Tamb. Villains! these terrors and these tyrannies (If tyrannies, war's justice ye repute,)

I execute, enjoined me from above,

To scourge the pride of such as Heaven abhors;
Nor am I made arch-monarch of the world,
Crowned and invested by the hand of Jove
For deeds of bounty and nobility;

But since I exercise a greater name,

The scourge of God, and terror of the world,
I must apply myself to fit those terms,

1

In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty,
And plague such peasants as resist in 1 me,
The power of Heaven's eternal majesty.
Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane,2
Ransack the tents and the pavilions

Of these proud Turks, and take their concubines,
Making them bury this effeminate brat,
For not a common soldier shall defile

His manly fingers with so faint a boy.

Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent,
And I'll dispose them as it likes me best;
Meanwhile, take him in.

Sold. We will, my lord.

Jer. O damned monstèr!

Nay, a fiend of hell,
Whose cruelties are not so harsh as thine,
Nor yet imposed with such a bitter hate!

Orc. Revenge it, Rhadamanth and Æacus,

80

90

1 Dyce's correction (anticipated by Broughton) for "resisting" of the

old copies.

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

And let your hates, extended in his pains,
Excel the hate wherewith he pains our souls.

Treb. May never day give virtue to his eyes,
Whose sight, composed of fury and of fire,
Doth send such stern affections to his heart.

Sor. May never spirit, vein, or artier, feed The cursed substance of that cruel heart! But, wanting moisture and remorseful blood, Dry up with anger, and consume with heat.

100

Tamb. Well, bark, ye dogs; I'll bridle all your tongues,
And bind them close with bits of burnished steel,
Down to the channels of your hateful throats ;
And, with the pains my rigour shall inflict,
I'll make ye roar, that earth may echo forth
The far-resounding torments ye sustain :
As when an herd of lusty Cymbrian bulls
Run mourning round about the females' miss,2
And, stung with fury of their following,
Fill all the air with troublous bellowing;
I will, with engines never exercised,
Conquer, sack, and utterly consume
Your cities and your golden palaces ;

And, with the flames that beat against the clouds,
Incense the heavens, and make the stars to melt,
As if they were the tears of Mahomet,

For hot consumption of his country's pride;

And, till by vision or by speech I hear

120

1 8vo. "expell."-4to. "expel." I have adopted Dyce's correction. 2 Loss, absence.

Immortal Jove say "Cease, my Tamburlaine,"

I will persist, a terror to the world,

Making the meteors (that, like armèd men,
Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven),
Run tilting round about the firmament,
And break their burning lances in the air,
For honour of my wondrous victories.

Come, bring them in to our pavilion.

SCENE III.

OLYMPIA discovered alone.

130

[Exeunt.

Olym. Distressed Olympia, whose weeping eyes Since thy arrival here behold no sun,

But closed within the compass of a

1 tent

Hath stained thy cheeks, and made thee look like death, Devise some means to rid thee of thy life,

Rather than yield to his detested suit,

Whose drift is only to dishonour thee;

And since this earth, dewed with thy brinish tears,
Affords no herbs whose taste may poison thee,
Nor yet this air, beat often with thy sighs,
Contagious smells and vapours to infect thee,
Nor thy close cave a sword to murder thee;
Let this invention be the instrument.

Enter THERIDAMUS.

Ther. Well met, Olympia; I sought thee in my tent, But when I saw the place obscure and dark,

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

10

Which with thy beauty thou was wont to light,
Enraged, I ran about the fields for thee,
Supposing amorous Jove had sent his son,
The winged Hermes, to convey thee hence;
But now I find thee, and that fear is past.
Tell me, Olympia, wilt thou grant my suit?

Olym. My lord and husband's death, with my sweet

son's,

(With whom I buried all affections

Save grief and sorrow, which torment my heart,)
Forbid my mind to entertain a thought

That tends to love, but meditate on death,

A fitter subject for a pensive soul.

Ther. Olympia, pity him, in whom thy looks
Have greater operation and more force
Than Cynthia's in the watery wilderness,
For with thy view my joys are at the full,'

And ebb again as thou departest from me.

Olym. Ah, pity me, my lord! and draw your
sword,

Making a passage for my troubled soul,
Which beats against this prison to get out,
And meet my husband and my loving son.

Ther. Nothing but still thy husband and thy son!
Leave this, my love, and listen more to me.
Thou shalt be stately queen of fair Argier;
And clothed in costly cloth of massy gold,
Upon the marble turrets of my court
Sit like to Venus in her chair of state,
Commanding all thy princely eye desires;

20

30

40

And I will cast off arms to sit with thee,

Spending my life in sweet discourse of love.

Olym. No such discourse is pleasant in mine ears,
But that where every period ends with death,
And every line begins with death again.

I cannot love, to be an emperess.

Ther. Nay, lady, then, if nothing will prevail,
I'll use some other means to make ye yield :
Such is the sudden fury of my love,

I must and will be pleased, and you shall yield:
Come to the tent again.

50

Olym. Stay now, my lord; and, will you save my honour,

I'll give your grace a present of such price,

As all the world cannot afford the like.

Ther. What is it?

Olym. An ointment which a cunning alchymist,

Distilled from the purest balsamum

And simplest extracts of all minerals,

In which the essential form of marble stone,

Tempered by science metaphysical,

And spells of magic from the mouths 2 of spirits,
With which if you but 'noint your tender skin,

60

Nor pistols, sword, nor lance, can pierce your flesh. Ther. Why, madam, think you to mock me thus palpably?

1 So 8vo.-4to. "Stay, good my lord, if you will."

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