You do dishonour to his majesty,

To think our helps will do him any good.

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Amy. What! Dar'st thou then be absent from the

field,

Knowing my father hates thy cowardice,

And oft hath warned thee to be still in field,

When he himself amidst the thickest troops
Beats down our foes, to flesh our taintless swords?
Cal. I know, sir, what it is to kill a man;
It works remorse of conscience in me;

I take no pleasure to be murderous,

Nor care for blood when wine will quench my thirst.
Cel. O cowardly boy! Fie! for shame come forth;

Thou dost dishonour manhood and thy house.

Cal. Go, go, tall1 stripling, fight you for us both, And take my other toward brother here,

For person like to prove a second Mars.

'Twill please my mind as well to hear you both
Have won a heap of honour in the field

And left your slender carcases behind,
As if I lay with you for company.

Amy. You will not go then?

Cal. You say true.

Amy. Were all the lofty mounts of Zona Mundi That fill the midst of farthest Tartary

Turned into pearl and proffered for my stay,

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1 Bold. The reader will remember Mercutio's ridicule of the fashionable term:-"The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents! By Jesu a very good blade, a very tall man.""

I would not bide the fury of my father,

When, made a victor in these haughty arms,

He comes and finds his sons have had no shares

In all the honours he proposed for us.

Cal. Take you the honour, I will take my ease; My wisdom shall excuse my cowardice.

I go into the field before I need!

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[Alarums.—AMYras and CelebINUS run in.

The bullets fly at random where they list ;
And should I go and kill a thousand men,
I were as soon rewarded with a shot,
And sooner far than he that never fights;
And should I go and do no harm nor good,
I might have harm which all the good I have,
Joined with my father's crown, would never cure.
I'll to cards. Perdicas.

Perd. Here, my lord.

Cal. Come, thou and I will go to cards to drive away the time.

60

Perd. Content, my lord; but what shall we play for? Cal. Who shall kiss the fairest of the Turk's concubines first, when my father hath conquered them.

Perd. Agreed, i'faith.

[They play.

Cal. They say I am a coward, Perdicas, and I fear as little their taratantaras, their swords or their cannons, as I do a naked lady in a net of gold, and, for fear I should be afraid, would put it off and come to bed with me.

Perd. Such a fear, my lord, would never make ye retire. Cal. I would my father would let me be put in the front of such a battle once to try my valour. [Alarms.]

What a coil they keep! I believe there will be some hurt done anon amongst them.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt. 73

Enter TAMBURLAINE, THERIDAMAS, TECHILLES, USUMCASANE, AMYRAS, and CELEBINUS, leading the Turkish Kings.

Tamb. See now, ye slaves, my children stoops1 your

pride,

And leads your bodies sheeplike to the sword.

Bring them, my boys, and tell me if the wars
Be not a life that may illustrate gods,
And tickle not your spirits with desire
Still to be trained in arms and chivalry?

Amy. Shall we let go these kings again, my lord,
To gather greater numbers 'gainst our power,
That they may say it is not chance doth this,
But matchless strength and magnanimity ?

Tamb. No, no, Amyras; tempt not fortune so:
Cherish thy valour still with fresh supplies,
And glut it not with stale and daunted foes.
But where's this coward villain, not my son,
But traitor to my name and majesty?

ΙΟ

[He goes in and brings him out.

Image of sloth and picture of a slave,
The obloquy and scorn of my renown !

How may my heart, thus firèd with mine 2 eyes,

1 Humiliate, make to stoop.

2 So 4to.-8vo. "my."

Wounded with shame and killed with discontent,
Shroud any thought may hold my striving hands
From martial justice on thy wretched soul?

Ther. Yet pardon him, I pray your majesty.

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Tech. and Usum. Let all of us entreat your highness' pardon.

Tamb. Stand up, ye base, unworthy soldiers!

Know ye not yet the argument of arms?

Amy. Good my lord, let him be forgiven for once,2

And we will force him to the field hereafter.

Tamb. Stand up, my boys, and I will teach ye arms, And what the jealousy of wars must do. O Samarcanda (where I breathed first And joyed the fire of this martial flesh), Blush, blush, fair city, at thine honour's foil,3 And shame of nature, which Jaertis' stream, Embracing thee with deepest of his love, Can never wash from thy distainèd brows! Here, Jove, receive his fainting soul again; A form not meet to give that subject essence Whose matter is the flesh of Tamburlaine; Wherein an incorporeal spirit moves, Made of the mould whereof thyself consists, Which makes me valiant, proud, ambitious, Ready to levy power against thy throne,

That I might move the turning spheres of heaven!

1 So 4to.-8vo. "nay."

2 So 4to.-8vo. "one."

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3 Soil, stain. Cunningham gives an apposite quotation from Brad. ford the martyr:-"David, that good king, had a foul foil when he committed whoredom with his faithful servant's wife, Bethsabe." • Old copies "with."

For earth and all this airy region

Cannot contain the state of Tamburlaine.
By Mahomet! thy mighty friend, I swear,
In sending to my issue such a soul,
Created of the massy dregs of earth,

The scum and tartar of the elements,

Wherein was neither courage, strength, or wit,
But folly, sloth, and damnèd idleness,
Thou hast procured a greater enemy
Than he that darted mountains at thy head,
Shaking the burthen mighty Atlas bears;
Whereat thou trembling hid'st thee in the air,
Clothed with a pitchy cloud for being seen:
And now, ye cankered curs of Asia,

That will not see the strength of Tamburlaine,
Although it shine as brightly as the sun;
Now you shall feel the strength of Tamburlaine.
And, by the state of his supremacy,

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60

[Stabs CALYPHAS.

Approve the difference 'twixt himself and you.

Orc. Thou show'st the difference 'twixt ourselves and

thee,

In this thy barbarous damnèd tyranny.

Jer. Thy victories are grown so violent, That shortly Heaven, filled with the meteors Of blood and fire thy tyrannies have made, Will pour down blood and fire on thy head,

Whose scalding drops will pierce thy seething brains, And, with our bloods, revenge our bloods1 on thee. 70

1 So 4to.-8vo. "blood."