{"id":3455,"date":"2005-08-09T10:18:01","date_gmt":"2005-08-09T14:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3455"},"modified":"2023-08-17T07:42:20","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:42:20","slug":"the-books-tamburlaine-christopher-marlowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3455","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cTamburlaine\u201d (Christopher Marlowe)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next script on my script shelf<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"Tamburlaine.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\nTamburlaine the Great<\/a>\"\" by the marvelous Christopher Marlowe.<\/p>\n

Marlowe fascinates, intrigues. There’s a new biography of him out, and I want to read it.<\/p>\n

Here’s an excerpt from Act IV, scene 2 of his magnificent work Tamburlaine<\/i>. I just love that last speech of Tamburlaine’s. The imagery! The language!<\/p>\n

… wrapped in the bowels of a freezing cloud …<\/p>\n

…when the sky shall wax as red as blood,
\nIt shall be said I made it red myself…<\/p>\n

Amazing.<\/p>\n

EXCERPT FROM Tamburlaine the Great: Christopher Marlowe (Revels Student Editions MUP)<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Christopher Marlowe.<\/b><\/p>\n

Enter Tamburlaine, Techelles, Theridamas, Usumcasane, Zenocrate, Anippe, two Moores drawing Bajazeth in a cage, and Zabina following him.<\/i><\/p>\n

TAMBURLAINE
\nBring out my footstool.<\/p>\n

[They take BAJAZETH out of the cage.]<\/i><\/p>\n

BAJAZETH
\nYe holy priests of heavenly Mahomet,
\nThat, sacrificing, slice and cut your flesh,
\nStaining his altars with your purple blood,
\nMake heaven to frown, and every fixed star
\nTo suck up poison from the moorish fens,
\nAnd pour it in this glorious tyrant’s throat!<\/p>\n

TAMBURLAINE
\nThe chiefest god, first mover of that sphere
\nEnchas’d with thousands ever-shining lamps,
\nWill sooner burn the glorious frame of heaven
\nThan it should so conspire my overthrow.
\nBut, villain, thou that wishest this to me,
\nFall prostrate on the low disdainful earth,
\nAnd be the footstool of great Tamburlaine,
\nThat I may rise into my royal throne.<\/p>\n

BAJAZETH
\nFirst shalt thou rip my bowels with thy sword,
\nAnd sacrifice my heart to death and hell,
\nBefore I yield to such a slavery.<\/p>\n

TAMBURLAINE
\nBase villain, vassal, slave to Tamburlaine,
\nUnworthy to embrace or touch the ground
\nThat bears the honour of my royal weight;
\nStoop, villain, stoop! stoop; for so he bids
\nThat may command thee piecemeal to be torn,
\nOr scatter’d like the lofty cedar-trees
\nStruck with the voice of thundering Jupiter.<\/p>\n

BAJAZETH
\nThen, as I look down to the damned fiends,
\nFiends, look on me! and thou, dread god of hell,
\nWith ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth,
\nAnd make it swallow both of us at once!<\/p>\n

[TAMBURLAINE gets up on him into his chair.]<\/i><\/p>\n

TAMBURLAINE
\nNow clear the triple region of the air,
\nAnd let the Majesty of Heaven behold
\nTheir scourge and terror tread on emperors.
\nSmile, stars that reign’d at my nativity,
\nAnd dim the brightness of your neighbour lamps;
\nDisdain to borrow light of Cynthia!
\nFor I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth,
\nFirst rising in the east with mild aspect,
\nBut fixed now in the meridian line,
\nWill send up fire to your turning spheres,
\nAnd cause the sun to borrow light of you.
\nMy sword struck fire from his coat of steel,
\nEven in Bithynia, when I took this Turk;
\nAs when a fiery exhalation,
\nWrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud,
\nFighting for passage, make[s] the welkin crack,
\nAnd casts a flash of lightning to the earth:
\nBut, ere I march to wealthy Persia,
\nOr leave Damascus and th’ Egyptian fields,
\nAs was the fame of Clymene’s brain-sick son
\nThat almost brent the axle-tree of heaven,
\nSo shall our swords, our lances, and our shot
\nFill all the air with fiery meteors;
\nThen, when the sky shall wax as red as blood,
\nIt shall be said I made it red myself,
\nTo make me think of naught but blood and war.<\/p>\n

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