SCENE III.

Enter TECHELLES, THERIDAMAS, and their Train. THER. Thus have we march'd northward from

Tamburlaine,

Unto the frontier port of Syria;

And this is Balsora, their chiefest hold,
Wherein is all the treasure of the land.

TECH. Then let us bring our light artillery,
Minions, Falc'nets, and Sakers, to the trench,
Filling the ditches with the walls' wide breach,
And enter in to seize upon the gold.

How say you, soldiers, shall we not?

SOLD. Yes, my lord, yes; come, let's about it. THER. But stay awhile; summon a parley, drum. It may be they will yield it quietly,

Knowing two kings, the friends to Tamburlaine,
Stand at the walls with such a mighty pow'r.

[A parley sounded.-Captain appears on the
walls, with Olympia, his wife and son.

CAPT. What require you, my masters?

THER. Captain, that thou yield up thy hold to us. CAPT. To you! Why, do you think me weary of it? TECH. Nay, captain, thou art weary of thy life, If thou withstand the friends of Tamburlaine. THER. The pioneers of Argier in Africa, Even in the cannon's face, shall raise a hill Of earth and faggots higher than the fort, And over thy Argins and cover'd ways

• Minions, Falc'nets, and Sakers. All small pieces of ordnance.

Shall play upon the bulwarks of thy hold
Vollies of ordnance, till the breach be made
That with his ruin fills up all the trench.
And when we enter in, not heav'n itself

Shall ransom thee, thy wife, and family.

TECH. Captain, these Moors shall cut the leaden pipes,

That bring fresh water to thy men and thee,
And lie in trench before thy castle walls,

That no supply of victual shall come in,

Nor

any issue forth but they shall die;

And, therefore, captain, yield it quietly.

CAPT. Were you, that are the friends of Tamburlaine,

Brothers of holy Mahomet himself,

I would not yield it; therefore do your worst:
Raise mounts, batter, intrench, and undermine,
Cut off the water, all convoys that come,
Yet I am resolute and so farewell.

[Captain, Olympia, and their son, retire from
the walls.

THER. Pioneers, away! and where I stuck the
stake,

Intrench with those dimensions I prescrib'd.
Cast up the earth towards the castle walls,
Which, till it may defend you, labour low,
And few or none shall perish by the shot.

Pio. We will, my lord.

[Exeunt Pioneers.

TECH. A hundred horse shall scout about the

plains,

A

To spy what force comes to relieve the hold.
Both we, Theridamas, will intrench our men,
And with the Jacob's staff measure the height
And distance of the castle from the trench,
That we may know if our artillery
Will carry full point blank into their castle.
THER. Then see the bringing of our ordinance
Along the trench into the battery,

Where we will have gallions of six foot broad,
To save our cannoniers from musket shot.
Betwixt which shall our ordnance thunder forth,
And with the breach's fall, smoke, fire, and dust,
The crack, the echo, and the soldier's cry,
Make deaf the air and dim the chrystal sky.

TECH. Trumpets and drums, alarum presently; And, soldiers, play the men; the hold is yours! [Exeunt.

Alarums. Re-enter the CAPTAIN, with OLYMPIA, and his SON.

OLYM. Come, good, my lord, and let us haste from hence

Along the cave that leads beyond the foe;

No hope is left to save this conquer'd hold.

CAPT. A deadly bullet, gliding through my side, Lies heavy at my heart; I cannot live.

I feel my liver pierc'd, and all my veins,
That there begin and nourish every part,
Mangled and torn, and all my entrails bath'd
In blood that straineth from their orifice.

Farewell, sweet wife! sweet son, farewell! I die! [He dies. OLYM. Death, whither art thou gone, that both

we live?

Come back again, sweet Death, and strike us both!
One minute end our days! and one sepulchre
Contain our bodies! Death, why com'st thou not?
Well, this must be the messenger for thee:
Now, ugly Death, stretch out thy sable wings,
And carry both our souls where his remains.
Tell me, sweet boy, art thou content to die?
These barb'rous Scythians, full of cruelty,
And Moors, in whom was never pity found,
Will hew us piecemeal, put us to the wheel,
And else invent some torture worse than that;
Therefore die by thy loving mother's hand,
Who gently now will lance thy iv'ry throat,
And quickly rid thee both of pain and life.
SON. Mother despatch me, or I'll kill myself;
For think you I can live and see him dead?
Give me your knife, good mother, or strike home:
The Scythians shall not tyrannize on me.
Sweet mother, strike, that I may see my father.

[She stabs him, and he dies.

OLYM. Ah, sacred Mahomet, if this be sin, Entreat a pardon of the God of heaven,

And purge my soul before it come to thee.

[She burns the bodies of her husband and son, and then attempts to kill herself.

Enter THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES, and all their Train.

THER. How now, madam, what are you doing?
OLYM. Killing myself, as I have done my son,
Whose body, with his father's, I have burnt,
Lest cruel Scythians should dismember him.
TECH. 'Twas bravely done, and, like a soldier's
wife.

Thou shalt with us to Tamburlaine the Great,
Who, when he hears how resolute thou art,

Will match thee with a viceroy or a king.
OLYM. My lord deceas'd was dearer unto me
Than any viceroy, king, or emperor;

And for his sake here will I end my days.

THER. But, lady, go with us to Tamburlaine, And thou shalt see a man, greater than Mahomet, In whose high looks is much more majesty,

Than from the concave superficies

Of Jove's vast palace, the empyreal orb,
Unto the shining bow'r where Cynthia sits,
Like lovely Thetis, in a chrystal robe;
That treadeth Fortune underneath his feet,
And makes the mighty god of arms his slave;
On whom Death and the Fatal sisters wait
With naked swords and scarlet liveries:
Before whom, mounted on a lion's back,
Rhamnusia bears a helmet full of blood,

And strews the way with brains of slaughter'd men;
By whose proud side the ugly furies run,