Yet might your mighty host encounter all
40 And pull proud Tamburlaine upon his knees
To sue for mercy at your highness’ feet.
CALLAPINE
Captain, the force of Tamburlaine is great,
His fortune greater, and the victories
Wherewith he hath so sore dismayed the world
Are greatest to discourage all our drifts.
Yet when the pride of Cynthia is at full
She wanes again, and so shall his, I hope,
For we have here the chief selected men
Of twenty several kingdoms at the least.
50 Nor ploughman, priest, nor merchant stays at home;
All Turkey is in arms with Callapine,
And never will we sunder camps and arms
Before himself or his be conqueréd.
This is the time that must eternize me
For conquering the tyrant of the world.
Come, soldiers, let us lie in wait for him,
And if we find him absent from his camp
Or that it be rejoined again at full,
Assail it and be sure of victory.
Exeunt.
Scene 3
[Enter] THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES, USUMCASANE. THERIDAMAS
Weep, heavens, and vanish into liquid tears!
Fall, stars that govern his nativity,
And summon all the shining lamps of heaven
To cast their bootless fires to the earth
And shed their feeble influence in the air!
Muffle your beauties with eternal clouds,
For hell and darkness pitch their pitchy tents,
And Death with armies of Cimmerian spirits
Gives battle ’gainst the heart of Tamburlaine.
10 Now, in defiance of that wonted love
Your sacred virtues poured upon his throne
And made his state an honour to the heavens,
These cowards invisibly assail his soul
And threaten conquest on our sovereign;
But if he die, your glories are disgraced,
Earth droops and says that hell in heaven is placed.
TECHELLES
O then, ye powers that sway eternal seats
And guide this massy substance of the earth,
If you retain desert of holiness,
20 As your supreme estates instruct our thoughts,
Be not inconstant, careless of your fame;
Bear not the burden of your enemies’ joys,
Triumphing in his fall whom you advanced;
But as his birth, life, health, and majesty
Were strangely blest and governèd by heaven,
So honour, heaven, till heaven dissolvèd be,
His birth, his life, his health, and majesty.
USUMCASANE
Blush, heaven, to lose the honour of thy name,
To see thy footstool set upon thy head,
30 And let no baseness in thy haughty breast
Sustain a shame of such inexcellence,
To see the devils mount in angels’ thrones
And angels dive into the pools of hell.
And though they think their painful date is out
And that their power is puissant as Jove’s,
Which makes them manage arms against thy state,
Yet make them feel the strength of Tamburlaine,
Thy instrument and note of majesty,
Is greater far than they can thus subdue;
40 For if he die, thy glory is disgraced,
Earth droops and says that hell in heaven is placed.
[Enter TAMBURLAINE in his chariot, drawn by ORCANES, King of Natolia and the King of JERUSALEM attended by AMYRAS, CELEBINUS, and PHYSICIANS.]
TAMBURLAINE
What daring god torments my body thus
And seeks to conquer mighty Tamburlaine?
Shall sickness prove me now to be a man,
That have been termed the terror of the world?
Techelles and the rest, come take your swords
And threaten him whose hand afflicts my soul.
Come let us march against the powers of heaven
And set black streamers in the firmament
50 To signify the slaughter of the gods.
Ah, friends, what shall I do? I cannot stand.
Come, carry me to war against the gods,
That thus envy the health of Tamburlaine.
THERIDAMAS
Ah, good my lord, leave these impatient words,
Which add much danger to your malady.
TAMBURLAINE
Why shall I sit and languish in this pain?
No! Strike the drums, and, in revenge of this,
Come, let us charge our spears and pierce his breast
Whose shoulders bear the axis of the world,
60 That if I perish, heaven and earth may fade.
Theridamas, haste to the court of Jove.
Will him to send Apollo hither straight
TECHELLES
Sit still, my gracious lord. This grief will cease
And cannot last, it is so violent.
TAMBURLAINE
Not last, Techelles? No, for I shall die.
See where my slave, the ugly monster Death,
Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,
Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart,
70 Who flies away at every glance I give,
And when I look away comes stealing on.
Villain, away, and hie thee to the field!
I and mine army come to load thy bark
With souls of thousand mangled carcasses.
Look where he goes! But see, he comes again
Because I stay. Techelles, let us march,
And weary Death with bearing souls to hell.
PHYSICIAN
Pleaseth your majesty to drink this potion,
Which will abate the fury of your fit
80 And cause some milder spirits govern you.
TAMBURLAINE
Tell me, what think you of my sickness now?
PHYSICIAN
I viewed your urine, and the hypostasis,
Thick and obscure, doth make your danger great;
Your veins are full of accidental heat,
Whereby the moisture of your blood is dried.
The humidum and calor, which some hold
Is not a parcel of the elements
But of a substance more divine and pure,
Is almost clean extinguishèd and spent,
90 Which, being the cause of life, imports your death.
Besides, my lord, this day is critical,
Dangerous to those whose crisis is as yours.
Your artiers, which alongst the veins convey
The lively spirits which the heart engenders,
Are parched and void of spirit, that the soul,
Wanting those organons by which it moves,
Cannot endure by argument of art.
Yet if your majesty may escape this day,
No doubt but you shall soon recover all.
TAMBURLAINE
100 Then will I comfort all my vital parts
And live in spite of Death above a day.
Alarm within.
[Enter a MESSENGER.]
MESSENGER My lord, young Callapine, that lately fled from
your majesty, hath now gathered a fresh army, and, hearing your absence in the field, offers to set upon us presently.
TAMBURLAINE
See, my physicians, now, how Jove hath sent
A present medicine to recure my pain!
My looks shall make them fly, and, might I follow,
There should not one of all the villain’s power
Live to give offer of another fight.
USUMCASANE
110 I joy, my lord, your highness is so strong,
That can endure so well your royal presen
ce
Which only will dismay the enemy.
TAMBURLAINE
I know it well, Casane. Draw, you slaves!
In spite of Death I will go show my face.
Alarm. TAMBURLAINE goes in [in his chariot], and comes out again with all the rest.
TAMBURLAINE
Thus are the villains, cowards, fled for fear,
Like summer’s vapours vanished by the sun.
And could I but a while pursue the field,
That Callapine should be my slave again.
But I perceive my martial strength is spent;
120 In vain I strive and rail against those powers
That mean t’invest me in a higher throne,
As much too high for this disdainful earth.
Give me a map, then, let me see how much
Is left for me to conquer all the world,
That these my boys may finish all my wants.
One brings a map.
Here I began to march towards Persia,
Along Armenia and the Caspian Sea,
And thence unto Bithynia, where I took
The Turk and his great empress prisoners;
130 Then marched I into Egypt and Arabia,
And here, not far from Alexandria,
Whereas the Terrene and the Red Sea meet,
Being distant less than full a hundred leagues,
I meant to cut a channel to them both,
That men might quickly sail to India.
From thence to Nubia, near Borno lake,
And so along the Ethiopian sea,
Cutting the tropic line of Capricorn,
I conquered all as far as Zanzibar.
140 Then by the northern part of Africa
I came at last to Graecia, and from thence
To Asia, where I stay against my will,
Which is from Scythia, where I first began,
Backward and forwards, near five thousand leagues.
Look here, my boys, see what a world of ground
Lies westward from the midst of Cancer’s line
Unto the rising of this earthly globe,
Whereas the sun, declining from our sight,
Begins the day with our Antipodes;
150 And shall I die, and this unconquerèd?
Lo, here, my sons, are all the golden mines,
Inestimable drugs, and precious stones,
More worth than Asia and the world beside;
And from th’Antarctic Pole eastward behold
As much more land, which never was descried,
Wherein are rocks of pearl that shine as bright
As all the lamps that beautify the sky;
And shall I die, and this unconquerèd?
Here, lovely boys; [giving them the map]
what Death forbids my life,
160 That let your lives command in spite of Death.
AMYRAS
Alas, my lord, how should our bleeding hearts,
Wounded and broken with your highness’ grief,
Retain a thought of joy or spark of life?
Your soul gives essence to our wretched subjects,
Whose matter is incorporate in your flesh.
CELEBINUS
Your pains do pierce our souls; no hope survives,
For by your life we entertain our lives.
TAMBURLAINE
But sons, this subject, not of force enough
To hold the fiery spirit it contains,
170 Must part, imparting his impressions
By equal portions into both your breasts;
My flesh, divided in your precious shapes,
Shall still retain my spirit though I die,
And live in all your seeds immortally.
Then now remove me, that I may resign
My place and proper title to my son.
[To AMYRAS]
First take my scourge and my imperial crown,
And mount my royal chariot of estate,
That I may see thee crowned before I die.
180 Help me, my lords, to make my last remove.
[They help him into a chair.]
THERIDAMAS
A woeful change, my lord, that daunts our thoughts
More than the ruin of our proper souls.
TAMBURLAINE
Sit up, my son. Let me see how well
Thou wilt become thy father’s majesty.
They crown him.
AMYRAS
With what a flinty bosom should I joy
The breath of life and burden of my soul,
If, not resolved into resolvèd pains,
My body’s mortifièd lineaments Should exercise the motions of my heart,
190 Pierced with the joy of any dignity!
O father, if the unrelenting ears
Of Death and hell be shut against my prayers,
And that the spiteful influence of heaven
Deny my soul fruition of her joy,
How should I step or stir my hateful feet
Against the inward powers of my heart,
Leading a life that only strives to die,
And plead in vain unpleasing sovereignty?
TAMBURLAINE
Let not thy love exceed thine honour, son,
200 Nor bar thy mind that magnanimity
That nobly must admit necessity.
Sit up, my boy, and with those silken reins
Bridle the steelèd stomachs of those jades.
THERIDAMAS [to AMYRAS]
My lord, you must obey his majesty,
Since fate commands, and proud necessity.
AMYRAS [ascending the chariot]
Heavens witness me, with what a broken heart
And damnèd spirit I ascend this seat,
And send my soul, before my father die,
His anguish and his burning agony!
TAMBURLAINE
210 Now fetch the hearse of fair Zenocrate.
Let it be placed by this my fatal chair
And serve as parcel of my funeral.
[Exeunt some.]
USUMCASANE
Then feels your majesty no sovereign ease,
Nor may our hearts, all drowned in tears of blood,
Joy any hope of your recovery?
TAMBURLAINE
Casane, no. The monarch of the earth
And eyeless monster that torments my soul
Cannot behold the tears ye shed for me,
And therefore still augments his cruelty.
TECHELLES
220 Then let some god oppose his holy power
Against the wrath and tyranny of Death,
That his tear-thirsty and unquenchèd hate
May be upon himself reverberate.
They bring in the hearse [of ZENOCRATE].
TAMBURLAINE
Now, eyes, enjoy your latest benefit,
And when my soul hath virtue of your sight,
Pierce through the coffin and the sheet of gold
And glut your longings with a heaven of joy.
So, reign, my son! Scourge and control those slaves,
Guiding thy chariot with thy father’s hand.
230 As precious is the charge thou undertak’st
As that which Clymene’s brainsick son did guide,
When wand’ring Phoebe’s ivory cheeks were scorched,
And all the earth, like Etna, breathing fire.
Be warned by him, then; learn with awful eye
To sway a throne as dangerous as his.
For if thy body thrive not full of thoughts
As pure and fiery as Phyteus’ beams,
The nature of these proud rebelling jades
Will take Occasion by the slenderest hair,
240 And draw thee piecemeal like Hippolytus,
Through rocks more steep and sharp than Caspian clifts.
The nature of thy chariot will not bear
A guide of baser temper than myself,
More than heaven’s coach the prid
e of Phaethon.
Farewell, my boys; my dearest friends, farewell!
My body feels, my soul doth weep to see
Your sweet desires deprived of company;
For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God, must die.
[He dies.]
AMYRAS
Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things end!
250 For earth hath spent the pride of all her fruit,
And heaven consumed his choicest living fire.
Let earth and heaven his timeless death deplore,
For both their worths will equal him no more.
[Exeunt.]
THE JEW OF MALTA
[Dramatis Personae
MACHEVIL, the Prologue
BARABAS
TWO MERCHANTS
THREE JEWS
FERNEZEJ, the Governor of Malta
KNIGHTS OF MALTA
OFFICERS
CALLAPINE
BASHAWS
CALYMATH
ABIGALL, Barabas’s daughter
FRIAR JACOMO
FRIAR BARNARDINE
AN ABBESS
TWO NUNS
MATHIAS, Katherine’s son
LODOWICK, Ferneze’s son
MARTIN DEL BOSCO, Vice-admiral of Spain
ITHAMORE, a slave
SLAVES
KATHERINE
BELLAMIRA, a courtesan
PILIA-BORZA
TURKISH JANIZARIES
A MESSENGER
CARPENTERS
SERVANTS ATTENDANTS]
[THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE]
To My Worthy Friend, Master Thomas Hammon, of Gray’s Inn, etc.
This play, composed by so worthy an author as Master
Marlowe, and the part of the Jew presented by so unimitable
an actor as Master Alleyn, being in this later age commended to the stage, as I ushered it unto the court, and presented it
to the Cock-pit, with these prologues and epilogues here
inserted, so now being newly brought to the press, I was loath
it should be published without the ornament of an epistle,
making choice of you unto whom to devote it, than whom
(of all those gentlemen and acquaintance within the compass
of my long knowledge) there is none more able to tax ignorance
10 or attribute right to merit. Sir, you have been pleased to
grace some of mine own works with your courteous patronage.
I hope this will not be the worse accepted because commended
by me, over whom none can claim more power or
privilege than yourself. I had no better a New Year’s gift to
present you with. Receive it therefore as a continuance of that
inviolable obligement by which he rests still engaged, who, as
he ever hath, shall always remain,
Tuissimus,
20 Thomas Heywood
THE PROLOGUE SPOKEN AT COURT