Act IV, Scene i

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	5
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
Will send a deadly lightning to his heart.	10
AMYRAS
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,	15
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 scar 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	25
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
Nor care for blood when wine will quench my thirst.	30
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.	35
’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
You will not go then?	40
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	45
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,
My wisdom shall excuse my cowardice:	50
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.	55
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.
CALYPHAS
Come, thou and I will go to cards to drive away the	60
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.	65
They play [in the 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.
PERDICAS
Such a fear, my lord, would never make ye retire.	70
CALYPHAS
I would my father would let 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 [OF NATOLIA, JERUSALEM, TREBIZON, and SORIA; and SOLDIERS]
TAMBURLAINE
See now, ye slaves, my children stoops your pride	75
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,
And tickle not your spirits with desire
Still to be trained in arms and chivalry?	80
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,	85
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,
But traitor to my name and majesty?
He goes in [the tent] and brings [CALYPHAS] out
Image of sloth and picture of a slave,	90
The obloquy and scorn of my renown,
How may my heart, thus fired 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?	95
THERIDAMAS
Yet pardon him I pray your majesty.
TECHELLES, USUMCASANE
Let all of us entreat your highness’ pardon.
[They kneel]
TAMBURLAINE
Stand up, ye base unworthy soldiers,
Know ye not yet the argument of arms?
AMYRAS
Good my lord, let him be forgiven for once	100
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 breathed first
And joyed the fire of this martial flesh,	105
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 distainèd brows.
Here Jove, receive his fainting soul again,	110
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,	115
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.
[Stabs CALYPHAS]
By Mahomet, thy mighty friend, I swear,	120
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:	125
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,
Clothed with a pitchy cloud for being seen.	130
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	135
Approve the difference ‘twixt himself and you.
ORCANES
Thou showest the difference ‘twixt ourselves and thee
In this thy barbarous damnèd tyranny.
KING OF JERUSALEM
Thy victories are grown so violent
That shortly heaven, filled with the meteors	140
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	145
(If tyrannies war’s justice ye repute)
I execute, enjoined me from above,
To scourge the pride of such as heaven abhors;
Nor am I made arch-monarch of the world,
Crowned and invested by the hand of Jove,	150
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,	155
And plague such peasants as resist in me
The power of heaven’s eternal majesty.
Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane,
Ransack the tents and the pavilions
Of these proud Turks and take their concubines,	160
Making 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.	165
Meanwhile take him in.
SOLDIERS                        We will my lord.
[Exeunt SOLDIERS with the body of CALYPHAS]
KING OF JERUSALEM
O damnèd monster, nay a fiend of hell,
Whose cruelties are not so harsh as thine,
Nor yet imposed with such a bitter hate!
ORCANES
Revenge it, Rhadamanth and Aeacus,	170
And let your hates extended in his pains
Expel the hate wherewith he pains our souls!
KING OF TREBIZON
May never day give virtue to his eyes,
Whose sight composed of fury and of fire
Doth send such stern affections to his heart!	175
KING OF SORIA
May never spirit, vein, or artier feed
The cursèd substance of that cruel heart,
But, wanting moisture and remorseful blood,
Dry up with anger and consume with heat!
TAMBURLAINE
Well, bark ye dogs. I’ll bridle all your tongues	180
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,	185
As when an herd of lusty Cimbrian bulls
Run mourning round about the females’ miss,
And stung with fury of their following,
Fill all the air with troublous bellowing.
I will with engines never exercised	190
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	195
For hot consumption of his country’s pride.
And till by vision or by speech I hear
Immortal Jove say ‘Cease, my Tamburlaine,’
I will persist a terror to the world,
Making the meteors, that like armed men	200
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	205