Tech. No: cowards and faint-hearted runaways

Look for orations when the foe is near:

Our swords shall play the orator for us.

130

Usum. Come! let us meet them at the mountain top,1

And with a sudden and a hot alarum,

Drive all their horses headlong down the hill.

Tech. Come, let us march!

Tamb. Stay, Techelles! ask a parle first.

The Soldiers enter.

Open the mails, yet guard the treasure sure;
Lay out our golden wedges to the view,
That their reflections may amaze the Persians;
And look we friendly on them when they come;
But if they offer word or violence,

We'll fight five hundred men at arms to one,
Before we part with our possession.

And 'gainst the general we will lift our swords,
And either lanch 3 his greedy thirsting throat,
Or take him prisoner, and his chain shall serve
For manacles, till he be ransomed home.

140

Tech. I hear them come; shall we encounter them? Tamb. Keep all your standings and not stir a foot, Myself will bide the danger of the brunt.

Enter THERIDamas and others.

Ther. Where is this Scythian Tamburlaine?

1 So 4to.-8vo. "mountain foot,"

Bags or trunks (Fr. malie).

So 8vo. Marlowe uses "'lance" and "lanch" indifferently.

150

Tamb. Whom seek'st thou, Persian ?—I am Tambur

laine.

Ther. Tamburlaine !—

A Scythian shepherd so embellished

With nature's pride and richest furniture !

His looks do menace Heaven and dare the gods:
His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth,

As if he now devised some stratagem,

Or meant to pierce Avernus' darksome vauts'
To pull the triple-headed dog from hell.

Tamb. Noble and mild this Persian seems to be,

If outward habit judge the inward man.

Tech. His deep affections make him passionate. Tamb. With what a majesty he rears his looks! In thee, thou valiant man of Persia,

I see the folly of thy emperor.

Art thou but captain of a thousand horse,
That by characters graven in thy brows,
And by thy martial face and stout aspèct,
Deserv'st to have the leading of a host!
Forsake thy king, and do but join with me,
And we will triumph over all the world;
I hold the fates bound fast in iron chains,
And with my hand turn fortune's wheel about
And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere,
Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome.
Draw forth thy sword, thou mighty man at arms,
Intending but to raze my charmed skin,

And Jove himself will stretch his hand from Heaven

1 So 8vo. In the Second Part, ii, 4, we find "vaults."

160

170

To ward the blow and shield me safe from harm.
See how he rains down heaps of gold in showers,
As if he meant to give my soldiers pay!
And as a sure and grounded argument,
That I shall be the monarch of the East,
He sends this soldan's daughter rich and brave,
To be my queen and portly emperess.

If thou wilt stay with me, renowmèd1 man,
And lead thy thousand horse with my conduct,

Besides thy share of this Egyptian prize,

180

Those thousand horse shall sweat with martial spoil 190 Of conquered kingdoms and of cities sacked;

Both we will walk upon the lofty cliffs,

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.
Both we will reign as consuls of the earth,
And mighty kings shall be our senators.
Jove sometimes maskèd in a shepherd's weed,
And by those steps that he hath scaled the heavens
May we become immortal like the gods.
Join with me now in this my mean estate,
(I call it mean because being yet obscure,
The nations far removed admire me not,)

200

1 I have retained the recognised form "renowmèd" wherever it occurs in the 8vo.

* CL, 1594 Taming of a Shrew

"Italian merchants that with Russian stems

Plough up huge furrows in the Tyrrhene main."
Merchants = merchantmen: stems = prows.

• Lower their flags.

And when my name and honour shall be spread
As far as Boreas claps his brazen wings,1

Or fair Böötes 2 sends his cheerful light,
Then shalt thou be competitor3 with me,
And sit with Tamburlaine in all his majesty.
Ther. Not Hermes, prolocutor to the gods, I
Could use persuasions more pathetical.

Tamb. Nor are Apollo's oracles more true,
Than thou shalt find my vaunts substantial.

Tech. We are his friends, and if the Persian king
Should offer present dukedoms to our state,
We think it loss to make exchange for that
We are assured of by our friend's success.

Usum. And kingdoms at the least we all expect,
Besides the honour in assurèd conquests,

When kings shall crouch unto our conquering swords
And hosts of soldiers stand amazed at us ;

When with their fearful tongues they shall confess,
These are the men that all the world admires.

210

220

Ther. What strong enchantments tice my yielding soul! These are resolvèd, noble Scythians :

But shall I prove a traitor to my king?

Tamb. No, but the trusty friend of Tamburlaine.

1 Perhaps Marlowe remembered Ovid's "Et quamvis Boreas jac tatis insonet alis."—Trist., iii. 10, L. 45.

2 8vo. "Botëes."-4to. "Boetes,"

3 I.e. sharer; as in Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 6:-"Myself in counsel his competitor."

• Old copies "Are these." The modern editors read

"What strong enchantments tice my yielding soul
To these resolvèd noble Scythians?"

Ther. Won with thy words, and conquered with thy

looks,

I yield myself, my men, and horse to thee,

To be partaker of thy good or ill,

As long as life maintains Theridamas.

Tamb. Theridamas, my friend, take here my hand, Which is as much as if I swore by Heaven,

And call'd the gods to witness of my vow.

Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine
Until our bodies turn to elements,

And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.
Techelles and Casane, welcome him!

Tech. Welcome, renowmèd Persian, to us all!
Usum. Long may Theridamas remain with us!

230

Tamb. These are my friends, in whom I more

rejoice

Than doth the king of Persia in his crown,

And by the love of Pylades and Orestes,
Whose statues1 we adore in Scythia,

Thyself and them shall never part from me
Before I crown you kings in Asia.
Make much of them, gentle Theridamas,
And they will never leave thee till the death.

240

1 So 4to.-8vo. "statutes." "As the Scythians worshipped Pylades and Orestes in temples," says the editor of 1826, "we have adopted the reading of the 4to., as being most probably the correct one." What Ovid says is—

"Mirus amor juvenum, quamvis abiere tot anni,
In Scythia magnum nunc quoque nomen habet,"
-Ex Ponto, iii, 2, 95–96.