[Enter the] SULTAN OF EGYPT with three or four LORDS, CAPOLIN [and a MESSENGER].
SULTAN
Awake, ye men of Memphis! Hear the clang
Of Scythian trumpets! Hear the basilisks
That, roaring, shake Damascus’ turrets down!
The rogue of Volga holds Zenocrate,
The Sultan’s daughter, for his concubine,
And with a troop of thieves and vagabonds
Hath spread his colours to our high disgrace,
While you faint-hearted base Egyptians
Lie slumbering on the flow’ry banks of Nile,
As crocodiles that unaffrighted rest
10 While thund’ring cannons rattle on their skins.
MESSENGER
Nay, mighty Sultan, did your greatness see
The frowning looks of fiery Tamburlaine,
That with his terror and imperious eyes
Commands the hearts of his associates,
It might amaze your royal majesty.
SULTAN
Villain, I tell thee, were that Tamburlaine
As monstrous as Gorgon, prince of hell,
The Sultan would not start a foot from him.
But speak, what power hath he?
MESSENGER Mighty lord,
20 Three hundred thousand men in armour clad
Upon their prancing steeds, disdainfully
With wanton paces trampling on the ground;
Five hundred thousand footmen threat’ning shot,
Shaking their swords, their spears, and iron bills,
Environing their standard round, that stood
As bristle-pointed as a thorny wood.
Their warlike engines and munition
Exceed the forces of their martial men.
SULTAN
30 Nay, could their numbers countervail the stars,
Or ever-drizzling drops of April showers,
Or withered leaves that Autumn shaketh down,
Yet would the Sultan by his conquering power
So scatter and consume them in his rage
That not a man should live to rue their fall.
CAPOLIN
So might your highness, had you time to sort
Your fighting men and raise your royal host.
But Tamburlaine by expedition
Advantage takes of your unreadiness.
SULTAN
40 Let him take all th’advantages he can.
Were all the world conspired to fight for him,
Nay, were he devil – as he is no man –
Yet in revenge of fair Zenocrate,
Whom he detaineth in despite of us,
This arm should send him down to Erebus
To shroud his shame in darkness of the night.
MESSENGER
Pleaseth your mightiness to understand,
His resolution far exceedeth all.
The first day when he pitcheth down his tents,
50 White is their hue, and on his silver crest
A snowy feather spangled white he bears,
To signify the mildness of his mind
That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood.
But when Aurora mounts the second time,
As red as scarlet is his furniture;
Then must his kindled wrath be quenched with blood,
Not sparing any that can manage arms.
But if these threats move not submission,
Black are his colours, black pavilion,
His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes,
60 And jetty feathers menace death and hell.
Without respect of sex, degree, or age,
He razeth all his foes with fire and sword.
SULTAN
Merciless villain, peasant ignorant
Of lawful arms or martial discipline!
Pillage and murder are his usual trades;
The slave usurps the glorious name of war.
See, Capolin, the fair Arabian king,
That hath been disappointed by this slave
Of my fair daughter and his princely love,
70 May have fresh warning to go war with us
And be revenged for her disparagement.
[Exeunt.]
[A throne is brought on. Enter] TAMBURLAINE [all in white], TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE, ZENOCRATE, ANIPPE, two MOORS drawing BAJAZETH in his cage, and his wife [ZABINA] following him.
TAMBURLAINE Bring out my footstool.
They take him [BAJAZETH] out of the cage.
BAJAZETH
Ye holy priests of heavenly Mahomet,
That, sacrificing, slice and cut your flesh,
Staining his altars with your purple blood,
Make heaven to frown, and every fixèd star
To suck up poison from the moorish fens
And pour it in this glorious tyrant’s throat!
The chiefest God, first mover of that sphere
Enchased with thousands ever-shining lamps,
10 Will sooner burn the glorious frame of heaven
Than it should so conspire my overthrow.
But, villain, thou that wishest this to me,
Fall prostrate on the low, disdainful earth
And be the footstool of great Tamburlaine,
That I may rise into my royal throne.
BAJAZETH
First shalt thou rip my bowels with thy sword
And sacrifice my heart to death and hell
Before I yield to such a slavery.
TAMBURLAINE
Base villain, vassal, slave to Tamburlaine,
20 Unworthy to embrace or touch the ground
That bears the honour of my royal weight,
Stoop, villain, stoop, stoop, for so he bids
That may command thee piecemeal to be torn
Or scattered like the lofty cedar trees
Struck with the voice of thund’ring Jupiter.
BAJAZETH
Then, as I look down to the damnèd fiends,
Fiends, look on me, and, thou dread god of hell,
With ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth
And make it swallow both of us at once!
He [TAMBURLAINE] gets up upon him [BAJAZETH] to his chair.
TAMBURLAINE
30 Now clear the triple region of the air,
And let the majesty of heaven behold
Their scourge and terror tread on emperors.
Smile, stars that reigned at my nativity,
And dim the brightness of their neighbour lamps!
Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia.
For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth,
First rising in the east with mild aspect
But fixèd now in the meridian line,
Will send up fire to your turning spheres
And cause the sun to borrow light of you.
My sword struck fire from his coat of steel
Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk,
As when a fiery exhalation
Wrapped in the bowels of a freezing cloud,
Fighting for passage, makes the welkin crack,
And casts a flash of lightning to the earth.
But ere I march to wealthy Persia
Or leave Damascus and th’Egyptian fields,
As was the fame of Clymene’s brainsick son
That almost brent the axletree of heaven,
So shall our swords, our lances, and our shot
Fill all the air with fiery meteors.
Then, when the sky shall wax as red as blood,
It shall be said I made it red myself,
To make me think of naught but blood and war.
ZABINA
Unworthy king, that by thy cruelty
Unlawfully usurp’st the Persian seat,
Dar’st thou, that never saw an emperor
Before thou met my husband in the field,
Being thy captive, thus abuse his state,
Keeping his kingly body in a cage
That roofs of gold and sun-bright palaces
Should have prepared to entertain his grace,
And treading him beneath thy loathsome feet
Whose feet the kings of Africa have kissed?
TECHELLES [to TAMBURLAINE]
You must devise some torment worse, my lord,
To make these captives rein their lavish tongues.
TAMBURLAINE
Zenocrate, look better to your slave.
ZENOCRATE
She is my handmaid’s slave, and she shall look
That these abuses flow not from her tongue.
ANIPPE [to ZABINA]
Let these be warnings for you, then, my slave,
How you abuse the person of the king,
Or else I swear to have you whipped stark naked.
BAJAZETH
Great Tamburlaine, great in my overthrow,
Ambitious pride shall make thee fall as low
For treading on the back of Bajazeth,
That should be horsèd on four mighty kings.
TAMBURLAINE
Thy names and titles and thy dignities
80 Are fled from Bajazeth and remain with me,
That will maintain it ’gainst a world of kings.
Put him in again.
[They put BAJAZETH into the cage.]
BAJAZETH
Is this a place for mighty Bajazeth?
Confusion light on him that helps thee thus!
TAMBURLAINE
There, whiles he lives, shall Bajazeth be kept,
And where I go be thus in triumph drawn;
And thou, his wife, shalt feed him with the scraps
My servitors shall bring thee from my board.
For he that gives him other food than this
90 Shall sit by him and starve to death himself.
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage.
The ages that shall talk of Tamburlaine,
Even from this day to Plato’s wondrous year,
Shall talk how I have handled Bajazeth.
These Moors that drew him from Bithynia
To fair Damascus, where we now remain,
100 Shall lead him with us wheresoe’er we go.
Techelles and my loving followers,
Now may we see Damascus’ lofty towers,
Like to the shadows of Pyramides
That with their beauties graced the Memphian fields.
The golden statue of their feathered bird
That spreads her wings upon the city walls
Shall not defend it from our battering shot.
The townsmen mask in silk and cloth of gold,
And every house is as a treasury.
110 The men, the treasure, and the town is ours.
THERIDAMAS
Your tents of white now pitched before the gates,
And gentle flags of amity displayed,
I doubt not but the governor will yield,
Offering Damascus to your majesty.
TAMBURLAINE
So shall he have his life, and all the rest.
But if he stay until the bloody flag
Be once advanced on my vermilion tent,
He dies, and those that kept us out so long.
And when they see me march in black array,
With mournful streamers hanging down their heads,
120 Were in that city all the world contained,
Not one should ’scape, but perish by our swords.
ZENOCRATE
Yet would you have some pity for my sake,
Because it is my country’s, and my father’s.
TAMBURLAINE
Not for the world, Zenocrate, if I have sworn.
Come, bring in the Turk.
Exeunt.
[Enter the] SULTAN, [the KING OF] ARABIA, CAPOLIN, with streaming colours, and SOLDIERS.
SULTAN
Methinks we march as Meleager did,
Environèd with brave Argolian knights,
To chase the savage Calydonian boar;
Or Cephalus with lusty Theban youths,
Against the wolf that angry Themis sent
To waste and spoil the sweet Aonian fields.
A monster of five hundred thousand heads,
Compact of rapine, piracy, and spoil,
The scum of men, the hate and scourge of God,
10 Raves in Egyptia and annoyeth us.
My lord, it is the bloody Tamburlaine,
A sturdy felon and a base-bred thief
By murder raisèd to the Persian crown,
That dares control us in our territories.
To tame the pride of this presumptuous beast,
Join your Arabians with the Sultan’s power;
Let us unite our royal bands in one
And hasten to remove Damascus’ siege.
It is a blemish to the majesty
20 And high estate of mighty emperors
That such a base, usurping vagabond
Should brave a king or wear a princely crown.
ARABIA
Renownèd Sultan, have ye lately heard
The overthrow of mighty Bajazeth
About the confines of Bithynia?
The slavery wherewith he persecutes
The noble Turk and his great emperess?
SULTAN
I have, and sorrow for his bad success.
But, noble lord of great Arabia,
30 Be so persuaded that the Sultan is
No more dismayed with tidings of his fall,
Than in the haven when the pilot stands
And views a stranger’s ship rent in the winds,
And shiverèd against a craggy rock.
Yet, in compassion of his wretched state,
A sacred vow to heaven and him I make,
Confirming it with Ibis’ holy name,
That Tamburlaine shall rue the day, the hour,
Wherein he wrought such ignominious wrong
Unto the hallowed person of a prince,
Or kept the fair Zenocrate so long
As concubine, I fear, to feed his lust.
ARABIA
Let grief and fury hasten on revenge!
Let Tamburlaine for his offences feel
Such plagues as heaven and we can pour on him.
I long to break my spear upon his crest
And prove the weight of his victorious arm,
For Fame, I fear, hath been too prodigal
In sounding through the world his partial praise.
SULTAN
Capolin, hast thou surveyed our powers?
CAPOLIN
Great emperors of Egypt and Arabia,
The number of your hosts united is
A hundred and fifty thousand horse,
Two hundred thousand foot, brave men-at-arms,
Courageous and full of hardiness,
As frolic as the hunters in the chase
Of savage beasts amid the desert woods.
ARABIA
My mind presageth fortunate success.
And, Tamburlaine, my spirit doth foresee
The utter ruin of thy men and thee.
SULTAN
Then rear your standards! Let your sounding drums
Direct our soldiers to Damascus’ walls.
Now, Tamburlaine, the mighty Sultan comes
And leads with him the great Arabian king
To dim thy baseness and obscurity,
Famous for nothing but for theft and spoil,
To raze and scatter thy inglorious crew
Of Scythians and slavish Persians.
[Sound drums].
Exeunt.
The banquet [is brought on], and to it cometh TAMBURLAINEall in scarlet, [ZENOCRATE,] THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES, USUMCASANE, the TURK [BAJAZETH, drawn in his cage, ZABINA,] with others.
TAMBURLAINE
Now hang our bloody colours by Damascus,
Reflexing hues of blood upon their heads
While they walk quivering on their city walls,
Half dead for fear before they feel my wrath.
Then let us freely banquet and carouse
Full bowls of wine unto the god of war,
That means to fill your helmets full of gold
And make Damascus’ spoils as rich to you
As was to Jason Colchis’ golden fleece.
10 And now, Bajazeth, hast thou any stomach?
BAJAZETH Ay, such a stomach, cruel Tamburlaine, as I could willingly feed upon thy blood-raw heart.
TAMBURLAINE Nay, thine own is easier to come by; pluck out that, and ’twill serve thee and thy wife. Well, Zenocrate, Techelles, and the rest, fall to your victuals.
BAJAZETH
Fall to, and never may your meat digest!
Ye Furies, that can mask invisible,
Dive to the bottom of Avernus’ pool,
And in your hands bring hellish poison up
20 And squeeze it in the cup of Tamburlaine!
Or, wingèd snakes of Lerna, cast your stings,
And leave your venoms in this tyrant’s dish!
ZABINA
And may this banquet prove as ominous
As Procne’s to th’adulterous Thracian king
That fed upon the substance of his child!
ZENOCRATE My lord, how can you suffer these outrageous curses by these slaves of yours?
To let them see, divine Zenocrate,
I glory in the curses of my foes,
Having the power from the empyreal heaven
30 To turn them all upon their proper heads.
TECHELLES I pray you, give them leave, madam. This speech is a goodly refreshing to them.
THERIDAMAS But if his highness would let them be fed, it would do them more good.
TAMBURLAINE [to BAJAZETH] Sirrah, why fall you not to? Are you so daintily brought up you cannot eat your own flesh?
BAJAZETH
First, legions of devils shall tear thee in pieces.
USUMCASANE
Villain, knowest thou to whom thou speakest?
TAMBURLAINE O, let him alone. Here, eat, sir. Take it from my
40 sword’s point, or I’ll thrust it to thy heart.
He [BAJAZETH] takes it and stamps upon it.
THERIDAMAS He stamps it under his feet, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE [to BAJAZETH] Take it up, villain, and eat it, or I will make thee slice the brawns of thy arms into carbonadoes and eat them.
USUMCASANE Nay, ’twere better he killed his wife, and then she shall be sure not to be starved, and he be provided for a month’s victual beforehand.
TAMBURLAINE [to BAJAZETH] Here is my dagger; dispatch her
while she is fat, for if she live but a while longer, she will fall
50 into a consumption with fretting, and then she will not be
worth the eating.
THERIDAMAS [to TECHELLES] Dost thou think that Mahomet will suffer this?
TECHELLES ‘Tis like he will, when he cannot let it.
TAMBURLAINE [to BAJAZETH] Go to, fall to your meat. What, not a bit? Belike he hath not been watered today. Give him some drink.
They give him water to drink, and he flings it on the ground.
Fast, and welcome, sir, while hunger make you eat. How
60 now, Zenocrate, doth not the Turk and his wife make a
goodly show at a banquet?
ZENOCRATEYes, my lord.
THERIDAMAS Methinks ‘tis a great deal better than a consort of music.
TAMBURLAINE Yet music would do well to cheer up Zenocrate. [To ZENOCRATE] Pray thee, tell: why art thou so sad? If thou wilt have a song, the Turk shall strain his voice. But why is it?
ZENOCRATE
My lord, to see my father’s town besieged,
The country wasted where myself was born,
70 How can it but afflict my very soul?
If any love remain in you, my lord,
Or if my love unto your majesty
May merit favour at your highness’ hands,
Then raise your siege from fair Damascus’ walls
And with my father take a friendly truce.
TAMBURLAINE
Zenocrate, were Egypt Jove’s own land,
Yet would I with my sword make Jove to stoop.
I will confute those blind geographers
That make a triple region in the world,
80 Excluding regions which I mean to trace,
And with this pen reduce them to a map,
Calling the provinces, cities, and towns
After my name and thine, Zenocrate.
Here at Damascus will I make the point
That shall begin the perpendicular.
And wouldst thou have me buy thy father’s love
With such a loss? Tell me, Zenocrate.
ZENOCRATE
Honour still wait on happy Tamburlaine!
Yet give me leave to plead for him, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE
90 Content thyself. His person shall be safe,
And all the friends of fair Zenocrate,
If with their lives they will be pleased to yield
Or may be forced to make me emperor;
For Egypt and Arabia must be mine.
[To BAJAZETH]
Feed, you slave; thou may’st think thyself happy to be fed from my trencher.
BAJAZETH
My empty stomach, full of idle heat,
Draws bloody humours from my feeble parts,
Preserving life by hasting cruel death.
My veins are pale, my sinews hard and dry,
100 My joints benumbed. Unless I eat, I die.
ZABINA Eat, Bajazeth. Let us live in spite of them, looking some happy power will pity and enlarge us.
TAMBURLAINE [offering BAJAZETH an empty plate] Here, Turk, wilt thou have a clean trencher?
BAJAZETH Ay, tyrant, and more meat.
TAMBURLAINE Soft, sir, you must be dieted; too much eating will make you surfeit.
THERIDAMAS [to TAMBURLAINE] So it Would, my lord, specially having so small a walk and so little exercise.
110 Enter a second course of crowns.
TAMBURLAINE Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane, here are the cates you desire to finger, are they not?
THERIDAMAS Ay, my lord, but none save kings must feed with these.
TECHELLES ’Tis enough for us to see them and for Tamburlaine only to enjoy them.
TAMBURLAINE [raising a toast] Well, here is now to the Sultan
of Egypt, the King of Arabia, and the Governor of Damascus.
Now take these three crowns, and pledge me, my contributory
kings. [He presents the crowns. I crown you here, Therid-
120 amas, King of Argier; Techelles, King of Fez; and Usumcasane,
King of Moroccus. How say you to this, Turk? These are not
your contributory kings.
BAJAZETH
Nor shall they long be thine, I warrant them.
TAMBURLAINE
Kings of Argier, Moroccus, and of Fez,
You that have marched with happy Tamburlaine
As far as from the frozen plage of heaven
Unto the wat’ry morning’s ruddy bower
And thence by land unto the torrid zone,
130 Deserve these titles I endow you with
By valour and by magnanimity.
Your births shall be no blemish to your fame,
For virtue is the fount whence honour springs,
And they are worthy she investeth kings.
THERIDAMAS
And since your highness hath so well vouchsafed,
If we deserve them not with higher meeds
Than erst our states and actions have retained,
Take them away again and make us slaves.
TAMBURLAINE
Well said, Theridamas! When holy Fates
140 Shall ‘stablish me in strong Egyptia,
We mean to travel to th’Antarctic Pole,
Conquering the people underneath our feet,
And be renowned as never emperors were.
Zenocrate, I will not crown thee yet,
Until with greater honours I be graced.
[Exeunt.]