Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1 by Christopher Marlowe (feel good books to read TXT) 📖

VIRGINS are taken out by TECHELLES and others.] I will not spare these proud Egyptians, Nor change my martial observations For all the wealth of Gihon’s golden waves, Or for the love of Venus, would she leave The angry god of arms and lie with me. They have refus’d the offer of their lives, And know my customs are as peremptory As wrathful planets, death, or destiny. Re-enter TECHELLES. What, have your horsemen shown the virgins Death?

TECHELLES. They have, my lord, and on Damascus’ walls Have hoisted up their slaughter’d carcasses.

TAMBURLAINE. A sight as baneful to their souls, I think, As are Thessalian drugs or mithridate: But go, my lords, put the rest to the sword. [Exeunt all except TAMBURLAINE.] Ah, fair Zenocrate!—divine Zenocrate! Fair is too foul an epithet for thee,— That in thy passion<262> for thy country’s love, And fear to see thy kingly father’s harm, With hair dishevell’d wip’st thy watery cheeks; And, like to Flora in her morning’s pride, Shaking her silver tresses in the air, Rain’st on the earth resolved<263> pearl in showers, And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face, Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits, And comments volumes with her ivory pen, Taking instructions from thy flowing eyes; Eyes, when that Ebena steps to heaven,<264> In silence of thy solemn evening’s walk, Making the mantle of the richest night, The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light; There angels in their crystal armours fight<265> A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts For Egypt’s freedom and the Soldan’s life, His life that so consumes Zenocrate; Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul Than all my army to Damascus’ walls; And neither Persia’s<266> sovereign nor the Turk Troubled my senses with conceit of foil So much by much as doth Zenocrate. What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then? If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts, And every sweetness that inspir’d their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admired themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still<267> From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem’s period, And all combin’d in beauty’s worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest. But how unseemly is it for my sex, My discipline of arms and chivalry, My nature, and the terror of my name, To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint! Save only that in beauty’s just applause, With whose instinct the soul of man is touch’d; And every warrior that is rapt with love Of fame, of valour, and of victory, Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits: I thus conceiving,<268> and subduing both, That which hath stoop’d the chiefest of the gods, Even from the fiery-spangled veil of heaven, To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds’ flames, And mask in cottages of strowed reeds, Shall give the world to note, for all my birth, That virtue solely is the sum of glory, And fashions men with true nobility.— Who’s within there? Enter ATTENDANTS. Hath Bajazeth been fed to-day?

ATTEND.<269> Ay, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE. Bring him forth; and let us know if the town be ransacked. [Exeunt ATTENDANTS.]

Enter TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE, and others.

TECHELLES. The town is ours, my lord, and fresh supply Of conquest and of spoil is offer’d us.

TAMBURLAINE. That’s well, Techelles. What’s the news?

TECHELLES. The Soldan and the Arabian king together March on us with<270> such eager violence As if there were no way but one with us.<271>

TAMBURLAINE. No more there is not, I warrant thee, Techelles.

ATTENDANTS bring in BAJAZETH in his cage, followed by ZABINA. Exeunt ATTENDANTS.

THERIDAMAS. We know the victory is ours, my lord; But let us save the reverend Soldan’s life For fair Zenocrate that so laments his state.

TAMBURLAINE. That will we chiefly see unto, Theridamas, For sweet Zenocrate, whose worthiness Deserves a conquest over every heart.— And now, my footstool, if I lose the field, You hope of liberty and restitution?— Here let him stay, my masters, from the tents, Till we have made us ready for the field.— Pray for us, Bajazeth; we are going. [Exeunt all except BAJAZETH and ZABINA.]

BAJAZETH. Go, never to return with victory! Millions of men encompass thee about, And gore thy body with as many wounds! Sharp forked arrows light upon thy horse! Furies from the black Cocytus’ lake, Break up the earth, and with their fire-brands Enforce thee run upon the baneful pikes! Vollies of shot pierce through thy charmed skin, And every bullet dipt in poison’d drugs! Or roaring cannons sever all thy joints, Making thee mount as high as eagles soar!

ZABINA. Let all the swords and lances in the field Stick in his breast as in their proper rooms! At every pore<272> let blood come dropping forth, That lingering pains may massacre his heart, And madness send his damned soul to hell!

BAJAZETH. Ah, fair Zabina! we may curse his power, The heavens may frown, the earth for anger quake; But such a star hath influence in<273> his sword As rules the skies and countermands the gods More than Cimmerian Styx or Destiny: And then shall we in this detested guise, With shame, with hunger, and with horror stay,<274> Griping our bowels with retorqued<275> thoughts, And have no hope to end our ecstasies.

ZABINA. Then is there left no Mahomet, no God, No fiend, no fortune, nor no hope of end To our infamous, monstrous slaveries. Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view A<276> hell as hopeless and as full of fear As are the blasted banks of Erebus, Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans Hover about the ugly ferryman, To get a passage to Elysium!<277> Why should we live?—O, wretches, beggars, slaves!— Why live we, Bajazeth, and build up nests So high within the region of the air, By living long in this oppression, That all the world will see and laugh to scorn The former triumphs of our mightiness In this obscure infernal servitude?

BAJAZETH. O life, more loathsome to my vexed thoughts<278> Than noisome parbreak<279> of the Stygian snakes, Which fills the nooks of hell with standing air, Infecting all the ghosts with cureless griefs! O dreary engines of my loathed sight, That see my crown, my honour, and my name Thrust under yoke and thraldom of a thief, Why feed ye still on day’s accursed beams, And sink not quite into my tortur’d soul? You see my wife, my queen, and emperess, Brought up and propped by the hand of Fame, Queen of fifteen contributory queens, Now thrown to rooms of black abjection,<280> Smeared with blots of basest drudgery, And villainess<281> to shame, disdain, and misery. Accursed Bajazeth, whose words of ruth,<282> That would with pity cheer Zabina’s heart, And make our souls resolve<283> in ceaseless tears, Sharp hunger bites upon and gripes the root From whence the issues of my thoughts do break! O poor Zabina! O my queen, my queen! Fetch me some water for my burning breast, To cool and comfort me with longer date, That, in the shorten’d sequel of my life, I may pour forth my soul into thine arms With words of love, whose moaning intercourse Hath hitherto been stay’d with wrath and hate Of our expressless bann’d<284> inflictions.

ZABINA. Sweet Bajazeth, I will prolong thy life As long as any blood or spark of breath Can quench or cool the torments of my grief. [Exit.]

BAJAZETH. Now, Bajazeth, abridge thy baneful days, And beat the<285> brains out of thy conquer’d head, Since other means are all forbidden me, That may be ministers of my decay. O highest lamp of ever-living<286> Jove, Accursed day, infected with my griefs, Hide now thy stained face in endless night, And shut the windows of the lightsome heavens! Let ugly Darkness with her rusty coach, Engirt with tempests, wrapt in pitchy clouds, Smother the earth with never-fading mists, And let her horses from their nostrils breathe Rebellious winds and dreadful thunder-claps, That in this terror Tamburlaine may live, And my pin’d soul, resolv’d in liquid air, May still excruciate his tormented thoughts! Then let the stony dart of senseless cold Pierce through the centre of my wither’d heart, And make a passage for my loathed life! [He brains himself against the cage.]

Re-enter ZABINA.

ZABINA. What do mine eyes behold? my husband dead! His skull all riven in twain! his brains dash’d out, The brains of Bajazeth, my lord and sovereign! O Bajazeth, my husband and my lord! O Bajazeth! O Turk! O emperor! Give him his liquor? not I. Bring milk and fire, and my blood I bring him again.—Tear me in pieces—give<287> me the sword with a ball of wild-fire upon it.—Down with him! down with him!—Go to my child; away, away, away! ah, save that infant! save him, save him!—I, even I, speak to her.<288>—The sun was down—streamers white, red, black—Here, here, here!—Fling the meat in his face—Tamburlaine, Tamburlaine!—Let the soldiers be buried.—Hell, death, Tamburlaine,<289> hell!—Make ready my coach,<290> my chair, my jewels.—I come, I come, I come!<291> [She runs against the cage, and brains herself.]

Enter ZENOCRATE with ANIPPE.

ZENOCRATE. Wretched Zenocrate! that liv’st to see Damascus’ walls dy’d with Egyptians’<292> blood, Thy father’s subjects and thy countrymen; The<293> streets strow’d with dissever’d joints of men, And wounded bodies gasping yet for life; But most accurs’d, to see the sun-bright troop Of heavenly virgins and unspotted maids (Whose looks might make the angry god of arms To break his sword and mildly treat of love) On horsemen’s lances to be hoisted up, And guiltlessly endure a cruel death; For every fell and stout Tartarian steed, That stamp’d on others with their thundering hoofs, When all their riders charg’d their quivering spears, Began to check the ground and rein themselves, Gazing upon the beauty of their looks. Ah, Tamburlaine, wert thou the cause of this, That term’st Zenocrate thy dearest love? Whose lives were dearer to Zenocrate Than her own life, or aught save thine own love. But see, another bloody spectacle! Ah, wretched eyes, the enemies of my heart, How are ye glutted with these grievous objects, And tell my soul more tales of bleeding ruth!— See, see, Anippe, if they breathe or no.

ANIPPE. No breath, nor sense, nor motion, in them both: Ah, madam, this their slavery hath enforc’d, And ruthless cruelty of Tamburlaine!

ZENOCRATE. Earth, cast up fountains from thy<294> entrails, And wet thy cheeks for their untimely deaths; Shake with their weight in sign of fear and grief! Blush, heaven, that gave them honour at their birth, And let them die a death so barbarous! Those that are proud of fickle empery And place their chiefest good in earthly pomp, Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Ah, Tamburlaine my love, sweet Tamburlaine, That fight’st for sceptres and for slippery crowns, Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Thou that, in conduct of thy happy stars, Sleep’st every night with conquest on thy brows, And yet wouldst shun the wavering turns of war,<295> In fear and feeling of the like distress Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Ah, mighty Jove and holy Mahomet, Pardon my love! O, pardon his contempt Of earthly fortune and respect of pity; And let not conquest, ruthlessly pursu’d, Be equally against his life incens’d In this great Turk and hapless emperess! And pardon me that was not mov’d with ruth To see them live so long in misery!— Ah, what may chance to thee, Zenocrate?

ANIPPE. Madam, content yourself, and be resolv’d Your love hath Fortune so at his command, That she shall stay, and turn her wheel no more, As long as life maintains his mighty arm That fights for honour to adorn your head.

Enter PHILEMUS.

ZENOCRATE. What other heavy news now brings