Sapho. Nay, stay; for now I begin to sigh, I shall not leave, though you be gone. But what do you think best for your sighing, to take it away?

Phao. Yew, madam.

Sapho. Me!

Phao. No, madam, yew of the tree.

Sapho. Then will I love yew the better. And indeed I think it would make me sleep too; therefore, all other simples set aside, I will simply use only yew. Phao. Do, madam; for I think nothing in the world so good as yew.

Sapho. Farewell for this time.

SAPHO questions her low-placed affection.

Sapho. Into the nest of an Alcyon no bird can enter but the Alcyon; and into the heart of so great a lady, can any creep but a great lord?

CUPID. SAPHO cured of her love by the pity of VENUS. Cupid. But what will you do for Phao? Sapho. I will wish him fortunate. This will I do for Phao, because I once loved Phao: for never shall it be said that Sapho loved to hate, or that out of love she could not be as courteous, as she was in love passionate.

PHAO's final resolution.

Phao. O Sapho! thou hast Cupid in thine arms, I in my heart; thou kissest him for sport, I must curse him for spite; yet will I not curse him, Sapho, whom thou kissest. This shall be my resolution, wherever I wander, to be as I were ever kneeling before Sapho; my loyalty unspotted, though unrewarded. With as little malice will I go to my grave, as I did lie withal in my cradle. My life shall be spent in sighing and wishing, the one for my bad fortune, the other for Sapho's good.

LOVE'S METAMORPHOSIS, A COMEDY:

BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 1601.

Love half-denied is love half-confessed.
NISA. NIOBE, her maid.

Nisa. I fear Niobe is in love.

Niobe. Not I, madam! yet must I confess, that oftentimes I have had sweet thoughts, sometimes hard conceits; betwixt both, a kind of yielding; I know not what. But certainly I think it is not love; sigh I can, and find ease in melancholy; smile I do, and take pleasure in imagination: I feel in myself a pleasing pain, a chill heat, a delicate bitterness s; how to term it I know not; without doubt may be Love; sure I am it is not Hate.

it

TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT; OR THE SCYTHIAN SHEPHERD.

IN TWO PARTS.

BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. PART THE FIRST.

TAMBURLAINE's person described.

OF stature tall, and straightly fashioned,
Like his desire, lift1 upwards and divine;
So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas' burthen; twixt his manly pitch,
A pearl more worth than all the world is placed,
Wherein by curious soverainty of art

Are fix'd his piercing instruments of sight,
Whose fiery circles bear encompassed

1 Lifted.

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres,
That guides his steps and actions to the throne
Where Honour sits invested royally;

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion,
Thirsting with soverainty and love of arms;
His lofty brows in folds do figure death;
And in their smoothness amity and life;
About them hangs a knot of amber hair,
Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was,
On which the breath of heaven delights to play,
Making it dance with wanton majesty.
His arms and fingers long and sinewy,
Betokening valour and excess of strength;
In every part proportion'd like the man
Should make the world subdu'd to Tamburlaine.

His custom in war.

The first day when he pitcheth down his tents,
White is their hue; and on his silver crest
A snowy feather spangled white he bears,
To signify the mildness of his mind,
That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood:
But when Aurora mounts the second time,

As red as scarlet is his furniture;

Then must his kindleth wrath be quench'd with blood,

Not sparing any that can manage arms :

But, if these threats move not submission,
Black are his colours, black pavilion ;

His spear, his shield, his horse, his armour, plumes,
And jetty feathers, menace death and hell;
Without respect of sex, degree, or age,

He razeth all his foes with fire and sword.

[I had the same difficulty (or rather much more) in culling a few sane lines from this as from the preceding Play. The lunes of Tamburlaine are perfect "midsummer madness." Nebuchadnezzar's are mere modest pretensions compared with the thundering vaunts of this Scythian Shepherd. He comes in (in the

second part) drawn by conquered kings, and reproaches these pamper'd jades of Asia that they can draw but twenty miles a day. Till saw this passage with my own eyes, I never believed that it was anything more than a pleasant burlesque of Mine Ancient's. But I assure my readers that it is soberly set down in a Play which their ancestors took to be serious. I have subjoined the genuine speech for their amusement. Enter Tamburlaine, drawn in his chariot by Trebizon and Soria, with bits in their mouths, reins in his left hand, in his right hand a whip, with which he scourgeth them.

Tamb. Holla ye pamper'd 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 conquer'd 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 honour'd in their governor
As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine.
The headstrong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed,
That King Egeus led with human flesh,

And made so wanton that they knew their strengths,
Were not subdued with valour more divine,
Than you by this unconquer'd arm of mine.
To make you fierce, and fit my appetite,
You shall be fed with flesh as raw as blood,
And drink in pails the strongest muscadel:
If you can live with it, then live, and draw
My chariot swifter than the racking clouds ;
If not, then die like beasts, and fit for naught
But perches for the black and fatal ravens.

Thus am I right the scourge of highest Jove. &c.]

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS: BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

How FAUSTUS fell to the study of magic.

born of parents base of stock

In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes :
Of riper years, to Wirtemberg he went,

Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.
So much he profits in divinity,

That shortly he was grac'd with Doctor's name,
Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes
In the heavenly matters of theology;

Till swoln with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow ;
For, falling to a devilish exercise,

And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,
He surfeits upon the cursed necromancy;
Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,
Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

FAUSTUS in his study runs through the circle of the sciences; and being satisfied with none of them, determines to addict himself to magic.

Faust. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
Having commenc'd, be a divine in show,
Yet level at the end of every art,

And live and die in Aristotle's works.
Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravish'd me!
Bene disserere est finis logices.

Is, to dispute well, logic's chiefest end?

Affords this art no greater miracle?

Then read no more; thou hast attain'd that end :

A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit:

Bid Economy farewell, and Galen come,
Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold,
And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure:
Summum bonum medicinæ sanitas,

The end of physic is our body's health.
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain'd that end?
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
Whereby whole cities have escap'd the plague,
And divers desperate maladies been eas'd ?
Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.