[Enter] the GOVERNOR OF DAMASCUS, with three or four CITIZENS, and four VIRGINS with branches of laurel in their hands.
GOVERNOR
Still doth this man, or rather god of war,
Batter our walls and beat our turrets down;
And to resist with longer stubbornness
Or hope of rescue from the Sultan’s power
Were but to bring our wilful overthrow
And make us desperate of our threatened lives.
We see his tents have now been alterèd
With terrors to the last and cruell’st hue;
His coal-black colours everywhere advanced
Threaten our city with a general spoil;
10 And if we should with common rites of arms
Offer our safeties to his clemency,
I fear the custom proper to his sword,
Which he observes as parcel of his fame,
Intending so to terrify the world,
By any innovation or remorse
Will never be dispensed with till our deaths.
Therefore, for these our harmless virgins’ sakes,
Whose honours and whose lives rely on him,
Let us have hope that their unspotted prayers,
20 Their blubbered cheeks, and hearty humble moans
Will melt his fury into some remorse,
And use us like a loving conqueror.
FIRST VIRGIN
If humble suits or imprecations,
Uttered with tears of wretchedness and blood
Shed from the heads and hearts of all our sex –
Some made your wives, and some your children –
Might have entreated your obdurate breasts
To entertain some care of our securities
30 Whiles only danger beat upon our walls,
These more than dangerous warrants of our death
Had never been erected as they be,
Nor you depend on such weak helps as we.
GOVERNOR
Well, lovely virgins, think our country’s care,
Our love of honour, loath to be enthralled
To foreign powers and rough imperious yokes,
Would not with too much cowardice or fear,
Before all hope of rescue were denied,
Submit yourselves and us to servitude.
40 Therefore, in that your safeties and our own,
Your honours, liberties, and lives, were weighed
In equal care and balance with our own,
Endure as we the malice of our stars,
The wrath of Tamburlaine and power of wars;
Or be the means the overweighing heavens
Have kept to qualify these hot extremes,
And bring us pardon in your cheerful looks.
SECOND VIRGIN
Then here, before the majesty of heaven
And holy patrons of Egyptia,
50 With knees and hearts submissive we entreat
Grace to our words and pity to our looks,
That this device may prove propitious,
And through the eyes and ears of Tamburlaine
Convey events of mercy to his heart.
Grant that these signs of victory we yield
May bind the temples of his conquering head
To hide the folded furrows of his brows,
And shadow his displeasèd countenance
With happy looks of ruth and lenity.
Leave us, my lord, and loving countrymen;
60 What simple virgins may persuade, we will.
GOVERNOR
Farewell, sweet virgins, on whose safe return
Depends our city, liberty, and lives!
Exeunt [all except the VIRGINS. Enter] TAMBURLAINE, TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE, with Others; TAMBURLAINE all in black, and very melancholy.
TAMBURLAINE
What, are the turtles frayed out of their nests?
Alas, poor fools, must you be first shall feel
The sworn destruction of Damascus?
They know my custom. Could they not as well
Have sent ye out when first my milk-white flags
Through which sweet mercy threw her gentle beams,
Reflexing them on your disdainful eyes,
70 As now when fury and incensèd hate
Flings slaughtering terror from my coal-black tents
And tells for truth submissions comes too late?
FIRST VIRGIN
Most happy king and emperor of the earth,
Image of honour and nobility,
For whom the powers divine have made the world
And on whose throne the holy Graces sit,
In whose sweet person is comprised the sum
Of nature’s skill and heavenly majesty:
Pity our plights, O, pity poor Damascus!
80 Pity old age, within whose silver hairs
Honour and reverence evermore have reigned!
Pity the marriage bed, where many a lord,
In prime and glory of his loving joy,
Embraceth now with tears of ruth and blood
The jealous body of his fearful wife,
Whose cheeks and hearts – so punished with conceit
To think thy puissant never-stayèd arm
Will part their bodies and prevent their souls
90 From heavens of comfort yet their age might bear –
Now wax all pale and withered to the death,
As well for grief our ruthless governor
Have thus refused the mercy of thy hand
(Whose sceptre angels kiss and Furies dread)
As for their liberties, their loves, or lives.
O then, for these, and such as we ourselves,
For us, for infants, and for all our bloods,
That never nourished thought against thy rule,
Pity, O, pity, sacred emperor,
100 The prostrate service of this wretched town;
And take in sign thereof this gilded wreath
Whereto each man of rule hath given his hand
And wished, as worthy subjects, happy means
To be investors of thy royal brows,
Even with the true Egyptian diadem.
[She offers a laurel wreath.]
TAMBURLAINE
Virgins, in vain ye labour to prevent
That which mine honour swears shall be performed.
Behold my sword – what see you at the point?
VIRGINS
Nothing but fear and fatal steel, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE
110 Your fearful minds are thick and misty, then,
For there sits Death, there sits imperious Death,
Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.
But I am pleased you shall not see him there;
He now is seated on my horsemen’s spears,
And on their points his fleshless body feeds.
Techelles, straight go charge a few of them
To charge these dames, and show my servant Death,
Sitting in scarlet on their armèd spears.
VIRGINS
O, pity us!
TAMBURLAINE
120 Away with them, I say, and show them Death.
They [TECHELLES and others] take them away.
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 refused the offer of their lives,
And know my customs are as peremptory
As wrathful planets, death, or destiny.
Enter TECHELLES.
What, have your horsemen shown the virgins Death?
TECHELLES
They have, my lord, and on Damascus’ walls
130 Have hoisted up their slaughtered 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; [TAMBURLAINE remains].
Ah, fair Zenocrate, divine Zenocrate!
Fair is too foul an epithet for thee
That, in thy passion for thy country’s love
And fear to see thy kingly father’s harm,
With hair dishevelled wip’st thy watery cheeks,
And like to Flora in her morning’s pride,
140 Shaking her silver tresses in the air,
Rain’st on the earth resolvèd 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
In silence of thy solemn evening’s walk,
Making the mantle of the richest night,
The moon, the planets, and the meteors, light.
150 There angels in their crystal armours fight
A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts
For Egypt’s freedom and the Sultan’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 Persians’ sovereign nor the Turk
Troubled my senses with conceit of foil
So much by much as doth Zenocrate.
160 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 inspired their hearts,
Their minds and muses on admirèd themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
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,
170 And all combined 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 touched,
180 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 and subduing, both,
That which hath stopped the tempest of the gods,
Even from the fiery spangled veil of heaven,
To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds’ flames
And march in cottages of strewèd weeds,
Shall give the world to note, for all my birth,
That virtue solely is the sum of glory
190 And fashions men with true nobility.
Who’s within there?
Enter two or three [ATTENDANTS].
ATTENDANT 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 offered us.
TAMBURLAINE
That’s well, Techelles, what’s the news?
TECHELLES
The Sultan and the Arabian king together,
March on us with such eager violence
200 As if there were no way but one with us.
TAMBURLAINE
No more there is not, I warrant thee, Techelles.
They bring in the TURK [BAJAZETH, in his cage, followed by ZABINA].
THERIDAMAS
We know the victory is ours, my lord.
But let us save the reverend Sultan’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.
210 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, [BAJAZETH and ZABINA remain.]
BAJAZETH
Go, never to return with victory!
Millions of men encompass thee about
And gore thy body with as many wounds!
Sharp, forkèd arrows light upon thy horse!
Furies from the black Cocytus lake
Break up the earth, and with their firebrands
220 Enforce thee run upon the baneful pikes!
Volleys of shot pierce through thy charmèd skin,
And every bullet dipped in poisoned 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 let blood come dropping forth,
That ling’ring pains may massacre his heart
And madness send his damnèd soul to hell!
BAJAZETH
230 Ah, fair Zabina, we may curse his power,
The heavens may frown, the earth for anger quake,
But such a star hath influence in 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 aye
Griping our bowels with retorquèd thoughts,
And have no hope to end our ecstasies.
ZABINA
Then is there left no Mahomet, no God,
240 No fiend, no Fortune, nor no hope of end
To our infamous, monstrous slaveries?
Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view
A 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!
Why should we live, O, wretches, beggars, slaves,
Why live we, Bajazeth, and build up nests
250 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 vexèd thoughts
Than noisome parbreak 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 loathèd sight
That sees my crown, my honour, and my name
260 Thrust under yoke and thraldom of a thief,
Why feed ye still on day’s accursèd beams
And sink not quite into my tortured soul?
You see my wife, my queen and emperess,
Brought up and proppèd by the hand of fame,
Queen of fifteen contributory queens,
Now thrown to rooms of black abjection,
Smearèd with blots of basest drudgery,
And villeiness to shame, disdain, and misery.
Accursèd Bajazeth, whose words of ruth,
270 That would with pity cheer Zabina’s heart
And make our souls resolve 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 shortened sequel of my life,
I may pour forth my soul into thine arms
With words of love, whose moaning intercourse
280 Hath hitherto been stayed with wrath and hate
Of our expressless, banned 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.
She goes out.
Now, Bajazeth, abridge thy baneful days
And beat thy brains out of thy conquered head,
Since other means are all forbidden me
That may be ministers of my decay.
290 O highest lamp of ever-living Jove,
Accursèd day, infected with my griefs,
Hide now thy stainèd face in endless night
And shut the windows of the lightsome heavens!
Let ugly Darkness with her rusty coach,
Engirt with tempests wrapped in pitchy clouds,
Smother the earth with never-fading mists,
And let her horses from their nostrils breathe
Rebellious winds and dreadful thunderclaps,
That in this terror Tamburlaine may live,
300 And my pined soul, resolved in liquid air,
May still excruciate his tormented thoughts!
Then let the stony dart of senseless cold
Pierce through the centre of my withered heart
And make a passage for my loathèd life!
He brains himself against the cage.
Enter ZABINA.
ZABINA
What do mine eyes behold? My husband dead!
His skull all riven in twain, his brains dashed 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.
310 Bring milk and fire, and my blood I bring him again; tear me
in pieces, give me the sword with a ball of wildfire 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. 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, hell! Make ready my coach, my chair,
my jewels. I come, I come, I come!
She runs against the cage and brains herself.
[Enter] ZENOCRATE with ANIPPE.
ZENOCRATE
Wretched Zenocrate, that livest to see
Damascus’ walls dyed with Egyptian blood,
320 Thy father’s subjects and thy countrymen,
Thy streets strewed with dissevered joints of men
And wounded bodies gasping yet for life,
But most accurst 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,
330 That stamped on others with their thund’ring hoofs,
When all their riders charged 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?
[She sees the bodies of BAJAZETH and ZABINA.]
But see, another bloody spectacle!
Ah, wretched eyes, the enemies of my heart,
340 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 enforced,
And ruthless cruelty of Tamburlaine.
ZENOCRATE
Earth, cast up fountains from thy 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,
350 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,
360 And yet wouldst shun the wavering turns of war,
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 pursued
Be equally against his life incensed
In this great Turk and hapless emperess!
And pardon me that was not moved with ruth
370 To see them live so long in misery.
Ah, what may chance to thee, Zenocrate?
ANIPPE
Madam, content yourself, and be resolved
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,] a messenger.
ZENOCRATE
What other heavy news now brings Philemus?
PHILEMUS
Madam, your father and th’Arabian king,
The first affecter of your excellence,
380 Comes now as Turnus ‘gainst Aeneas did,
Armèd with lance into th’Egyptian fields,
Ready for battle ‘gainst my lord the king.
ZENOCRATE
Now shame and duty, love and fear, presents
A thousand sorrows to my martyred soul.
Whom should I wish the fatal victory,
When my poor pleasures are divided thus
And racked by duty from my cursèd heart?
My father and my first betrothèd love
Must fight against my life and present love,
Wherein the change I use condemns my faith
390 And makes my deeds infamous through the world.
But as the gods, to end the Trojans’ toil,
Prevented Turnus of Lavinia
And fatally enriched Aeneas’ love,
So, for a final issue to my griefs,
To pacify my country and my love,
Must Tamburlaine, by their resistless powers,
With virtue of a gentle victory
Conclude a league of honour to my hope;
Then, as the powers divine have preordained,
400 With happy safety of my father’s life
Send like defence of fair Arabia.
They sound to the battle, and TAMBURLAINE enjoys the victory. After, [the KING OF] ARABIA enters wounded.
ARABIA
What cursèd power guides the murdering hands
Of this infamous tyrant’s soldiers,
That no escape may save their enemies,
Nor fortune keep themselves from victory?
Lie down, Arabia, wounded to the death,
And let Zenocrate’s fair eyes behold
That, as for her thou bear’st these wretched arms,
Even so for her thou diest in these arms,
410 Leaving thy blood for witness of thy love.
ZENOCRATE
Too dear a witness for such love, my lord.
Behold Zenocrate, the cursèd object
Whose fortunes never masterèd her griefs!
Behold her wounded in conceit for thee,
As much as thy fair body is for me.
ARABIA
Then shall I die with full contented heart,
Having beheld divine Zenocrate,
Whose sight with joy would take away my life,
420 As now it bringeth sweetness to my wound,
If I had not been wounded as I am.
Ah, that the deadly pangs I suffer now
Would lend an hour’s licence to my tongue
To make discourse of some sweet accidents
Have chanced thy merits in this worthless bondage,
And that I might be privy to the state
Of thy deserved contentment and thy love!
But, making now a virtue of thy sight
To drive all sorrow from my fainting soul,
430 Since death denies me further cause of joy,
Deprived of care, my heart with comfort dies,
Since thy desirèd hand shall close mine eyes.
[He dies.]
Enter TAMBURLAINE leading the SULTAN; TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, USUMCASANE [bearing a crown for ZENOCRATE], with others.
TAMBURLAINE
Come, happy father of Zenocrate,
A title higher than thy Sultan’s name.
Though my right hand have thus enthrallèd thee,
Thy princely daughter here shall set thee free;
She that hath calmed the fury of my sword,
Which had ere this been bathed in streams of blood
As vast and deep as Euphrates or Nile.
ZENOCRATE
440 O, sight thrice welcome to my joyful soul,
To see the king my father issue safe
From dangerous battle of my conquering love!
SULTAN
Well met, my only dear Zenocrate,
Though with the loss of Egypt and my crown.
TAMBURLAINE
’Twas I, my lord, that gat the victory.
And therefore grieve not at your overthrow,
Since I shall render all into your hands
And add more strength to your dominions
Than ever yet confirmed th’Egyptian crown.
The god of war resigns his room to me,
450 Meaning to make me general of the world.
Jove, viewing me in arms, looks pale and wan,
Fearing my power should pull him from his throne.
Where’er I come, the Fatal Sisters sweat,
And grisly Death, by running to and fro
To do their ceaseless homage to my sword;
And here in Afric, where it seldom rains,
Since I arrived with my triumphant host
Have swelling clouds, drawn from wide gasping wounds,
Been oft resolved in bloody purple showers –
460 A meteor that might terrify the earth
And make it quake at every drop it drinks.
Millions of souls sit on the banks of Styx,
Waiting the back return of Charon’s boat;
Hell and Elysium swarm with ghosts of men
That I have sent from sundry foughten fields
To spread my fame through hell and up to heaven.
And see, my lord, a sight of strange import:
Emperors and kings lie breathless at my feet.
The Turk and his great empress, as it seems,
470 Left to themselves while we were at the fight,
Have desperately dispatched their slavish lives.
With them Arabia too hath left his life –
All sights of power to grace my victory.
And such are objects fit for Tamburlaine,
Wherein as in a mirror may be seen
His honour, that consists in shedding blood
When men presume to manage arms with him.
SULTAN
Mighty hath God and Mahomet made thy hand,
Renownèd Tamburlaine, to whom all kings
480 Of force must yield their crowns and emperies.
And I am pleased with this my overthrow
If, as beseems a person of thy state,
Thou hast with honour used Zenocrate.
Her state and person wants no pomp, you see;
And for all blot of foul inchastity,
I record heaven, her heavenly self is clear.
Then let me find no further time to grace
Her princely temples with the Persian crown;
490 But here these kings, that on my fortunes wait,
And have been crowned for provèd worthiness
Even by this hand that shall establish them,
Shall now, adjoining all their hands with mine,
Invest her here my queen of Persia.
What saith the noble Sultan and Zenocrate?
SULTAN
I yield with thanks and protestations
Of endless honour to thee for her love.
TAMBURLAINE
Then doubt I not but fair Zenocrate
Will soon consent to satisfy us both.
ZENOCRATE
500 Else should I much forget myself, my lord.
THERIDAMAS
Then let us set the crown upon her head,
That long hath lingered for so high a seat.
TECHELLES
My hand is ready to perform the deed,
For now her marriage time shall work us rest.
USUMCASANE
And here’s the crown, my lord. Help set it on.
TAMBURLAINE
Then sit thou down, divine Zenocrate.
And here we crown thee queen of Persia
And all the kingdoms and dominions
That late the power of Tamburlaine subdued.
510 As Juno, when the giants were suppressed,
That darted mountains at her brother Jove,
So looks my love, shadowing in her brows
Triumphs and trophies for my victories;
Or, as Latona’s daughter, bent to arms,
Adding more courage to my conquering mind.
To gratify thee, sweet Zenocrate,
Egyptians, Moors, and men of Asia,
From Barbary unto the Western Indie,
Shall pay a yearly tribute to thy sire,
And from the bounds of Afric to the banks
520 Of Ganges shall his mighty arm extend.
And now, my lords and loving followers,
That purchased kingdoms by your martial deeds,
Cast off your armour, put on scarlet robes,
Mount up your royal places of estate,
Environèd with troops of noble men,
And there make laws to rule your provinces.
Hang up your weapons on Alcides’ post,
For Tamburlaine takes truce with all the world.
[To ZENOCRATE]
Thy first betrothèd love, Arabia,
530 Shall we with honour, as beseems, entomb,
With this great Turk and his fair emperess.
Then after all these solemn exequies,
We will our celebrated rites of marriage solemnize.
[Exeunt.]