer, to the far east, where the sun rises on the other side of the world.

149      
Antipodes
: Those who live on the other side of the globe.

151      
here
: I.e. in the Americas.

154–5  
from th'Antarctic… descried
: The still-undiscovered Australasia (
terra incognita
in the maps).

164–5  
your soul… flesh
: Your soul animates our bodies, whose substance is derived from your flesh. Cf. 4.1.112–15.