Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe

1/ Now this sounds more like Marlowe, though it’s an early play. 

There are some interesting phrases: “map of weather-beaten woe”, “drenched limbs”, “unweaponed thoughts”, “furrowed wealth”, “quenchless fire”, “nimble winds”, “watery billows”, etc.  

2/ Why did I decide to read Dido, Queen of Carthage when it’s not a major play by Marlowe? It’s because the story of Aeneas and Dido is my favourite part—the best part—of the Aeneid. 

However, Marlowe’s version is quite different. First of all, he complicates the plot. In the Aeneid, Dido falls in love with Aeneas, despite herself, but Aeneas has to leave for Italy because of fate, because of his sense of duty. Marlowe has to complicate the plot because his play, though short, is much longer than Virgil’s chapter, so Dido has a suitor named Iarbas and he sees Aeneas as being in his way. This of course is borrowed from the plot about Aeneas, Lavinia, and Turnus from the second half of the Aeneid. 

More importantly, Marlowe changes the characters and his play is not quite moving. Venus for example interferes even more: she transforms Cupid into Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, so as to manipulate Dido into falling in love with Aeneas—basically all the scenes between Dido and “the boy” are mere deception and manipulation. The moving scene between Dido and Anna in Virgil becomes something rather crass in Marlowe: Anna encourages Dido’s feelings for Aeneas because she herself is in love with Dido’s suitor Iarbas. 

Even Marlowe’s Dido is different: 

“AENEAS Wherefore would Dido have Aeneas stay? 

DIDO To war against my bordering enemies. 

Aneas, think not Dido is in love; 

For if that any man could conquer me, 

I had been wedded ere Aeneas came. 

See where the pictures of my suitors hang; 

And are not these as fair as fair may be?

[Showing pictures.]” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

Ridiculous.

“ANNA What if the citizens repine thereat? 

DIDO Those that dislike what Dido gives in charge, 

Command my guard to slay for their offence. 

Shall vulgar peasants storm at what I do? 

The ground is mine that gives them sustenance,

The air wherein they breathe, the water, fire, 

All that they have, their lands, their goods, their lives; 

And I, the goddess of all these, command

Aeneas ride as Carthaginian king.” 

(Act 4 scene 4) 

Dido comes across as extremely unpleasant. Hear how she talks to a servant: 

“DIDO O cursèd hag and false disassembling wretch

That slayest me with thy harsh and hellish tale! 

Thou for some pretty gift hast let him go, 

And I am thus deluded of my boy. 

Away with her to prison presently! 

[Enter ATTENDANTS.]

Traitoress too keen and cursed sorceress!” 

(Act 5 scene 1) 

Virgil’s Dido is nothing like this!

I’m not saying that a writer cannot make changes when adapting or retelling a literary work, but Marlowe’s play has none of the heartfelt passion and tenderness of the Aeneid—it doesn’t touch one’s heart—the ending doesn’t feel particularly tragic. 

The gap between Dido, Queen of Carthage and Edward II is startling. 

Edward II by Christopher Marlowe

 1/ The Greeks, once known, are seen everywhere. References to the ancient Greeks are scattered all over Marlowe’s play. 

 “QUEEN O miserable and distressed queen!

Would, when I left sweet France, and was embarked,

That charming Circe, walking on the waves,

Had changed my shape! or at the marriage day

The cup of Hymen had been full of poison!

Or with those arms, that twined about my neck,

I had been stifled, and not lived to see

The king my lord thus to abandon me.

Like frantic Juno, will I fill the earth

With ghastly murmur of my sighs and cries,

For never doted Jove on Ganymede

So much as he on cursèd Gaveston…” 

(Scene 4)

This is a moving scene. The play is about King Edward II’s obsessive relationship with his minion Gaveston and its impact on the realm—Marlowe begins the play with Gaveston and Edward, then writes about the resentment of the nobles, then lets us see that the one who suffers most is Queen Isabella—it is moving. 

Mortimer Senior also references the Greeks (and the Romans) when defending the King’s relationship with Gaveston: 

“MORTIMER SENIOR […] Thou seest by nature he is mild and calm,

And, seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston,

Let him without controlment have his will.

The mightiest kings have had their minions:

Great Alexander loved Hephaestion,

The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept,

And for Patroclus stern Achilles drooped.

And not kings only, but the wisest men:

The Roman Tully loved Octavius,

Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades.

Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible,

And promiseth as much as we can wish,

Freely enjoy that vain lightheaded earl,

For riper years will wean him from such toys.” 

(ibid.) 

Even Edward compares himself and Gaveston to Hercules and Hylas in Scene 1. 

(But then a play about a gay relationship would mention the Greeks, wouldn’t it?) 

2/ Edward II is very different from Marlowe’s other plays. Firstly, it’s about English history. Secondly, whereas his other plays tend to have a dominating character—a Machiavelli or an overreacher—pushing everyone else to the background, Edward II is a much more balanced play and has at its centre a weak king (though in the second half, Mortimer threatens to upset the balance of the play and seems like a typical Marlovian figure). It’s also a more subtle play, with characters plotting and saying things they don’t mean and switching sides.

I can see the influence of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays on Edward II, and in turn, the influence of Marlowe’s play on Shakespeare’s Richard II. 

“EDWARD Nay, then, lay violent hands upon your king:

Here, Mortimer, sit thou in Edward’s throne;

Warwick and Lancaster, wear you my crown.

Was ever king thus overruled as I?” 

(Scene 1) 

Later: 

“EDWARD My swelling heart for very anger breaks.

How oft have I been baited by these peers,

And dare not be revenged, for their power is great!

Yet, shall the crowning of these cockerels

Affright a lion? Edward, unfold thy paws,

And let their lives’-blood slake thy fury’s hunger.

If I be cruel and grow tyrannous,

Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late.” 

(Scene 6)

Edward II and Richard II both explore weak kings, favouritism, and political instability; they both raise questions about the role, power, and responsibility of the king, though I think Shakespeare goes further; Marlowe focuses more on the gay relationship between the king and Gaveston.   

About halfway through the play, Gaveston is killed; his position is then filled by Spencer, an opportunist and flatterer. 

The contrast between Gaveston and Spencer is interesting, because Marlowe lets us see that King Edward II and Gaveston love each other. The former may be an ineffectual king and the latter may be an obnoxious upstart and they both may be cruel to the Queen, but their love for each other appears to be genuine.  

“MORTIMER Why should you love him whom the world hates so?

EDWARD Because he loves me more than all the world.” 

(Scene 4) 

Marlowe does complicate things—what is the relationship between Gaveston and the king’s niece?—but he does give us Gaveston’s soliloquy at the start of the play, and in a few scenes, in Edward’s absence, Gaveston talks about him and not anyone else. It is Spencer who is like the flatterers in Richard II. 

3/ The scene in which Edward seeks refuge in a monastery is so moving. 

“EDWARD […] Stately and proud in riches and in train,

Whilom I was, powerful and full of pomp;

But what is he whom rule and empery

Have not in life or death made miserable?⁠

Come, Spenser, come, Baldock⁠, come, sit down by me;

Make trial now of that philosophy

That in our famous nurseries of arts

Thou sucked’st from Plato and from Aristotle.⁠

Father, this life contemplative is heaven.

O, that I might this life in quiet lead!...” 

(Scene 19)

In Shakespeare, there are many speeches about the burdens of being a king (King John, Henry IV…), or about the downfall of a king (Lear, Richard II…). What caught my attention was the word “whilom”—formerly, in the past—which I had never seen in Shakespeare, and possibly had never seen before. 

The abdication scene is even better, and again I can see Marlowe’s influence on Richard II. 

There are some very good lines: 

“EDWARD […] The griefs of private men are soon allayed;

But not of kings…”

(Scene 21)

This is followed by an image of “the forest deer” and “the imperial lion”—Edward refers to himself as a lion quite a few times, but he’s not much of a lion, is he? 

I like these lines from the same speech: 

“But what are kings, when regiment is gone,

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?” 

This is also good: 

“EDWARD I know not; but of this am I assured,

That death ends all, and I can die but once.” 

(ibid.) 

4/ I note something interesting Marlowe does a few times throughout the play, though I don’t know what you call these pairs of lines—thesis and antithesis? 

“KENT For he’ll complain unto the see of Rome.

GAVESTONE Let him complain unto the see of hell.” 

(Scene 1) 

“EDWARD Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer!

MORTIMER SENIOR Lay hands on that traitor Gaveston!” 

(Scene 4) 

“QUEEN [to Gaveston] Villain, ’tis thou that robb’st me of my lord.

GAVESTON Madam, ’tis you that rob me of my lord.” 

(ibid.) 

“WARWICK Saint George for England, and the barons’ right!

EDWARD Saint George for England, and King Edward’s right!” 

(Scene 12) 

“GURNEY Your passions make your dolours to increase.

EDWARD This usage makes my misery increase.” 

(Scene 23) 

“EDWARD III My lord, he is my uncle, and shall live.

MORTIMER My lord, he is your enemy, and shall die.”

(Scene 24) 

“LIGHTBORNE What means your highness to mistrust me thus? 

EDWARD What means thou to dissemble with me thus?” 

(Scene 25) 

The best wordplay in Edward II, however, is when Mortimer decides to kill Edward and wants to cover his tracks:  

“MORTIMER […] This letter, written by a friend of ours,

Contains his death, yet bids then save his life.

Reads. ‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est’,

‘Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.’

But read it thus, and that’s another sense;

‘Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est’,

‘Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.’

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go…” 

(ibid.) 

According to a post I came across, the line comes from Holinshed—sent by Adam de Orleton, not Mortimer. 

5/ In 1970, the BBC broadcast a double feature done by Prospect Theatre Company: Edward II and Richard II with Ian McKellen playing Edward and Richard, Timothy West playing Mortimer and Henry Bolingbroke, Paul Hardwick playing the Earl of Warwick and John of Gaunt, and so on. 

Both are wonderful productions—the entire cast is perfect. Ian McKellen is great, as always (I saw Richard II back in November); Timothy West has a lot more to do as Mortimer; but I especially like Diane Fletcher as she helps me understand better the character of Queen Isabella and her changes throughout the play. 

The more I think about Edward II—such a great play—the more annoyed I get with the Marlovian theory, i.e. the conspiracy theory that Marlowe faked his death and was the real Shakespeare. It’s a distraction from a much more worthwhile pursuit of rereading, rewatching, analysing, getting immersed in Shakespeare’s plays; it’s also a distraction from the brilliance of Marlowe’s actual plays when we should be celebrating and promoting Edward II and Doctor Faustus. 

If you are in the UK and have a school/ university email address, both productions are available on the ERA website. Otherwise, they’re on Youtube, though the quality is a bit lower. 

The Iliad: “rising like a dawn mist from the sea into a cloud” [update 2]

1/ The quote in the headline comes from Book 1, about Thesis, mother of Akhilleus (better known as Achilles). 

I like the comparisons and images in the Iliad: 

“From the camp 

the troops were turning out now, thick as bees 

that issue from some crevice in a rock face, 

endlessly pouring forth, to make a cluster 

and swarm on blooms of summer here and there, 

glinting and droning, busy in bright air. 

Like bees innumerable from ships and huts 

down the deep foreshore streamed those regiments 

toward the assembly ground—and Rumor blazed 

among them like a crier sent from Zeus…” 

(Book 2) 

(translated by Robert Fitzgerald) 

Reminds me of the long passage in War and Peace in which Tolstoy compares people in Moscow to bees. 

This is an even more interesting passage, as Homer piles simile upon simile, comparing the troops to different kinds of animals: 

“And as migrating birds, nation by nation, 

wild geese and arrow-throated cranes and swans, 

over Asia’s meadowland and marshes 

around the streams of Kaystrios, with giant 

flight and glorying wings keep beating down 

in tumult on that verdant land 

that echoes to their pinions, even so, 

nation by nation, from the ships and huts, 

this host debouched upon Skamander plain. 

With noise like thunder pent in earth 

under their trampling, under the horses’ hooves, 

they filled the flowering land beside Skamander, 

as countless as the leaves and blades of spring. 

So, too, like clouds of buzzing, fevered flies 

that swarm about a cattle stall in summer 

when pails are splashed with milk: so restlessly 

by thousands moved the fighters of Akhaia 

over the plain, lusting to rend the Trojans. 

But just as herdsmen easily divide 

their goats when herds have mingled in a pasture, 

so these were marshaled by their officers 

to one side and the other, forming companies 

for combat.” 

(ibid.) 

I guess that is what people call a Homeric simile. 

Here the troops are compared to other animals: 

“The Trojans were not silent: like the flocks 

that huddle countless in a rich man’s pens, 

waiting to yield white milk, and bleating loud 

continually as they hear their own lambs cry, 

just so the warcry of the Trojans rose 

through all that army—not as a single note, 

not in a single tongue, but mingled voices 

of men from many countries.” 

(Book 4) 

In the Odyssey, a lot of the comparisons are in a single phrase—“Eteóneus left the long room like an arrow”, “killed him, like an ox felled at the trough”, “her mind turning at bay, like a cornered lion/ in whom fear comes as hunters close the ring”, “the boat careered like a ball of tumbleweed/ blown on the autumn plains, but intact still”, etc—but there are also some extended similes. 

“He pushed aside the bushes, breaking off

with his great hand a single branch of olive,

whose leaves might shield him in his nakedness;

so came out rustling, like a mountain lion,

rain-drenched, wind-buffeted, but in his might at ease,

with burning eyes—who prowls among the herds

or flocks, or after game, his hungry belly

taking him near stout homesteads for his prey.

Odysseus had this look, in his rough skin

advancing on the girls with pretty braids;

and he was driven on by hunger, too…” 

(Book 6) 

(translated by Robert Fitzgerald) 

Or: 

“And Odysseus

let the bright molten tears run down his cheeks, 

weeping the way a wife mourns for her lord

on the lost field where he has gone down fighting

the day of wrath that came upon his children.

At sight of the man panting and dying there,

she slips down to enfold him, crying out;

then feels the spears, prodding her back and shoulders,

and goes bound into slavery and grief.

Piteous weeping wears away her cheeks:

but no more piteous than Odysseus’ tears,

cloaked as they were, now, from the company.” 

(Book 8) 

2/ There is something strange about reading such a foundational, influential literary work like the Iliad for the first time. You’ve known about the Trojan war from pop culture, and now see the fighting in close-up. You’ve encountered Agamemnon, Menalaos, Odysseus, Aias, Hecabe… in Athenian tragedy, and now see them—sometimes quite different—in Homer’s epics. You know Christopher Marlowe’s line “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”, and now not only meet Helen but also get a catalogue of the ships.

(The catalogue of ships reminds me of the long catalogue of armies in Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus). 

What does it say, though, that the first substantial piece of Western literature was a war story? 

3/ The gods don’t just interfere in people’s lives—they take sides in the war. 

“The whipping 

string sang, and the arrow whizzed away, 

needlesharp, vicious, flashing through the crowd. 

But, Menelaos, you were not neglected 

this time by the gods in bliss! Athena, 

Hope of Soldiers, helped you first of all, 

deflecting by an inch the missile’s flight 

so that it grazed your skin—the way a mother 

would keep a fly from settling on a child 

when he is happily asleep. […] 

Then dark blood rippled in a clouding stain 

down from the wound, as when a Mêionian  

or a Karian woman dyes clear ivory 

to be the cheekpiece of a chariot team…” 

(Book 4)

The last bit is a strange—cold—comparison. 

4/ Sometimes Homer compares one thing to multiple things in the same passage, piling simile upon simile. Sometimes he picks a single image and extends it over several lines: 

“… Think of a lion that some shepherd wounds 

but lightly as he leaps into a fold: 

the man who roused his might cannot repel him 

but dives into his shelter, while his flocks, 

abandoned, are all driven wild; in heaps 

huddled they are to lie, torn carcasses, 

before the escaping lion at one bound 

surmounts the palisade. So lion-like, 

Diomedes plunged on Trojans.”

(Book 5) 

A couple of stanzas later: 

“Next two sons 

of Dardan Priam Diomedes killed 

in one war-car: Ekhemmon and Khromios. 

Just as a lion leaps to crunch the neck 

of ox or heifer, grazing near a thicket, 

Diomedes, leaping, dragged them down 

convulsed out of their car, and took their armor, 

sending their horses to the rear.” 

(ibid.) 

The next time we see the lion image, the simile is no longer about Diomedes however, but about a Trojan who has been fighting Diomedes in the same scene: 

“With shield and spear Aineias, now on foot, 

in dread to see the Akhaians drag the dead man, 

came and bestrode him, like a lion at bay.”

(ibid.) 

This is fascinating. 

My 20 favourite plays not by Shakespeare [updated]

There was a time when pretty much all I read was novels and short stories; the plays I knew were those assigned at school or university. Then I got into Shakespeare and my favourite plays a couple of years ago were all by Shakespeare. 

But now I have got a better grasp of drama, especially classical drama, so here’s a list of favourites that aren’t by Shakespeare (listed chronologically by the dramatist’s birth year, and grouped by country): 

• The Oresteia by Aeschylus, which is actually three plays: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides 
• Prometheus Bound, attributed to Aeschylus 
• Oedipus the King 
• Antigone 
• Electra by Sophocles 
• Hippolytus 
• Hecabe 
• The Bacchae by Euripides 
• Lysistrata 
• The Frogs by Aristophanes 
• Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe 
• The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster 
• The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley 
• The Revenger’s Tragedy by Thomas Middleton or Cyril Tourneur 
• Life Is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca 
• Tartuffe 
• Don Juan 
• The Misanthrope by Molière 
• Phèdre by Jean Racine 
• The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen 

______________________________________

What can we see here? My tastes are predominantly Greek (and Shakespearean): 10 out of 20 plays are by the Athenian playwrights (or 12 out of 22 if you don’t count the Oresteia as one). Molière is another favourite. 

Only one play from the 19th century. No Goethe. No Chekhov—is that a surprise?—I struggled with his plays, having read only two, and much prefer him as a short story writer. No Oscar Wilde, simply because I haven’t read him—if “allowed” to include plays I’ve seen onscreen, I would name The Importance of Being Earnest (though it’s hard to say which play I would remove to make place for it). 

No Tennessee Williams, whom I liked at university. No one contemporary, but then the only one I know is Tom Stoppard—one day I’m going to read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which I would probably like. 

Now this list is a bit of a cheat—a list of favourite plays, by Shakespeare and other dramatists, would be much, much harder. 

Name your favourite plays. 

Update on 19/3/2026:

I would probably replace The Revenger’s Tragedy or The Changeling with Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen. Now this is a great, psychologically complex, haunting play. 

Goethe’s Faust, Part 1

I read the verse translation by Philip Wayne. 

1/ The first interesting thing to observe is that in Goethe’s play, Faust doesn’t appear first. In Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, we do have the character of Chorus introducing the main character and providing us the context, but right afterwards Marlowe brings us into Faustus’ study. That is not the case in Goethe’s play. Goethe’s Faust begins in a “meta” way—the director, the poet, and the comedian talk about the play and its writing—then we have a scene in Heaven and see Mephistopheles and his intentions before meeting Faust. That shifts the focus.   

2/ I don’t know how close the translation is, but I enjoyed it—I liked that there’s rhyme.  

“FAUST […] The spirit’s splendour, in the soul unfurled, 

Is ever stifled with a stranger stuff. 

High values, matched with good things of this world, 

Mocking recede, and seem an airy bluff. 

Our nobler veins, the true, life-giving springs, 

Are choked with all the dust of earthy things.

[…] Shall I then rank with gods? Too well I feel 

My kinship with the worm, who bores the soil, 

Who feeds on dust until the wanderer’s heel 

Gives sepulture to all his care and toil…” (p.52 in my Penguin copy)  

Faust gets the best lines, naturally: 

“… But let not mortal troubles cast their shades, 

Before this hour of sweet content has run. 

Mark, now, the glimmering in the leafy glades, 

Of dwellings gilded by the setting sun. 

Now slants the fiery god towards the west, 

Hasting away, but seeking in his round 

New life afar: I long to join his quest, 

On tireless wings uplifted from the ground. 

[…] And now at length the sun-god seems to sink, 

Yet stirs my heart with new-awakened might, 

The streams of quenchless light I long to drink, 

Before me day, and, far behind, the night, 

The heavens above me, and the waves below: 

A lovely dream, but gone with set of sun…” (p.66) 

I couldn’t help thinking however that Faust felt like it’s meant to be read more than seen. Many long speeches—like some speeches in Spanish Golden Age plays—would feel rather awkward for the stage. This is very different from Shakespeare. As I noted before in my blog post about Tirso de Molina, the long speeches in Shakespeare are either rhetoric (a character trying to persuade another character or a group), or streams of thoughts showing the character’s process of thinking. In other (pre-Ibsen, pre-Chekhov) playwrights I have read including Goethe, the long speeches are often just the playwright writing some poetry. Some speeches in Faust are indeed him doing some thinking (such as his pondering over the line “In the beginning of the Word” before Mephistopheles’s appearance), but a lot of the long speeches are basically just Goethe writing poetry. 

(A side note: it’s when you read plays that are great poetically but undramatic and unstageable that you realise how stupid it is to believe that Shakespeare, who combined such great poetic and dramatic gifts, was an aristocrat sitting at court rather than, as Shakespeare was, a theatre man). 

3/ One problem with reading Faust in translation is that I cannot see its influence—I do not know which lines and phrases have entered the German language. Another problem is that when I come across something like “the dogs of war” (p.59) or “’Tis I for whom the bell shall toll” (p.87), I have no idea if it’s Goethe or the translator who is referencing Shakespeare and Donne. I know Goethe loves Shakespeare, but it may just be a “remembrance of things past” situation. 

4/ Faust goes in a direction I didn’t expect. 

“FAUST […] I have, I grant, outdistanced all the others, 

Doctors, pedants, clergy and lay-brothers; 

All plague of doubts and scruples I can quell, 

And have no fear of devil or of hell, 

And in return am destitute of pleasure, 

Knowing that knowledge tricks us beyond measure, 

That man’s conversion is beyond my reach, 

Knowing the emptiness of what I teach…” (p.43) 

That’s Faust when we see him the first time, bemoaning the emptiness of his knowledge. He is depressed: 

“FAUST […] And shall I wonder why my heart 

Is lamed and frightened in my breast, 

Why all the springs of life that start 

Are strangely smothered and oppressed? 

Instead of all that life can hold 

Of Nature’s free, god-given breath, 

I take to me the smoke and mould

Of skeletons and dust and death…” (p.45) 

Why does he make a pact with the devil? 

“FAUST Have you not heard?—I do not ask for joy. 

I take the way of turmoil’s bitterest gain, 

Of love-sick hate, of quickening bought with pain. 

My heart, from learning’s tyranny set free, 

Shall no more shun distress, but take its toll 

Of all the hazards of humanity, 

And nourish mortal sadness in my soul. 

I’ll sound the heights and depths that men can know, 

Their very souls shall be with mine entwined, 

I’ll load my bosom with their weal and woe, 

And share with them the shipwreck of mankind.” (p.89-90) 

But once he has power, as Mephistopheles does whatever he wants, the thing he wants is a lover—Margareta (or Gretchen). 

“FAUST […] To cut the story short, I tell you plain, 

Unless her sweet young loveliness has lain 

Within my arms’ embrace this very night, 

The stroke of twelve shall end our pact outright.” (p.122) 

That could very well be the effect of the potion Mephistopheles previously gave Faust, as part of the plan to corrupt and destroy him—my surprise is that the affair with Margareta dominates the play, that love and lust are Mephistopheles’s way of ruining Faust—it’s very different from Marlowe’s version.  

(But then this is the man who wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, which I recently read). 

5/ I don’t have much to say about Faust, as I don’t think I got much out of it in my first reading. 

Philip Wayne makes a good point though, when he says: 

“[Goethe’s Mephistopheles] is the world’s most convincing portrait of Satan, and cynicism, scoffing, negation, is the key-note of his intellectuality.” (Introduction) 

The Dog in the Manger by Lope de Vega, contemporary of Shakespeare and Cervantes

Born 15 years after Cervantes and 2 years before Shakespeare, Lope de Vega died 19 years after the two of them and claimed to have written something like 1,500 plays*, about 400 of which survive. In Spain, he was a successful playwright when Cervantes wasn’t (Nabokov called Cervantes a frustrated playwright who found his medium in the novel). But most importantly, Jonathan Bate argues in The Genius of Shakespeare that if the Spanish Armada hadn't been defeated by England and Spanish had become the international language rather than English, Lope de Vega would have taken the place of Shakespeare.

Well, I have to find out for myself. 

(But how many of those 400 plays—or let’s say 50, the number of plays that have been translated into English—do I have to read before I can deliver my judgement?) 

1/ The Dog in the Manger is, in the original, El Perro del hortelano. I read Jill Booty’s translation from 1961. 

Was the play originally written in verse? Jill Booty translates it into prose.

The trouble with reading classic non-English language plays is that sometimes you think you found the play but it’s “adapted by…” or “a version by…”. That’s what happened with quite a few Spanish plays I picked up. So I got this one, but found in the small print that “Miss Jill Booty would describe her translations as ‘acting versions’” and she “has had to sacrifice much Golden Age rhetoric in the interests of producing credible dialogue”, and now I have no idea how far it is from Lope de Vega’s text. 

Oh well. 

2/ Lope de Vega can be quite funny. 

The play begins with Diana, Countess of Belflor**, shouting that some man’s just in her chamber in the middle of the night. Her people find a hat. 

“DIANA But the feathers I saw… why the hat was loaded with plumes, how can they have shriveled to this? 

FABIO They must have got burned when he threw it at the lamp, madam. Feathers would go up like chaff, you may be sure. Why, did not the same thing happen to Icarus? As soon as he flew too near the sun, his feathers caught fire, and down he fell into the foaming sea. That is what must have happened. The lamp was the sun, the hat was Icarus, its feathers were consumed by fire, and it fell on the stairs—where I found it. 

DIANA I am in no mood for jesting, Fabio...” 

(Act 1) 

Diana then finds out that the man is Teodoro, her secretary, and he’s in love with one of her maids, Marcela. She’s jealous, she has always had a thing for Teodoro. The premise of the play is that she cannot have him, as he’s socially beneath her, but she doesn’t let anyone else have him either—that’s why the play is called El Perro del hortelano, the Spanish equivalent of “dog in the manger”.

Anyway, upon finding out, Diana comes to Teodoro and makes up a story about a friend of hers, a highborn woman, as a roundabout way of confessing to him her feelings: “this lady […] had never felt any loving desire for him. But when she saw him love another, the jealousy she felt awoke her love for him…” 

This bit is interesting: 

“TEODORO You reason well. And yet Icarus, and Phaeton too, plunged down to their destruction, the one with his wax wings destroyed by the furnace of the sun, and the other the golden horses cast headlong upon a rocky mountain, because they aimed too high. 

DIANA But the sun is not a woman…” 

(Act 1) 

Icarus again. Note that Diana says “the sun is not a woman.” 

Now look at the scene where Diana’s suitors are watching each other: 

“CELIO Have you never seen a fair May morning break, when the sun shines in the sign of the bull—the white bull, the poets call him—that grazes among the ruddy clouds of dawn? So came she forth, and yet more perfect, for Diana, the Countess of Belflor, shines with two suns, while the heavens boast only one. 

RICARDO […] You do well to depict so fair a landscape and to portray Diana as the sun, for so she is, and as the sun passes through each sign of the zodiac in turn, so her eyes pass over her suitors, resting on none. See, there is Federico, waiting for his share of the golden beams. 

CELIO Which of you will prove the bull this morning? Upon whom will her spring light fall? 

RICARDO Federico was here before me, and so wins the sign of Taurus, but I will be the Lion, and hope her warmer gaze shall shine on me.” 

(Act 2) 

The sun imagery and the Icarus metaphor recur throughout the play. Teodoro says “my reason is to blame, that allows my hopes to soar too near the sun” and at some point says “Oh, sun, melt to nothing the waxen wings that bore me up so presumptuously to set myself beside an angel!” (Act 2). 

3/ There is a scene where Diana, in anger and jealousy, gives Teodoro a bloody nose, spoiling his handkerchief.

Then she comes back. 

“DIANA Show me your handkerchief. 

TEODORO Why? 

DIANA Give me it. 

TEODORO Why do you want it? 

DIANA I want it, Teodoro. Go and speak to Octavio. I have ordered him to give you two thousand escudos. 

TEODORO For what? 

DIANA You will need some new handkerchiefs. [She goes] 

TEODORO Did you ever hear such madness? 

TRISTÁN She must be bewitched.” 

(Act 2) 

Not hard to understand Lope de Vega’s popularity in the Spanish Golden Age. There isn’t much depth in The Dog in the Manger, but it’s a fun play. I will not compare him to Shakespeare (for now), but if we compare him and Christopher Marlowe, Lope de Vega scores two points against Marlowe: firstly, his characters are more individualised whereas Marlowe tends to have one important character (either a Machiavelli or an overreacher) and everyone else speaks with the same voice; secondly, Marlowe isn’t good with female characters whereas Lope de Vega’s Diana is a rather good depiction of a proud, unpredictable woman who keeps changing and keeps contradicting herself (just don’t expect Cleopatra). Marcela is also all right—in some ways, she mirrors Diana in her games with Teodoro, but she is different. 

(Obviously I’m being unfair, Marlowe’s power is mostly in his poetry—“his mighty line”—rather than characterisation and psychology). 

If I’m not mistaken, in Spain women were allowed to perform onstage in the late 16th, early 17th century—this means that Lope de Vega had an advantage over Shakespeare, John Webster, and other English playwrights. 

I’m going to read more Lope de Vega. 

*: Most likely a shameless exaggeration, but he probably wrote about 500, which is already a lot. The Shakespeare canon has fewer than 40 plays. 

**: I don’t know where that is, but the play is set in Naples.  

Titus Andronicus: one of Shakespeare’s weakest plays, or a misunderstood play?

1/ First, let’s get the who’s who questions out of the way. 

Saturninus is son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor. 

Bassianus is his younger brother.  

Titus Andronicus is a noble Roman. He has a brother called Marcus, a tribune. Marcus has a son called Publius. 

At the beginning of the play, Titus has lost 21 sons for Rome, and his 4 surviving sons are Lucius, Quintus, Martius, and Mutius. Titus also has a daughter named Lavinia, who marries Bassianus. 

Tamora is the Queen of Goths (this is a Germanic tribe, not the goth subculture). At the beginning of the play, she is one of Titus’s prisoners, but Saturninus marries her (out of lust?) and makes her the new Empress. She however has an affair with Aaron, a Moor. 

Tamora has 3 sons: Alarbus, Demetrius, and Chiron.  

And other characters. 

2/ Titus Andronicus has the reputation as one of Shakespeare’s worst plays. The first impression is that that’s correct, in terms of language.  

Look, for example, at Titus’s speech to his dead sons: 

“TITUS […] There greet in silence, as the dead are wont, 

And sleep in peace, slain in your country’s wars! 

O sacred receptacle of my joys, 

Sweet cell of virtues and nobility, 

How many sons hast thou of mine in store, 

That thou wilt never render to me more!” 

(Act 1 scene 1)  

I know I’m being unfair and unreasonable, but it’s hard to look at that without thinking of the “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” speech in Cymbeline. 

Or later, when Tamora’s son Demetrius and Chiron fight over Lavinia (who isn’t even single) and Aaron asks how they intend to “achieve” her, this is the response: 

“DEMETRIUS Why makes thou it so strange? 

She is a woman, therefore may be wooed; 

She is a woman, therefore may be won; 

She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved. 

What, man! More water glideth by the mill 

Than wots the miller of, and easy it is 

Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know: 

Though Bassianus be the Emperor’s brother, 

Better than he have won Vulcan’s badge.” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

(Vulcan’s badge is the horns of cuckoldry, as Vulcan’s wife, Venus, deceives him with Mars). 

The passage makes me think of Iachimo in Cymbeline in its misogyny, but the language is much, much inferior. I couldn’t help thinking, is this really Shakespeare? 

But let’s not think of the late plays, when Shakespeare’s at the peak of his career. Even if you compare it to some relatively early plays such as Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet, the exuberance of language in these plays makes the language in Titus Andronicus appear quite coarse and simple. Anyone who names it as their favourite Shakespeare play is just a contrarian.

The opening scene is quite ridiculous. The only thing of interest is that it makes me think of King Lear, partly because of Titus’s blindness; Tamora’s calculating mind makes me think of Lady Macbeth, Goneril, and Regan; and Aaron seems to be a proto-Iago. 

Once in a while, there’s a curious passage. 

“LAVINIA Under your patience, gentle Empress, 

’Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning, 

And to be doubted that your Moor and you 

Are singled forth to try experiments: 

Jove shield your husband from his hounds today! 

’Tis pity they should take him for a stag.” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

That is when she and Bassianus catch Tamora and Aaron together—isn’t that very coarse for a young lady? 

“LAVINIA And, being intercepted in your sport, 

Great reason that my noble lord be rated 

For sauciness. I pray you, let us hence, 

And let her joy her raven-colored love; 

This valley fits the purpose passing well.” 

(ibid.) 

That’s coarse, no? 

This is also strange, when Aaron leads Titus’s sons Quintus and Martius to the pit: 

“QUINTUS […] What subtle hole is this,

Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers, 

Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood

As fresh as morning dew distilled on flowers?...” 

(ibid.) 

“As fresh as morning dew distilled on flowers” is a strange comparison for blood. But look again—that is clearly a sexual image, that is Lear’s sulphurous pit. 

As I read more, I refuse to accept Titus Andronicus as a straight tragedy—it can’t be—if it’s indeed a Shakespeare play, it must either be a black comedy or a parody. Why? Look at the moment Quintus asks Martius, who has fallen into the pit, how he recognises Bassianus’s body if it’s so dark down there:  

“MARTIUS Upon his bloody finger he doth wear 

A precious ring that lightens all this hole, 

Which, like a taper in some monument, 

Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthy cheeks, 

And shows the ragged entrails of this pit: 

So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus,

When he by night lay bathed in maiden blood…” 

(ibid.) 

Surely Shakespeare can’t be serious! 

The scene of Titus meeting his daughter Lavinia after the rape however is sad. 

3/ I complained, but once in a while there’s an interesting line. 

“TITUS When will this fearful slumber have an end?” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

This speech is also interesting: 

“TITUS […] Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones, 

Who though they cannot answer my distress, 

Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, 

For that they will not intercept my tale: 

When I do weep they humbly at my feet 

Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; 

And were they but attirèd in grave weeds, 

Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.

A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than stones: 

A stone is silent and offendeth not,

And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death…” 

(ibid.) 

In the following scene, Titus chides his brother Marcus for killing a fly, saying “How, if that fly had a father and mother!”, but immediately changes his mind and strikes at the fly because of its likeness to “a coal-black Moor”.  

“MARCUS Alas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on him, 

He takes false shadows for true substances.” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

That’s a good line, but when I look at the scene again, a question arises: is Shakespeare serious, depicting Titus’s descent into madness (which prefigures King Lear), or is he parodying something in contemporary revenge plays and having a laugh? Is the detail of the fly ridiculous because the play’s one of the sins of Shakespeare’s youth (to steal William Hazlitt’s phrase), or because it’s deliberate mockery? 

It is hard to know what to do with Titus Andronicus, as some parts seem serious and some are just grotesque. Lavinia, after the rape, also loses her tongue and hands so she can’t identify the rapists. Two of Titus’s sons are wrongfully condemned to death for killing Bassianus; the remaining one is banished; and Titus is tricked by Aaron to have his hand chopped off and sent to Saturninus in the hope of exchanging it for his sons’ lives, only to see his hand sent back to him in scorn together with the heads of his sons. These are horrific scenes—are the horrors and savagery more like King Lear, or more like The Jew of Malta? I have no idea. But then comes this line: 

“TITUS […] And Lavinia, thou shalt be employed in these arms, 

Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth…” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

That’s just ludicrous. The editor of my Everyman copy says that perhaps Shakespeare intended to delete “teeth” from his manuscript and substituted “arms” above it, then the compositor mistakenly took “arms” to be part of the previous line and changed “employed in this” to “employed in these arms”, but even if that were the case, the image of the father telling his handless daughter to carry his hand is quite absurd. And later, he says to her: 

“TITUS […] When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating, 

Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still. 

Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans; 

Or get some little knife between thy teeth, 

And just against thy heart make thou a hole…” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

Here is another line of Titus telling Lavinia to do something with her teeth. I can’t take the play seriously—but is it meant to be? 

4/ Everything can be found in Shakespeare. 

“AARON Villain, I have done thy mother.” 

(Act 4 scene 2) 

HAHAHAHA. 

Even though there’s much absurdity, there’s much more sense in Titus Andronicus than in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. I also enjoy it a lot more. The characters are more individualised, and overall, more believable. 

Just compare the two villains Aaron and Tamora to Marlowe’s Barabas. 

Tamora is motivated by revenge and the sense of humiliation, as she was the Queen of Goths and had to kneel and beg for her son’s life, in vain. She also has to be more calculating with Saturninus because she’s an outsider. Similarly, her sons Demetrius and Chiron are motivated by revenge, and lust. 

Aaron is more like Iago in his motiveless malignity (to use Coleridge’s phrase). 

“AARON […] I played the cheater for thy father’s hand, 

And when I had it drew myself apart, 

And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter. 

I pried me through the crevice of a wall, 

When for his hand he had his two sons’ heads; 

Beheld his tears and laughed so heartily 

That both mine eyes were rainy like to his…” 

(Act 5 scene 1) 

What a sociopath. He also makes me think of Goneril and Regan—they’re evil just because they’re evil. But Aaron is not a two-dimensional villain with nothing but hate in his heart: there’s also love, for Tamora and their child. Barabas in contrast kills the man his daughter loves, and later kills her—there is no humanity in Barabas, no love but the love of gold and ducats.  

Shakespeare also gives him some thought-provoking lines: 

“AARON Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?...” 

(Act 4 scene 2) 

Later, to Demetrius and Chiron:

“AARON […] What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys! 

Ye white-limed walls! Ye alehouse painted signs! 

Coal-black is better than another hue, 

In that it scorns to bear another hue; 

For all the water in the ocean

Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white, 

Although she lave them hourly in the flood…” 

(ibid.) 

Shakespeare must have thought about Aaron when he decided to write Othello. 

 

5/ I like that the characters in Titus Andronicus mention Hector, Brutus, and Coriolanus, about whom Shakespeare wrote in later plays. 

It also amuses me that there is disguise, as in almost every other Shakespeare play, but it’s the only play in which the disguise is so bad that the person meant to be tricked easily sees through it. It’s almost like Shakespeare is having a laugh, even if in later plays, he constantly uses the disguise plot device. 

6/ When I was reading the ending, my reaction was: what the fuck is going on? 

Is Titus Andronicus a serious tragedy? A black comedy? A parody? It should be noted that most of the most graphic and violent images in the play are classical allusions: they come from Ovid, or Seneca, or the story of Virginius. 

One thing I can say is that, whatever Shakespeare’s intentions for the play as a whole, he raises some interesting questions about the cycle of revenge. Titus demands the sacrifice of Tamora’s eldest son for the loss of his own sons in battle, then Tamora takes revenge, then Titus takes revenge, then what? They all kill each other in the end, but Lavinia, who has had nothing to do with any of it, also ends up dead. And even with the new Emperor, there is a sense of uncertainty about the future of Rome.   

The Jew of Malta, anti-Semitism, and Marlowe vs Shakespeare

1/ Could anyone read The Jew of Malta now without comparing it to The Merchant of Venice? I doubt it.

The difference is quite clear from the beginning. After the Prologue, spoken by Machevill (Machiavelli), Marlowe’s play begins with Barabas the Jew in his counting-house, surrounded by money and jewels. 

“BARABAS Thus trowls our fortune in by land and sea, 

And thus are we on every side enriched: 

These are the blessings promised to the Jews,

[…] Who hateth me but for my happiness?

Or who is honoured now but for his wealth? 

Rather had I a Jew be hated thus, 

Than pitied in a Christian poverty:

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.