CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT (With Text, Paraphrase and Annotations)

Marlowe wrote five great plays-Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Dr. Faustus and Dido, Queen of Carthage, To these masterpieces can also be added a blood-thirsty melodrama- The Massacre at Paris - which is little read these days. Although the number of Marlowe's plays is not large, it appears that his was the first true voice of the Renaissance - the period of new learning, new freedom, new enterprises, and of the worship of Man rather than of God. That down that Marlowe sang into our skies With mouth of gold and morning in his eyes. Marlowe's great plays preserve his reputation both historically and aesthetically in the chronicle of English drama. Tamburlaine Part l was probably drafted before Marlowe of the famous Timur, who was contemporary of Chaucer, the Persia Marlowe imagines is the Persia of Herodotus and Xenophon ; and the platonic element in the play's philosophy is conspicuous, Structurally, the play is a procession of magnificent scences, each representing some stage in the rise of Tamburlaine from humble Scythian shepherd to conqueror of the world. As Wilson remarks : Here everything is larger than life. He is not content merely to conquer ; he impresses his greatness on the conquered by such acts as slaughtering all the girls of Damascus ; using the captive Soldan of Turkey as footstool and carrying about in a cage till he beats out his brains against the bars ; burning the town in which his mistress, Zenocrate, dies ; killing his own son because of his alleged cowardice ; harnessing two kings to his chariot shouting : 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 ? Tamburlaine is a riot of exaggeration and magnificent language. All that happens during the course of it is merely a series of pegs on which to hang fine sounding speeches, thunderous boasts, loud lamentations, and full-blooded curses. But it can be imagined how popular such a play of conquest was in the age of Hawkins, Grenville, Frobisher, and Drake, and with what delight the audience must have heard its splendid language. TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

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