SCENE II. Enter ORCANES, GAZELLUS, and URIBASSA, with
their Trains. Orc. Gazellus, Uribassa, and the rest, Now will we march from proud Orminius' mount, To fair Natolia, where our neighbour kings Expect our power and our royal presence, T encounter with the cruel Tamburlaine, That nigh Larissa sways a mighty host, And, with the thunder of his martial tools Makes earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaver
ens. Gaz. And now come we to make his sinews shake, With greater pow'r than erst his pride hath felt. An hundred kings, by scores, will bid him arms, An hundred thousand subjects to each score, Which, if a show'r of wounding thunderbolts Should break out of the bowels of the clouds, And fall as thick as hail upon our heads, In partial aid of that proud Scythian, Yet should our courages and steeled crests, And numbers, more than infinite, of men, Be able to withstand and conquer him.
Uri. Methinks I see how glad the Christian king Is made, for joy of your admitted truce, That could not but before be terrified With unacquainted power of our host.
Enter a MESSENGER. Mess. Arm, dread sovereign, and my noble lords! The treach'rous army of the Christians,
8
Taking advantage of your slender power,
Comes marching on us, and determines straight
To bid us battle for our dearest lives.
ORC. Traitors ! villains! damned Christians !
Have I not here the articles of peace,
And solemn covenants we've both confirm'd,
He by his Christ, and I by Mahomet?
Gaz. Hell and confusion light upon their heads,
That with such treason seek our overthrow,
And care so little for their prophet, Christ!
ORC. Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God!
Then, if there bé a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ,
If he be son to everliving 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 servants' perjury.
[He tears to pieces the articles of peace.
Open, thou shining veil of Cynthià,
And make a passage from th' empyreal heaven,
That hé that sits on high and never sleeps,
Nor in one place is circumscriptible,
But ev'ry where fills ev'ry continent
With strange infusion of his sacred vigour,
May in his endless power and purity,
Behold and 'venge this traitor's perjury!
Thou Christ, that art esteem'd omnipotent,
If thou wilt prove thyself a perfect God,
Worthy the worship of all faithful hearts,
Be now reveng'd upon this traitor's soul,
And make the power I have left behind,
(Too little to defend our guiltless lives)
Sufficient to discomfort and confound
The trustless force of those false Christians.
To arms, my lords ! On Christ still let us cry!
If there be Christ, we shall have victory.
Alarums.-- They go out.—Enter SIGISMUND,
wounded.
Sig. Discomfited is all the Christian host,
And God hath thunder'd vengeance from on high,
For my accurs'd and hateful perjury.
O, just and dreadful punisher of sin,
Let the dishonour of the pains I feel,
In this my mortal well-deserved wound,
End all my penance in my sudden death!
And let this death, wherein to sin I die,
Conceive a second life in endless mercy!
[He dies. Enter ORCANES, GAZELLUS, URIBASSA, and others.
Orc. Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods, And Christ or Mahomet hath been my
friend. Gaz. See here the perjur'd traitor, Hungary, Bloody and breathless for his villainy.
Orc. Now shall his barbarous body be a prey To beasts and fowls, and all the winds shall breathe Through shady leaves of ev'ry senseless tree, Murmurs and hisses for his heinous sin. Now scalds his soul in the Tartarian streams,
'And feeds upon the baneful tree of hell,
That Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness,
That in the midst of fire is engraff'd,
Yet flourishes as Flora in her pride,
With apples like the heads of damned fiends.
The devils there, in chains of quenchless flame,
Shall lead his soul through Orcus' burning gulph,
From pain to pain, whose change shall never end.
What say'st thou yet, Gazellus, to his foil
Which we referr'd to justice of his Christ,
And to his power, which here appears as full
As rays of Cynthia to the clearest sight?
Gaz. 'Tis but the fortune of the wars, my lord, Whose power has often prov'd a miracle.
Orc. Yet in my thoughts shall Christ be honoured, Not doing Mahomet an injury, Whose pow'r had share in this our victory; And since this miscreant hath disgrac'd his faith, And died a traitor both to heaven and earth, We will, both watch and ward shall keep his trunk Amidst these plains for fowls to prey upon. Go, Uribassa, give it straight in charge. URI. I will, my lord.
[Exit. Orc. And now, Gazellus, let us haste and meet Our army, and our brothers, of Jerusalem, Of Syria, Trebizond, and Amasia, And happily with full Natolian bowls Of Greekish wine, now let us celebrate Our happy conquest, and his angry fate. [Exeunt.
ZENOCRATE is discovered in her Bed of State; TAM-
BURLAINE sitting by her; three PHYSICIANS
about her bed, tempering potions; THERIDAMAS,
TECHELLES, USUMCASANE, and the three Sons.
TAMB. Black is the beauty of the brightest day;
The golden ball of Heaven's eternal fire,
That danc'd with glory on the silver waves,
Now wants the fuel that inflam'd his beams;
And all with faintness, and for foul disgrace,
He binds his temples with a frowning cloud,
Ready to darken earth with endless night.
Zenocrate, that gave him light and life,
Whose eyes shot fire from their ivory bowers,
And temper'd every soul with lively heat,
Now by the malice of the angry skies,
Whose jealousy admits no second mate,
Draws in the comfort of her latest breath,
All dazzled with the hellish mists of death.
Now walk the angels on the walls of heav'n,
SAs centinels to warn th' immortal souls
To entertain divine Zenocrate.
Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaseless lamps.
That gently look'd upon this loathsome earth
Shine downward now no more, but deck the heavens
To entertain divine Zenocrate.
The crystal spring, whose taste illuminates
Refined eyes with an eternal sight,
Like tried silver, runs through Paradise,
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