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 II.

Enter Tamburlaine, Theridamas, Techelles, Usumca-sane, Amyras, and Celebinus, leading the Turkish Kings.

Tamb.

• See now, ye slaves, my children stoops1 your pride,
• And leads your bodies sheeplike to the sword.
• Bring them, my boys, and tell me if the wars
• Be not a life that may illustrate gods,
• And tickle not your spirits with desire
• Still to be trained in arms and chivalry?

Amy.

• Shall we let go these kings again, my lord,
• To gather greater numbers 'gainst our power,
• That they may say it is not chance doth this,
• But matchless strength and magnanimity?

  10

Tamb.

• No, no, Amyras; tempt not fortune so:
• Cherish thy valour still with fresh supplies,
• And glut it not with stale and daunted foes.
• But where's this coward villain, not my son,
• But traitor to ray name and majesty?
• He goes in and brings him out.
• Image of sloth and picture of a slave,
• The obloquy and scorn of my renown!
• How may my heart, thus firæd with mine2 eyes,
• Wounded with shame and killed with discontent,
• Shroud any thought may1 hold my striving hands

  20

• From martial justice on thy wretched soul?

Ther.

• Yet pardon him, I pray your majesty.

Tech. and Usum.

• Let all of us entreat your highness' pardon.

Tamb.

• Stand up, ye base, unworthy soldiers! Know ye not yet the argument of arms?

Amy.

• Good my lord, let him be forgiven for once,2 And we will force him to the field hereafter.

Tamb.

• Stand up, my boys, and I will teach ye arms,
• And what the jealousy of wars must do.
• O Samarcanda (where I breathèd first

  30

• And joyed the fire of this martial flesh),
• Blush, blush, fair city, at thine honour's foil,3
• And shame of nature, which4 Jaertis' stream,
• Embracing thee with deepest of his love,
• Can never wash from thy distainèd brows!
• Here, Jove, receive his fainting soul again;
• A form not meet to give that subject essence
• Whose matter is the flesh of Tamburlaine;
• Wherein an incorporeal spirit moves,
• Made of the mould whereof thyself consists,

  40

• Which makes me valiant, proud, ambitious,
• Ready to levy power against thy throne,
• That I might move the turning spheres of heaven!
• For earth and all this airy region
• Cannot contain the state of Tamburlaine.
• By Mahomet! thy mighty friend, I swear,
• In sending to my issue such a soul,
• Created of the massy dregs of earth,
• The scum and tartar of the elements,
• Wherein was neither courage, strength, or wit,

  50

• But folly, sloth, and damned idleness,
• Thou hast procured a greater enemy
• Than he that darted mountains at thy head,
• Shaking the burthen mighty Atlas bears;
• Whereat thou trembling hid'st thee in the air,
• Clothed with a pitchy cloud for being seen :
• And now, ye cankered curs of Asia,
• That will not see the strength of Tamburlaine,
• Although it shine as brightly as the sun;
• Now you shall feel the strength of Tamburlaine.

  60

• And, by the state of his supremacy, [Slabs CALVPHAS.
• Approve the difference 'twixt himself and you.

Ore.

• Thou show'st the difference 'twixt ourselves and thee,
• In this thy barbarous damnhd tyranny.

Jer.

• Thy victories are grown so violent,
• That shortly Heaven, filled with the meteors
• Of blood and fire thy tyrannies have made,
• Will pour down blood and fire on thy head,
• Whose scalding drops will pierce thy seething brains,
• And, with our bloods, revenge our bloods1 on thee.

  70

Tam&

• Villains! these terrors and these tyrannies
• (If tyrannies war's justice ye repute,)
• I execute, enjoined me from above,
• To scourge the pride of such as Heaven abhors;
• Nor am I made arch-monarch of the woHd,
• Crowned and invested by the hand of Jove
• For deeds of bounty or nobility;
• But since I exercise a greater name,
• The scourge of God, and terror of the worlds
• I must apply myself to fit those terms,

  80

• In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty,
• And plague such peasants as resist in1 me,
• The power of Heaven's eternal majesty.
• Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane, 2
• Ransack the tents and the pavilions
• Of these proud Turks, and take their concubines,
• Making them bury this effeminate brat,
• For not a common soldier shaU defile
• His manly fingers with so faint a boy.
• Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent,

  90

• And I'll dispose them as it likes me best;
• Meanwhile, take him in.

Sold

• We will, my lord.

Jer.

• O damned monster I Nay, a fiend of hell,
• Whose cruelties are not so harsh as thine,
• Nor yet imposed with such a bitter hate!

Ore.

• Revenge it, Rhadamanth and Æacus,
• And let your hates, extended in his pains,
• Excel1 the hate wherewith he pains our souls.

Treb.

• May never day give virtue to his eyes,

  100

• Whose sight, composed of fury and of fire,
• Doth send such stern affections to his heart.

Sot.

• May never spirit, vein, or artier, feed
• The curstd substance of that cruel heart!
• But, wanting moisture and remorseful blood,
• Dry up with anger, and consume with heat.

Tamb.

• Well, bark, ye dogs; I'll bridle all your tongues,
• And bind them close with bits of burnished steel,
• Down to the channels of your hateful throats
• And, with the pains my rigour shall inflict,

  110

• I'll make ye roar, that earth may echo forth
• The far-resounding torments ye sustain :
• As when an herd of lusty Cymbrian bulls
• Run mourning round about the females' miss, 1
• And, stung with fury of their following,
• Fall all the air with troublous bellowing;
• I will, with engines never exercised,
• Conquer, sack, and utterly consume
• Your cities and your golden palaces;
• And, with the flames that beat against the clouds,

  120

• Incense the heavens, and make the stars to melt,
• As if they were the tears of Mahomet,
• For hot consumption of his country's pride;
• And, till by vision or by speech I hear
• Immortal Jove say “Cease, my Tamburlaine,”
• I will persist, a terror to the world,
• Making the meteors (that, like armed men,
• Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven),
• Run tilting round about the firmament,
• And break their burning lances in the air,

  130

• For honour of my wondrous victories.
• Come, bring them in to our pavilion. [Exeunt.

[1]Humiliate, make to stoop.

[2]So 4to.—8vo. “my.”

[1]So 4to.—8vo. “nay.”

[2]So 4to.—8vo. “one.”

[3]Soil, stain. Cunningham gives an apposite quotation from Bradford the martyr:—“David, that good king, had a foul foil when he committed whoredom with his faithful servant's wife, Bethsabe.”

[4]Old copies “with.”

[1]So 4to.--8vo. “blood.”

[1]Dyce'scorrection(anticipated by Broughton)for “resisting” of the old copies.

[2]So 4to.—8vo, “Usumcasane.”

[1]8vo. “expell.”--4to. “expel.” I have adopted Dyce's correction.

[1]Loss, absence.--The simile is Imitated from avaen Queene, book I, canto viii., ll 100-4.