Printed by and for A. M., and sold by the Booksellers of London

Notes, Explanatory and Illustrative.

Tamburlaine the Great,

PARTS I. & II.

Two editions of these Plays were published during the life-time of Marlowe. I. Quarto, 1590.

Tamburlaine the Great. Who, from a Scythian Shephearde by his rare and woonderfull Conquests, became a most puissant and mightye Monarque. And, for his tyranny, and terrour in Warre) was tearmed, The Scourge of God. Deuided into two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed vpon Stages in the Citie of London. By the right honourable the Lord Admyrall, his seruauntes. Now first, and newlie published. London. Printed by Richard Ihones: at the signe of the Rose and Crowne neere Holborne Bridge. 1590. 4to.

[This edition is only known by two leaves, the title and the address to the reader, which are pasted into a copy of the 4to of 1605, preserved at Bridgewater House.]

II. Octavo, 1590. The general title is the same as No. 1. The half-title of the &cond Part is

With his

The Second Part of the bloody Conquests of mighty Tamburlaine. impassionate fury, for the death of his Lady and loue faire Zenocrate; his fourme of exhortacion and discipline to his three sons, with the maner of his own death.

[Of this edition two copies are found in our public libraries; Garrick's at the British Museum, and Malone's in the Bodleian. Mr. Dyce and Mr. W. C. Hazlitt vary slightly in their descriptions of them, but the discrepancies would perhaps vanish if there was an opportunity of placing the volumes side by side.]

The Printer's address is given from the Octavo Edition, 1592.

TO THE GENTLEMEN READERS AND OTHERS THAT TAKE PLEASURE IN READING HISTORIES.

GENTLEMEN and courteous readers whosoever : I have here published in print, for your sakes, the two tragical discourses of the Scythian shepherd Tamburlaine, that became so great a conqueror and so mighty a monarch. My hope is, that they will be now no less acceptable unto you to read after your serious affairs and studies than they have been lately delightful for many of you to see when the same were shewed in London upon stages. I have purposely omitted and left out some fond and frivolous gestures, digressing, and, in my poor opinion, far unmeet for the matter, which I thought might seem more tedious unto the wise than any way else to be regarded, though haply they have been of some vain-conceited fondlings greatly gaped at, what time they were shewed upon the stage in their graced deformities: nevertheless now to be mixtured in print with such matter of worth, it would prove a great disgrace to so honourable and stately a history. Great folly were it in me to commend unto your wisdoms either the eloquence of the author that writ them or the worthiness of the matter itself. I therefore leave unto your learned censures both the one and the other, and myself the poor printer of the

unto your most courteous and favourable protection; which if you vouchsafe to accept, you shall evermore bind me to employ what travail and service I can to the advancing and pleasuring of your excellent degree.

Yours, most humble at commandment,

R[ichard] J[ones], Printer.

P. I. Prologue. From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits, &c. &c. Mr. Collier attaches great importance to these words, and regards them as the death knell of rhyme and clownish conceits.

P. 2 b.

How now, my lord, what mated and amazed.

Mated is humbled, from the French verb mater. It is still preserved in check-mate.

P. 26.

To pass to care.

I pass not for his threats.

Bradford the Martyr says, "We have sinned so many ten-times as we have hair of our heads and beards, yet pass not. '

P. 3a.

Now sit and laugh our regiment to scorn.

Regiment was formerly used for rule, authority. In 1558 John Knox wrote a book called "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regimen of Women."

P. 3 a.

And that which might resolve me into tears.

Resolve was much more frequently used than dissolve.-See Hamlet's Soliloquy.

P. 3a.

We in the name of other Persian states.

States means here persons of high estate, as opposed to commons.

Malice is employed as a verb by Surrey, Spenser, Daniel, Jonson, &c., meaning bear malice against.

P. 36.

Investiture. Either word is awkward to pronounce.

P. 36.

Intending your investion so near.

To injury or suppress your worthy title.

The use of this word as a verb was not uncommon. Nares quotes Danet's Comines, 'princes should take great heed how they injurie any man.'

P. 36.

Who, travelling with these my uncle's lords,
To Memphis from his country of Media.

Mr. Dyce remarks that in these lines as previously printed there is "evidently some corruption." I have ventured to give them as above. They formerly stood

P. 4a.

Who, travelling with these Median Lords,

To Memphis from my uncle's country of Media.

Not to be estimated.

P. 46.

Of this success and loss unvalued.

Milton uses unremoved for irremovable.

More rich and valurous than Zenocrates.

A more poetical form than valuable; as valure was of value.

P. 5a. In every part exceeding brave and rich—and P. 5 b. (last line). Gaily attired. In Green's Tu Quoque we have

P. 5 a.

"For I have gold and therefore will be brave."

Stay ask a parle first.

A more poetical form of parley, with the advantage of sounding as either one syllable or two at discretion.

Mr. Dyce invariably prints this word as renowmed, which appears to have been Marlowe's way of spelling it; but the sound is awkward, and hardly worth preserving, except in a note.

P. 64

And christian merchants, that with Russian stems
Plough up huge furrows in the Caspian sea,
Shall vail to us as lords of all the lake.

Merchants stands for merchant-men: stems means prows, but we still talk of "from stem to stern," and of "stemming the tide." Marlowe was thinking of his native Cinque Port country and the narrow seas, when he spoke of "vailing," i.e., lowering the top sails (not merely the flags, as Mr. Dyce says) in token of respect. The object was that they should pull up to a certain extent, as well as make their

bow.

A pearl, more worth than all the world, is placed.

Pitch was the height to which a falcon soared, and thence height in general. Here it means the shoulders of Tamburlaine, the "pearl" being his head.

This reading belongs to Mr. Dyce. Of the old editions the octavo gave,

His arms and fingers long and snowy,

and the quarto,

His armès long, his fingers snowy-white.

And so, if I had not found Marlowe using the word sinewy elsewhere, I should have been inclined to leave it. Vandyck always drew his knights and nobles with hands such as the quarto describes.

P. 7 a.

Though strait the passage and the port be made.

The gates of Edinburgh are at this day called the ports, and we still talk of a sallyport.

Fair must here be pronounced as a dissyllable, a liberty frequently taken, apparently quite unconsciously, by the old dramatists. Just as Scott's ear detected nothing unusual in his line,

Exalt the unicorn's horn.

But the burr of the Borderer puts the extra syllable after the r, as Unicor-run, whereas the Elizabethan practice seems to have been to place it in front as fai-er.

Scald originally signified scaly-headed, or scabby-headed, and was thence used as a general term of contempt. In the authorized version of the Bible the word scall (from which scald is derived) occurs twelve times in eight consecutive verses of Leviticus.

P. 8 a.

And make him false his faith unto his king.

"She falsed her faith, and brake her wedlock's band."-Edward IV., 1636.

P. 8 a.

Scouting abroad upon these champion plains.

Marlowe always uses this form of champain.

P. 96.

Kings are clouts that every man shoots at,

Our crown the pin that thousands seek to cleave.

The clout was the mark at which archers practised; the pin was the peg which fastened it to the tree or post.

P. 10 b.

Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth.

In earth, for on earth.

P. II 4.

Mr. Dyce points out the same form in the Lord's Prayer.

I judge the purchase more important far.

Purchase was used for plunder or loot.

"They will steal anything and call it purchase."

Nares quotes Spenser to show that it was not a mere cant word, but the above line of Marlowe's would have been more to the purpose.

"Of nightly stelths and pillage severall

P. II a.

Which he had got abroad by purchas criminall.-F. Q. ii. 1.

And lose more labour than the gain will quit.

To quit-to repay-to requite.

P. 11 b.

"Enkindle all the sparks of nature

To quit this horrid act."-King Lear.

Sacks every vein and artier of my heart.

Takes by storm and pillages every artery. Mr. Mitford doubted whether the word artier was ever used in this sense, but Mr. Dyce has given a string of instances.

P. II b.

Moved me to manage arms against thy state.

Manage means to lead, to conduct in form, to make war. Prior has

"What wars I manage, and what wreaths I gain."

To tire was a term in falconry meaning to seize eagerly with the beak. It must here be pronounced as a dissyllable, like fair, in Note 7 a. See also Note 195 a.

P. 12 b.

Great kings of Barbary and my portly bassoes.

Basso was used for Bashaw or Pacha.