Alarm. AMYRAS and CELEBINUS issue from the tent where CALYPHAS sits asleep.
AMYRAS
Now in their glories shine the golden crowns
Of these proud Turks, much like so many suns
That half dismay the majesty of heaven.
Now, brother, follow we our father’s sword
That flies with fury swifter than our thoughts
And cuts down armies with his conquering wings.
CELEBINUS
Call forth our lazy brother from the tent,
For, if my father miss him in the field,
Wrath kindled in the furnace of his breast
10 Will send a deadly lightning to his heart.
AMYRAS [calling into the tent]
Brother, ho! What, given so much to sleep
You cannot leave it when our enemies’ drums
And rattling cannons thunder in our ears
Our proper ruin and our father’s foil?
CALYPHAS
Away, ye fools! My father needs not me,
Nor you, in faith, but that you will be thought
More childish-valorous than manly-wise.
If half our camp should sit and sleep with me,
My father were enough to scare the foe.
You do dishonour to his majesty
20 To think our helps will do him any good.
AMYRAS
What, dar’st thou then be absent from the fight,
Knowing my father hates thy cowardice
And oft hath warned thee to be still in field,
When he himself amidst the thickest troops
Beats down our foes to flesh our taintless swords?
CALYPHAS
I know, sir, what it is to kill a man.
It works remorse of conscience in me.
I take no pleasure to be murderous,
30 Nor care for blood when wine will quench my thirst.
CELEBINUS
O cowardly boy! Fie, for shame, come forth.
Thou dost dishonour manhood and thy house.
CALYPHAS
Go, go, tall stripling, fight you for us both,
And take my other toward brother here,
For person like to prove a second Mars.
’Twill please my mind as well to hear both you
Have won a heap of honour in the field
And left your slender carcasses behind
As if I lay with you for company.
AMYRAS
40 You will not go, then?
CALYPHAS
You will not go, then?
CALYPHAS
You say true.
AMYRAS
Were all the lofty mounts of Zona Mundi
That fill the midst of farthest Tartary
Turned into pearl and proffered for my stay,
I would not bide the fury of my father
When, made a victor in these haughty arms,
He comes and finds his sons have had no shares
In all the honours he proposed for us.
CALYPHAS
Take you the honour, I will take my ease;
50 My wisdom shall excuse my cowardice.
I go into the field before I need?
Alarm, and AMYRAS and CELEBINUS run in.
The bullets fly at random where they list,
And, should I go and kill a thousand men,
I were as soon rewarded with a shot,
And sooner far than he that never fights.
And, should I go and do nor harm nor good,
I might have harm, which all the good I have,
Joined with my father’s crown, would never cure.
I’ll to cards. Perdicas!
[Enter PERDICAS.]
PERDICAS Here, my lord.
60 CALYPHAS Come, thou and I will go to cards to drive away the time.
PERDICAS Content, my lord. But what shall we play for?
CALYPHAS Who shall kiss the fairest of the Turks’ concubines
first, when my father hath conquered them.
PERDICAS Agreed, i’faith.
They play [in the open tent].
CALYPHAS They say I am a coward, Perdicas, and I fear as little
their taratantaras, their swords, or their cannons as I do a
naked lady in a net of gold, and, for fear I should be afraid,
would put it off and come to bed with me.
70 PERDICAS Such a fear, my lord, would never make ye retire.
CALYPHAS I would my father would le me be put in the front
of such a battle once, to try my valour.
Alarm.
What a coil they keep! I believe there will be some hurt done
anon amongst them.
Enter TAMBURLAINE, THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES,
USUMCASANE, AMYRAS, CELEBINUS, leading the Turkish
kings [ORCANES of Natolia, JERUSALEM, TREBIZOND,
SORIA; and SOLDIERS].
TAMBURLAINE
See now, ye slaves, my children stoops your pride
And leads your glories sheep-like to the sword.
Bring them, my boys, and tell me if the wars
Be not a life that may illustrate gods,
80 And tickle not your spirits with desire
Still to be trained in arms and chivalry?
AMYRAS
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?
TAMBURLAINE
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,
90 But traitor to my name and majesty?
He goes in [the tent] and brings him [CALYPHAS] out.
Image of sloth and picture of a slave,
The obloquy and scorn of my renown,
How may my heart, thus firàd with mine eyes,
Wounded with shame and killed with discontent,
Shroud any thought may hold my striving hands
From martial justice on thy wretched soul?
THERIDAMAS
Yet pardon him, I pray your majesty.
TECHELLES AND USUMCASANE
Let all of us entreat your highness’ pardon.
[They kneel.]
TAMBURLAINE
Stand up, ye base, unworthy soldiers!
100 Know ye not yet the argument of arms?
AMYRAS
Good my lord, let him be forgiven for once,
And we will force him to the field hereafter.
TAMBURLAINE
Stand up, my boys, and I will teach ye arms
And what the jealousy of wars must do.
O Samarcanda, where I breathàd first
And joyed the fire of this martial flesh,
Blush, blush, fair city, at thine honour’s foil
And shame of nature, which Jaertis’ stream,
Embracing thee with deepest of his love,
Can never wash from thy distainàd brows!
110 Here, Jove, receive his fainting soul again –
[He stabs CALYPHAS.]
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,
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.
120 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,
But folly, sloth, and damnèd idleness,
Thou hast procured a greater enemy
Than he that darted mountains at thy head,
Shaking the burden mighty Atlas bears,
Whereat thou, trembling, hidd’st thee in the air,
130 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,
And by the state of his supremacy
Approve the difference ’twixt himself and you.
ORCANES
Thou showest the difference ’twixt ourselves and thee,
In this thy barbarous damnèd tyranny.
JERUSALEM
Thy victories are grown so violent
140 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 bloods on thee.
TAMBURLAINE
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;
150 Nor am I made arch-monarch of the world,
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 world,
I must apply myself to fit those terms,
In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty,
And plague such peasants as resist in me
The power of heaven’s eternal majesty.
Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane
160 Ransack the tents and the pavilions
Of these proud Turks, and take their concubines.
Make them bury this effeminate brat,
For not a common soldier shall defile
His manly fingers with so faint a boy.
Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent,
And I’ll dispose them as it likes me best.
Meanwhile, take him in.
SOLDIERS We will, my lord.
[Exeunt SOLDIERS with the body of CALYPHAS.]
JERUSALEM
O damnèd monster, nay, a fiend of hell,
170 Whose cruelties are not so harsh as thine,
Nor yet imposed with such a bitter hate!
ORCANES
Revenge it, Rhadamanth and Aeacus,
And let your hates, extended in his pains,
Expel the hate wherewith he pains our souls!
TREBIZOND
May never day give virtue to his eyes,
Whose sight, composed of fury and of fire,
Doth send such stern affections to his heart!
SORIA
May never spirit, vein, or artier feed
The cursèd substance of that cruel heart,
But, wanting moisture and remorseful blood,
180 Dry up with anger and consume with heat!
TAMBURLAINE
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,
I’ll make ye roar, that earth may echo forth
The far-resounding torments ye sustain,
As when an herd of lusty Cimbrian bulls
Run mourning round about the females’ miss,
And, stung with fury of their following,
190 Fill 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,
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’,
200 I will persist a terror to the world,
Making the meteors that, like armàd men,
Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven,
Run tilting round about the firmament,
And break their burning lances in the air
For honour of my wondrous victories.
Come, bring them in to our pavilion.
Exeunt.
[Enter] OLYMPIA alone.
OLYMPIA
Distressed Olympia, whose weeping eyes
Since thy arrival here beheld no sun,
But, closed within the compass of a tent,
Hath stained thy cheeks and made thee look like death,
Devise some means to rid thee of thy life
Rather than yievld to his detested suit
Whose drift is only to dishonour thee.
And since this earth, dewed with thy brinish tears,
Affords no herbs whose taste may poison thee,
10 Nor yet this air, beat often with thy sighs,
Contagious smells and vapours to infect thee,
Nor thy close cave a sword to murder thee,
Let this invention be the instrument.
Enter THERIDAMAS.
THERIDAMAS
Well met, Olympia. I sought thee in my tent,
But, when I saw the place obscure and dark
Which with thy beauty thou wast wont to light,
Enraged, I ran about the fields for thee,
Supposing amorous Jove had sent his son,
The wingàd Hermes, to convey thee hence.
20 But now I find thee, and that fear is past.
Tell me, Olympia, wilt thou grant my suit?
OLYMPIA
My lord and husband’s death, with my sweet son’s,
With whom I buried all affections
Save grief and sorrow, which torment my heart,
Forbids my mind to entertain a thought
That tends to love, but meditate on death –
A fitter subject for a pensive soul.
THERIDAMAS
Olympia, pity him in whom thy looks
Have greater operation and more force
Than Cynthia’s in the watery wilderness,
30 For with thy view my joys are at the full,
And ebb again as thou depart’st from me.
OLYMPIA
Ah, pity me, my lord, and draw your sword,
Making a passage for my troubled soul,
Which beats against this prison to get out
And meet my husband and my loving son.
THERIDAMAS
Nothing but still thy husband and thy son?
Leave this, my love, and listen more to me.
Thou shalt be stately queen of fair Argier,
And, clothed in costly cloth of massy gold,
40 Upon the marble turrets of my court
Sit like to Venus in her chair of state,
Commanding all thy princely eye desires;
And I will cast off arms and sit with thee,
Spending my life in sweet discourse of love.
OLYMPIA
No such discourse is pleasant in mine ears
But that where every period ends with death
And every line begins with death again.
I cannot love to be an emperess.
THERIDAMAS
Nay, lady, then if nothing will prevail,
50 I’ll use some other means to make you yield.
Such is the sudden fury of my love,
I must and will be pleased, and you shall yield.
Come to the tent again.
OLYMPIA
Stay, good my lord! And, will you save my honour,
I’ll give your grace a present of such price
As all the world cannot afford the like.
THERIDAMAS What is it?
OLYMPIA
An ointment which a cunning alchemist
Distillèd from the purest balsamum
60 And simplest extracts of all minerals,
In which the essential form of marble stone,
Tempered by science metaphysical
And spells of magic from the mouths of spirits,
With which if you but ’noint your tender skin,
Nor pistol, sword, nor lance can pierce your flesh.
THERIDAMAS
Why, madam, think ye to mock me thus palpably?
OLYMPIA
To prove it, I will ’noint my naked throat,
Which when you stab, look on your weapon’s point,
70 And you shall see’t rebated with the blow.
THERIDAMAS
Why gave you not your husband some of it,
If you loved him, and it so precious?
OLYMPIA
My purpose was, my lord, to spend it so,
But was prevented by his sudden end.
And for a present easy proof hereof,
That I dissemble not, try it on me.
THERIDAMAS
I will, Olympia, and will keep it for
The richest present of this eastern world.
She anoints her throat.
OLYMPIA
Now stab, my lord, and mark your weapon’s point,
80 That will be blunted if the blow be great.
THERIDAMAS [stabs her throat]
Here then, Olympia.
What, have I slain her? Villain, stab thyself!
Cut off this arm that murderèd my love,
In whom the learned rabbis of this age
Might find as many wondrous miracles
As in the theoria of the world!
Now hell is fairer than Elysium;
A greater lamp than that bright eye of heaven
From whence the stars do borrow all their light
90 Wanders about the black circumference,
And now the damned souls are free from pain,
For every Fury gazeth on her looks.
Infernal Dis is courting of my love,
Inventing masques and stately shows for her,
Opening the doors of his rich treasury
To entertain this queen of chastity,
Whose body shall be tombed with all the pomp
The treasure of my kingdom may afford.
Exit, taking her away.
[Enter] TAMBURLAINE, drawn in his chariot by [the kings of] TREBIZOND and SORIA with bits in their mouths, reins in his left hand, in his right hand a whip, with which he scourgeth them. TECHELLES, THERIDAMASJ USUMCASANE, AMYRAS, CELEBINUS; [ORCANES, King of] Natolia and [the King of] JERUSALEM led by with five or six common SOLDIERS.
TAMBURLAINE
Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia!
What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day
And have so proud a chariot at your heels
And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine,
But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you,
To Byron here where thus I honour you?
The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven
And blow the morning from their nostrils,
Making their fiery gait above the clouds,
Are not so honoured in their governor
10 As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine.
The headstrong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed,
That King Aegeus fed with human flesh
And made so wanton that they knew their strengths,
Were not subdued with valour more divine
Than you by this unconquered arm of mine.
To make you fierce, and fit my appetite,
You shall be fed with flesh as raw as blood
And drink in pails the strongest muscadel.
20 If you can live with it, then live, and draw
My chariot swifter than the racking clouds.
If not, then die like beasts and fit for nought
But perches for the black and fatal ravens.
Thus am I right the scourge of highest Jove,
And see the figure of my dignity
By which I hold my name and majesty.
AMYRAS
Let me have coach, my lord, that I may ride
And thus be drawn with these two idle kings.
TAMBURLAINE
Thy youth forbids such ease, my kingly boy.
30 They shall tomorrow draw my chariot
While these their fellow kings may be refreshed.
ORCANES
O thou that swayest the region under earth,
And art a king as absolute as Jove,
Come as thou didst in fruitful Sicily,
Surveying all the glories of the land!
And as thou took’st the fair Proserpina,
Joying the fruit of Ceres’ garden plot,
For love, for honour, and to make her queen,
So for just hate, for shame, and to subdue
40 This proud contemner of thy dreadful power,
Come once in fury and survey his pride,
Haling him headlong to the lowest hell!
THERIDAMAS [to TAMBURLAINE]
Your majesty must get some bits for these,
To bridle their contemptuous cursing tongues
That like unruly never-broken jades
Break through the hedges of their hateful mouths
And pass their fixéd bounds exceedingly.
TECHELLES
Nay, we will break the hedges of their mouths
And pull their kicking colts out of their pastures.
Your majesty already hath devised
A mean as fit as may be to restrain
50 These coltish coach-horse tongues from blasphemy.
[CELEBINUS bridles ORCANES.]
CELEBINUS
How like you that, sir king? Why speak you not?
JERUSALEM
Ah, cruel brat, sprung from a tyrant’s loins,
How like his curséd father he begins
To practise taunts and bitter tyrannies!
TAMBURLAINE
Ay, Turk, I tell thee, this same boy is he
That must, advanced in higher pomp than this,
Rifle the kingdoms I shall leave unsacked
If Jove, esteeming me too good for earth,
60 Raise me to match the fair Aldebaran
Above the threefold astracism of heaven
Before I conquer all the triple world.
Now fetch me out the Turkish concubines.
I will prefer them for the funeral
They have bestowed on my abortive son.
The CONCUBINES are brought in.
Where are my common soldiers now that fought
So lion-like upon Asphaltis’ plains?
SOLDIERS Here, my lord.
TAMBURLAINE
Hold ye, tall soldiers. Take ye queens apiece,
70 (I mean such queens as were kings’ concubines.)
Take them. Divide them and their jewels too,
And let them equally serve all your turns.
SOLDIERS We thank your majesty.
TAMBURLAINE
Brawl not, I warn you, for your lechery,
For every man that so offends shall die.
ORCANES
Injurious tyrant, wilt thou so defame
The hateful fortunes of thy victory
To exercise upon such guiltless dames
80 The violence of thy common soldiers’ lust?
TAMBURLAINE
Live content, then, ye slaves, and meet not me
With troops of harlots at your slothful heels.
CONCUBINES
O, pity us, my lord, and save our honours!
TAMBURLAINE
Are ye not gone, ye villains, with your spoils?
They [SOLDIERS] run away with the LADIES.
JERUSALEM
O, merciless, infernal cruelty!
TAMBURLAINE
‘Save your honours’! ’Twere but time indeed,
Lost long before you knew what honour meant.
THERIDAMAS
It seems they meant to conquer us, my lord,
And make us jesting pageants for their trulls.
TAMBURLAINE
90 And now themselves shall make our pageant,
And common soldiers jest with all their trulls.
Let them take pleasure soundly in their spoils
Till we prepare our march to Babylon,
Whither we next make expedition.
TECHELLES
Let us not be idle, then, my lord,
But presently be prest to conquer it.
TAMBURLAINE
We will, Techelles. Forward, then, ye jades!
Now crouch, ye kings of greatest Asia,
And tremble when ye hear this scourge will come
100 That whips down cities and controlleth crowns,
Adding their wealth and treasure to my store.
The Euxine Sea north to Natolia,
The Terrene west, the Caspian north-north-east,
And on the south Sinus Arabicus,
Shall all be loaden with the martial spoils
We will convey with us to Persia.
Then shall my native city Samarcanda
And crystal waves of fresh Jaertis’ stream,
The pride and beauty of her princely seat,
Be famous through the furthest continents;
110 For there my palace royal shall be placed,
Whose shining turrets shall dismay the heavens
And cast the fame of Ilion’s tower to hell.
Thorough the streets with troops of conquered kings
I’ll ride in golden armour like the sun,
And in my helm a triple plume shall spring,
Spangled with diamonds dancing in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold world,
Like to an almond tree y-mounted high
Upon the lofty and celestial mount
120 Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly decked
With blooms more white than Erycina’s brows,
Whose tender blossoms tremble every one
At every little breath that thorough heaven is blown.
Then in my coach, like Saturn’s royal son,
Mounted his shining chariot gilt with fire,
And drawn with princely eagles through the path
Paved with bright crystal and enchased with stars,
When all the gods stand gazing at his pomp,
So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,
130 Until my soul, dissevered from this flesh,
Shall mount the milk-white way and meet him there.
To Babylon, my lords, to Babylon!
Exeunt.