Tamburlaine the Great, Part 2

Before talking about the play, I must mention some characters: 

- Tamburlaine and Zenocrate have 3 sons: Calyphas, Amyras, Celebinus. Calyphas is the black sheep.

- Bajazeth, the Emperor of Turkey who gets captured by Tamburlaine and kills himself in Part 1, also has 3 sons with his wife Zabina, but only one of them appears in Part 2 and that’s Callapine. 

For now you don’t really need to know the rest (but then you probably wouldn’t remember them whilst reading the play anyway). 

1/ Part 1 is about Tamburlaine’s rise to power. Part 2 is about Tamburlaine in power. The interesting thing I’ve noted is that in Part 2, Tamburlaine is somewhat reduced—he doesn’t appear till Act 1 scene 4, and for a large part of the play isn’t really dominant.  

2/ Having a greater foe in Tamburlaine, Orcanes (King of Natolia) declares a truce with Sigismund (King of Hungary)—Sigismund swears by Christ and Orcanes swears by Mahomet. 

But soon Sigismund breaks his word, persuaded by the peers of Hungary: 

“BALDWIN 

No whit my lord: for with such infidels,

In whom no faith nor true religion rests,

We are not bound to those accomplishments,

The holy laws of Christendom enjoin…” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

When the news of invasion comes, Orcanes’s reaction is interesting: 

“ORCANES

Can there be such deceit in Christians,

Or treason in the fleshy heart of man, 

Whose shape is figure of the highest God?

Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say,

But in their deeds deny him for their Christ:

If he be son to everlasting Jove,

And hath the power of his outstretched arm,

If he be jealous of his name and honour,

As is our holy prophet Mahomet,

Take here these papers as our sacrifice

And witness of thy servant’s perjury.

[…] Thou Christ that art esteemed omnipotent,

If thou wilt prove thyself a perfect God,

Worthy the worship of all faithful hearts,

Be now revenged upon this traitor’s soul,

And make the power I have left behind

(To little to defend our guiltless lives) 

Sufficient to discomfort and confound

The trustless force of these false Christians,

To arms, my lords, on Christ still let us cry:

If there be Christ, we shall have victory.” 

(Act 2 scene 2) 

Is that not a curious speech? Here is a Muslim praying to the Christian God.

(It would even be more interesting if Marlowe was an atheist as people say). 

3/ One of the greatest scenes in the play is Act 2 scene 4, when Zenocrate is in her deathbed. I’m picking out one passage:  

“TAMBURLAINE 

[…] Her sacred beauty had enchanted heaven,

And had she lived before the siege of Troy, 

Helen, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms,

And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,

Had not been named in Homer’s Iliads:

Her name had been in every line he wrote:

Or had those wanton poets, for whose birth

Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her,

Nor Lesbia, nor Corinna had been named,

Zenocrate had been the argument

Of every epigram or elegy.” 

(Act 2 scene 4) 

Helen of Troy with the image of 1000 ships also appears in one of the most famous speeches in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. 

“FAUSTUS 

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium—

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. —

[kisses her]

Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies! —

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena…” 

To go back to the scene in Tamburlaine, Part 2, it is a moving scene. 

“THERIDAMAS

Ah good my lord be patient, she is dead,

And all this raging cannot make her live.

If words might serve, our voice hath rent the air,

If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth:

If grief, our murdered hearts have strained forth blood.

Nothing prevails, for she is dead my lord. 

TAMBURLAINE

For she is dead? Thy words do pierce my soul:

Ah sweet Theridamas, say no more,

Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives,

And feed my mind that dies for want of her…” 

(Act 2 scene 4) 

Marlowe depicts Tamburlaine as a brutal, ruthless warmonger but also gives him a softer side, a loving side. The real Timur, according to Wikipedia, has 43 wives and consorts; Tamburlaine only has Zenocrate.

4/ Only occasionally is there something funny in Tamburlaine. There’s more comedy in Doctor Faustus. 

“CAPTAIN

What require you my masters? 

THERIDAMAS

Captain, that thou yield up thy hold to us. 

CAPTAIN

To you? Why, do you think me weary of it?” 

(Act 3 scene 3) 

5/ Calyphas, as I said, is the black sheep—whilst Amyras and Celebinus prepare to join battle with his father Tamburlaine against Callapine and others, Calyphas wants to chill in his tent.  

“CALYPHAS

Take you the honour, I will take my ease,

My wisdom shall excuse my cowardice…” 

(Act 4 scene 1)

That makes me think of one of Hamlet’s soliloquies: 

“HAMLET 

[…] Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’ event—

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward…” 

(Act 4 scene 4)

(my emphasis) 

Both speeches are spoken whilst a war is going on in the background. 

Before writing this blog post, I created for myself the challenge of not mentioning Shakespeare—after over 800 words, I have failed, so might as well mention that Shakespeare’s Ancient Pistol seems to be a parody of the bombastic, self-dramatising heroes of Marlowe’s plays, especially Tamburlaine. I mean: 

“PISTOL

What! Shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue? 

[snatches up his sword]

Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!

Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds

Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!” 

(Henry IV, Part 2, Act 2 scene 4) 

The Fate sisters are also mentioned in Tamburlaine. You get the idea, but let’s look at one more, from earlier:  

“PISTOL 

These be good humors, indeed! Shall pack-horses 

And hollow pampered jades of Asia,

Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,

Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,

And Trojan Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with

King Cerberus, and let the welkin roar

Shall we fall foul for toys?”

(ibid.) 

That is clearly a parody of a speech by Tamburlaine, when he’s riding a chariot drawn by his new captives: 

“TAMBURLAINE

Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia: 

What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 

And have so proud a chariot at your heels,

And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine,

But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you,

To Byron here, where thus I honour you?

The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,

And blow the morning from their nostrils, 

Making their fiery gait above the clouds,

Are not so honoured in their governor,

As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine…” 

(Tamburlaine, Part 2, Act 4 scene 3) 

6/ Speaking of the chariot, let’s look at Tamburlaine’s threat to Callapine and his gang: 

“TAMBURLAINE

[…] But as for you, viceroy, you shall have bits,

And harnessed like my horses, draw my coach:

And when ye stay, be lashed with whips of wire:

I’ll have you learn to feed on provender

And in a stable lie upon the planks.” 

(Act 3 scene 5) 

We know Tamburlaine likes treating his enemies like animals (having previously put Bajazeth in a cage and fed him scraps) so there’s no surprise, but the threat curiously echoes Callapine’s earlier promise to Almeda when he, then Tamburlaine’s prisoner, tries to convince Almeda to help him escape: 

“CALLAPINE 

[…] With naked negroes shall thy coach be drawn,

And as thou rid’st in triumph through the streets,

The pavement underneath thy chariot wheels

With Turkey carpets shall be covered…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

7/ The final scene may have different interpretations: Is Tamburlaine, the man who calls himself the scourge of God and terror of the world, defeated by illness and death at last? Or is he punished for burning the Koran? 

 

8/ This is how J. W. Harper sees Tamburlaine: 

“… Tamburlaine’s weakness, merely implicit before, becomes the major theme. His weakness is that while he can conquer, he cannot create, for he can work only with the material forces upon which he relies and is thus ultimately their slave rather than their master. He cannot renew life in his beloved wife, cannot create a first-born son in his own image, cannot sustain the ebbing force of his own superb organism. […] the natural man whose nature devotes itself to universal dominion is shown, in the course of nature, to be impotent.” 

(Introduction) 

He has a point.