milk-white harts, fiery dragons, the ugly monster Death - some more Tamburlaine

The first character we see in Tamburlaine the Great is the king of Persia, but he lacks “a great and thundering speech,” so he is soon crushed by Tamburlaine.  Great and thundering speech is his superpower.  The real-life conqueror was also a tactician of genius, but the battles in Marlowe’s plays are mostly offstage, so what we get is speech.  Tamburlaine declares what will happen and then it does, although his terms are more metaphorical.  Here he is wooing the princess he has just captured, Zenocrate, promising her not the moon but just about everything else:

TAMBURLAINE: A hundred Tartars shall attend on thee,

Mounted on steeds swifter than Pegasus;

Thy garments shall be made of Median silk,

Enchas’d with precious jewels of mine own,

More rich and valorous than Zenocrate’s;

With milk-white harts upon an ivory sled

Thou shalt be drawn amidst the frozen pools,

And scale the icy mountains’ lofty tops,

Which with thy beauty will be soon resolv’d.  (Part I, I.2, 114)

We are at the beginning of the play, when Tamburlaine is merely a successful bandit, so those harts and that sled are particularly fanciful.  Zenocrate never does get them, but this is how Tamburlaine thinks about everything.  He is always talking about what will happen.  In another play this might be a sign of his hubris which will eventually do him in.  Not in this one!  His imagery is exaggerated, but not his deeds.

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.  (Part II, IV.1, 230-1)

The “peasants” he is addressing are the last set of kings and emperors he has crushed who will next be seen, in one of the play’s astounding bits if pure theater, dragging Tamburlaine around the stage in a chariot, bits in their mouths.  Tamburlaine has also just murdered one of his sons, onstage, for playing cards during a battle.  That is what I mean when I say the battles are offstage.  Onstage, we watch this character play cards with his servant.

Anyway, Tamburlaine:

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,

Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven,

Run tilting round the firmament,

And break their burning lances in the air,

For honour of my wondrous victories.  (Pt. II, IV.i, 232)

This is the pure Marlovian theme again, where the motivation is power, but power to destroy.

In the last post I claimed that Tamburlaine “develops” in Part II; this is what I mean.  His metaphors become more cosmic and grandiose, more meteors and heavens, “flying dragons, lightning, fearful thunder-claps” (Pt. II, III.2, 211), as he begins to believe – or as I realize he has always believed – that he is an avatar of divine power, a force he calls “Jove,” sent to earth to overthrow kings, empires, and religions.

Part I has a terrifying scene where a group of Damascene women plead for mercy from Tamburlaine.  He shows them his sword.  What do you see?  “Nothing but fear and fatal steel, my lord.”

TAMBURLAINE:  Your fearful minds are thick and misty, then,

For there sits Death; there sits imperious Death,

Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.  (Pt. I, V.2, 165-6)

He orders the slaughter of the women – “charge these dames, and shew my servant Death.”

Meant as metaphor, perhaps, but decades later, in Part II, sick and old, I take Tamburlaine at his word:

See, where my slave, the ugly monster Death,

Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,

Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart,

Who flies away at every glance I give,

And, when I look away, comes stealing on!

Villain, away, and hie thee to the field!

I and mine army come to load thy bark

With souls of thousand mangled carcasses.

Look, where he goes!  But, see, he comes again,

Because I stay!  Techelles, let us march,

And weary Death with bearing souls to hell.  (V.3, 251-2)

But the days of slaughter are over.  Just one more soul for hell.  I did not really need that whole passage here, but it is so good, and obviously huge fun for an actor.

Let’s see.  It is Part II where Marlowe really begins to pour out the place names.  Like Milton eighty years later, he loves the poetic effect of exotic, multi-syllable names.  The scene where Tamburlaine explains siegecraft to his sons is historically curious.  The scene where Tamburlaine has a gigantic map brought on stage to show his conquests is really curious.

Next week – in a few days – I will move on to The Spanish Tragedy, utterly different, poetically, dramatically.  Then two weeks after that I will be back to Marlowe, to The Jew of Malta.