The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Publisher's Notice
• Introduction
• Tamburlaine the Great. In Two Parts.
• Tamburlaine the Great, Part Tbe First.
• The Prologue.
• Persons Represented. 1
• Tamburlaine the Great. Part the First.: Act the First.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Act the Second.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Scene V.
• Scene VI.
• Scene VII.
• Act the Third.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Act the Fourth.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Act the Fifth.
• Scene I.
• Tamburlaine the Great. Part the Second
• Prologue.
• Persons Represented.
• Tamburlaine the Great. Part the Second: Act the First.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene II.
• Act the Second.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Act the Third.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Scene V.
• Act the Fourth.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Act the Fifth.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
• Persons Represented.
• The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
• Scene I.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Scene V.
• Scene VI. 1
• Scene VII.
• Scene VIII.
• Scene IX.
• Scene X.
• Scene XI.
• Scene XII.
• Scene XIII.
• Scene XIV.
• Scene XV.
• Scene XVI.
• Appendix to Dr. Faustus.
• Ballad of Faustus.

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.

ACT THE THIRD.

[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.