TAMBURLAINE, PART ONE, by Christopher Marlowe (ca 1588): a difficult play to assess, but I do have thoughts about it.
Tamburlaine knows, thoroughly, utterly knows, that he will conquer the world, so he begins. When the ends of his power are served by persuasive oratory and generosity to those who follow him, he shows mercy and clemency. When the ends are served by the slaughter of innocents and the brutal humiliation of his opponents, he mows down entire populations without a second thought, and treats human beings as furniture, as caged amusements. The man seems more a drive to conquest than a human being, and this makes the play disturbing.
For this reason, the play is less about plot than about iron pageantry: a tapestry of murders, victories, humiliations dished out by a symbol of power with few human characteristics. Yet the play does does offer moments of unexpected sympathy for those caught up in Tamburlaine's path: in the fate of Bajazeth and Zabina, emperor and empress of the Turks, brutally mistreated like caged animals until they show surprising depths of love for each other; in the final words of Arabia's king, whose intended bride, Zenocrate, was captured for marriage by Tamburlaine, and who, at the moment of his death, reveals himself to have been a good man sincerely devoted to the woman who should have been his; and in the second thoughts, the hesitations, of Zenocrate herself, the one person close to Tamburlaine who argues for mercy and against mass murder. These brief glimpses of humanity stand out all the more as a contrast to the single-minded will of Tamburlaine.
The result is a troubling, repetitive play that lacks the layered characters of Shakespeare, Webster, Ford. What it offers, instead, from beginning to end, is brilliant language: the first great poetry of Elizabethan drama. Quote one passage, and you might be tempted to quote them all.
THERIDAMAS:
Before the moon renew her borrowed light,
Doubt not, my lord and gracious sovereign,
But Tamburlaine and that Tartarian rout
Shall either perish by our warlike hands
Or plead for mercy at your highness’ feet.======
TAMBURLAINE: Whom seek’st thou Persian? I am Tamburlaine.
THERIDAMAS:
[Aside] 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 vaults
And pull the triple-headed dog from hell.======
TAMBURLAINE:
Theridamas my friend, take here my hand,
Which is as much as if I swore by heaven
And called 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.======
MENAPHON:
Your majesty shall shortly have your wish
And ride in triumph through Persepolis.TAMBURLAINE:
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles?
Usumcasane and Theridamas,
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?======
TAMBURLAINE:
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair
And place himself in the empyreal heaven,
Moved me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
For all of its great poetry and stark moments of humane feeling, TAMBURLAINE, PART ONE is hardly a great play, but its place in the history of world theatre and its nagging persistence in the mind after its pages have been closed make it worth celebration.
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