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ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

Enter SIGISMUND, FREDERICK, BALDWIK, and their train.

Sig.

Now say, my lords of Buda and Bohemia,
What motion is it that inflames your thoughts,
And stirs your valours to such sudden arms?

Fred.

Your majesty remembers, I am sure,
What cruel slaughter of our Christian bloods
These heathenish Turks and Pagans lately made,
Betwixt the city Zula and Danubius;
How through the midst of Varna and Bulgaria,
And almost to the very walls of Rome,
They have, not long since, massacred our camp.
10
It resteth now, then, that your majesty
Take all advantages of time and power,
And work revenge upon these infidels.
Your highness knows, for Tamburlaine's repair,
That strikes a terror to all Turkish hearts,
Natolia hath dismissed the greatest part
Of all his army, pitched against our power,
Betwixt Cutheia and Orminius' mount,
And sent them marching up to Belgasar,
Acantha, Antioch, and Caesarea,
20
To aid the kings of Soria,^and Jerusalem.
Now then, my lord, advantage take thereof,
And issue suddenly upon the rest;
That in the fortune of their overthrow,
We may discourage all the pagan troop,
That dare attempt to war with Christians.

Sig.

But calls not then your grace to memory
The league we lately made with King Orcanes,
Confirmed by oath and articles of peace,
And calling Christ for record of our truths?
This should be treachery and violence
Against the grace of our profession.

Bald.

No whit, my lord, for with such infidels,
In whom no faith nor true religion rests,
We are not bound to those accomplishments
The holy laws of Christendom enjoin;
But as the faith, which they profanely plight,
Is not by necessary policy
To be esteemed assurance for ourselves,
So that we vow to them should not infringe
Our liberty of arms or victory.

Sig.

Though I confess the oaths they undertake
Breed little strength to our security,
Yet those infirmities that thus defame
Their faiths, their honours, and their religion,
Should not give us presumption to the like.
Our faiths are sound, and must be consummate,1 Religious, righteous, and inviolate.

Fred.

Assure your grace 'tis superstition
To stand so strictly on dispensive faith;
50
And should we lose the opportunity
That God hath given to venge our Christians' death,
And scourge their foul blasphemous Paganism,
As fell to Saul, to Balaam, and the rest,
That would not kill and curse at God's command,
So surely will the vengeance of the Highest,
And jealous anger of His fearful arm,
Be poured with rigour on our sinful heads,
If we neglect this offered victory.

Sig.

Then arm, my lords, and issue suddenly,
60
Giving commandment to our general host,
With expedition to assail the Pagan,
And take the victory our God hath given. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Enter ORCANES, GAZELLUS, and URIBASSA, with their trains.

Orc.

Gazellus, Uribassa, and the rest,
Now will we march from proud Orminius' mount,
To fair Natolia, where our neighbour kings
Expect our power and our royal presence,
To encounter with the cruel Tamburlaine,
That nigh Larissa sways a mighty host,
And with the thunder of his martial1 tools
Makes earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaven.

Gaz.

And now come we to make his sinews shake,
With greater power than erst his pride hath felt
10
An hundred kings, by scores, will bid him arms,
And hundred thousands subjects to each score,
Which, if a shower of wounding thunderbolts
Should break out of the bowels of the clouds,
And fall as thick as hail upon our heads,
In partial aid of that proud Scythian,
Yet should our courages and steeled crests,
And numbers, more than infinite, of men,
Be able to withstand and conquer him.

Uri.

Methinks I see how glad the Christian king
20
Is made, for joy of your admitted truce,
That could not but before be terrified
With1 unacquainted power of our host.
Enter a Messenger.

Mess.

Arm, dread sovereign, and my noble lords!
The treacherous army of the Christians,
Taking advantage of your slender power,
Comes marching on us, and determines straight
To bid us battle for our dearest lives.

Orc.

Traitors! villains! damned Christians!
Have I not here the articles of peace,
30
And solemn covenants we have both confirmed,
He by his Christ, and I by Mahomet?

Gaz.

Hell and confusion light upon their heads,
That with such treason seek our overthrow,
And care so little for their prophet, Christ!

Orc.

Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God!
Then, if there be a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ,
If he be son to everhving Jove,
And hath the power of his outstretched arm;
If he be jealous of his name and honour,
As is our holy prophet, Mahomet;—
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And witness of thy servant's perjury.
[He tears to pieces the articles of peace.
Open, thou shining veil of Cynthia,
And make a passage from the empyreal heaven,
That he that sits on high and never sleeps,
Nor in one place is circumscriptible,
But everywhere fills every continent
With strange infusion of his sacred vigour,
May in his endless power and purity,
Behold and venge this traitor's perjury!
Thou Christ, that art esteemed omnipotent,
If thou wilt prove thyself a perfect God,
Worthy the worship of all faithful hearts,
Be now revenged upon this traitor's soul,
And make the power I have left behind,
(Too little to defend our guiltless lives,)
Sufficient to discomfort and confound
The trustless force of those false Christians.
To arms, my lords! On Christ still let us cry!
If there be Christ, we shall have victory.

SCENE III.

Alarums of battle.—Enter SIGISMUND, wounded.

Sig.

Discomfited is all the Christian host,
And God hath thundered vengeance from on high,
For my accursèd and -hateful perjury.
O, just and dreadful punisher of sin,
Let the dishonour of the pains I feel,
In this my mortal well-deserved wound,
End all my penance in my sudden death!
And let this death, wherein to sin I die,
Conceive a second life in endless mercy!
[He dies.
Enter ORCANES, GAZELLUS, URIBASSA, and others.

Orc.

Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods,
10
nd Christ or Mahomet hath been my friend.

Gaz.

See here the perjured traitor Hungary,
Bloody and breathless for his villany.

Orc.

Now shall his barbarous body be a prey
To beasts and fowls, and all the winds shall breathe
Through shady leaves of every senseless tree
Murmurs and hisses for his heinous sin.
Now scalds his soul in the Tartarian streams,
And feeds upon the baneful tree of hell,
That Zoacum,1 that fruit of bitterness,
That in the midst of fire is ingrafted,
Yet flourishes as Flora in her pride,
With apples like the heads of damned fiends.
The devils there, in chains of quenchless flame,
Shall lead his soul through Orcus' burning gulph,
From pain to pain, whose change shall never end.
What say'st thou yet, Gazellus, to his foil
Which we referred to justice of his Christ,
And to his power, which here appears as full
As rays of Cynthia to the clearest sight?
30

Gaz.

'Tis but the fortune of the wars, my lord,
Whose power is often proved a miracle.

Orc.

Yet in my thoughts shall Christ be honoured,
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 will1 both watch and ward shall keep his trunk
Amidst these plains for fowls to prey upon.
Go, Uribassa, give it straight in charge.
40

Uri.

I will, my lord.
[Exit.

Orc.

And now, Gazellus, let us haste and meet
Our army, and our brother[s] 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.

SCENE IV.

ZENOCRATEis discovered lying in her bed of state; TAMBURLAINE sitting by her; three PHYSICIANS about her led, tempering potions; THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES, USUMCASANE, and the three Sons.

Tamb.

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 their1 ivory bowers,
And tempered every soul with lively heat,
10
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 the immortal souls
To entertain divine Zenocrate.
Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaseless lamps
That gently looked upon this loathsome earth,
Shine downward now no more, but deck the heavens,
20
To entertain divine Zenocrate.
The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates
Refined eyes with an eternal sight,
Like tried silver, run 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 palace of th' empyreal heaven,
That this my life may be as short to me
As are the days of sweet Zenocrate.—
Physicians, will no1 physic do her good?

Phys.

My lord, your majesty shall soon perceive:
An if she pass this fit, the worst is past.
40

Tamb.

Tell me, how fares my fair Zenocrate?

Zeno.

I fare, my lord, as other empresses,
That, when this frail and2 transitory flesh
Hath sucked the measure of that vital air
That feeds the body with his dated health,
Wade with enforced and necessary change.

Tamb.

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 fixed stars!
50
Whose absence makes1 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 author2 of my death!

Zeno.

Live still, my lord! O, let my sovereign live!
And sooner let the fiery element
Dissolve and make your kingdom in the sky,
Than this base earth should shroud your majesty:
60
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,
And let me die with kissing of my lord.
70
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 excellence.1
Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord.
[They call for music.

Tamb.

Proud fury, and intolerable fit,
That dares torment the body of my love,
And scourge the scourge of the immortal God:
80
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;
Her name had been in every line he wrote.
90
Or had those wanton poets, for whose birth
Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her,
Nor Lesbia nor Connna had been named;
Zenocrate had been the argument
Of every epigram or elegy.
[The music sounds.—Zenocrate dies.
What! is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword
And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,
And we descend into the infernal vaults,
To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair,2
And throw them in the triple moat of hell,
100
For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.
Casane and Theridamas, to arms!
Raise cavalieros1 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 tyrannising 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!

Ther.

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,2 for she is dead, my lord.

Tamb.

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 [To the body] shall stay with
me,
Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh,
130
Not lapt 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 cursèd town will I consume with fire,
Because this place bereaved me of my love:
The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned;
And here will I set up her statua,1
140
And march about it with my mourning camp
Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.
[The seene doses.

[1]This is Dyce's emendation for the old copies, “consmuate.”

[1]So 4to.—8vo. “matenall.”

[1]So 4to.— 8vo. “which.” The confusion between with and which is very common.

[1]“Or ZaUt&m. The description of this tree is taken from a fable m the Koran, chap. 37.”Ed. 1826.

[1]I.e. “we desire that both watch,” &c. So 410.—8vo. “and keepe.”

[1]So 4to.—Omitted in 8vo.

[1]So 4t0.—8vo. “not.”

[2]So 4t0.—8vo. “a.”

[1]So 410.—8o. “make.”

[2]So 4to.—8vo. “anchor.”

[1]So 4to.—8vo. “excellency.”

[2]“This is very like the raving of old Titus Andronicus:— I'll dive into the infernal lake below And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.'”Brougkton.

[1]“Cavaher is the word still used for a mound for cannon, elevated above the rest of the works of a fortress, as a horseman is raised above a foot-soldier.”Cunningham.

[2]Avails. So Peele (in Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydts): — “O king, the knight is fled and gone, pursuit frevaileth nought.”

[1]Old copies give “stature,” but the metre requires a tnsyllable.

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ACT THE SECOND. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 [1590]

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Part of: The Works of Christopher Marlowe, 3 vols.

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ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

Sig.

Fred.

Sig.

Bald.

Sig.

Fred.

Sig.

SCENE II.

Orc.

Gaz.

Uri.

Mess.

Orc.

Gaz.

Orc.

SCENE III.

Sig.

Orc.

Gaz.

Orc.

Gaz.

Orc.

Uri.

Orc.

SCENE IV.

Tamb.

Phys.

Tamb.

Zeno.

Tamb.

Zeno.

Tamb.

Ther.

Tamb.