The last scene of Act II, Part Second, is so characteristic that it will be given entire, in order that the full flavour of Marlowe's style may be tasted :—

SCENE IV.

ZENOCRATE is discovered lying in her bed of state, with TAMBUR-
LAINE sitting by her. About her bed are three PHYSICIANS
tempering potions. Around are THERIDAMAS, TECHELLES,
USUMCASANE, and her three Sons.

Tamb. Black is the beauty of the brightest day;
The golden ball of Heaven's eternal fire,
That danced with glory on the silver waves,
Now wants the fuel that inflamed 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 brows
And tempered 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 Heaven,
As sentinels to warn the immortals souls
To entertain divine Zenocrate.

Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaseless lamps

That gently looked upon this loathsome earth,

Shine downward now no more, but deck the Heavens,
To entertain divine Zenocrate.

The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates

Refined eyes with an eternal sight,

Like tried silver, run through Paradise,
To entertain divine Zenocrate.

The cherubins and holy seraphins,

That sing and play before the King of kings,
Use all their voices and their instruments

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

And in this sweet and curious harmony,

The God that tunes this music to our souls,
Holds out his hand in highest majesty

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts
Up to the palace of th' empyreal Heaven,
That this my life may be as short to me
As are the days of sweet Zenocrate.-
Physicians, will no physic do her good?

Phys. My lord, your majesty shall soon perceive:

And if she pass this fit, the worst is past.

Tamb. Tell me, how fares my fair Zenocrate?

Zeno. I fare, my lord, as other empresses, That, when this frail and transitory flesh Hath sucked the measure of that vital air That feeds the body with his dated health, Wade with enforced and necessary change.

Tamb. May never such a change transform my love, In whose sweet being I repose my life,

Whose heavenly presence, beautified with health,
Gives light to Phoebus and the fixèd stars!

Whose absence makes the sun and moon as dark

As when, opposed in one diameter,

Their spheres are mounted on the serpent's head,
Or else descended to his winding train.

Live still, my love, and so conserve my life,

Or, dying, be the author of my death!

Zeno. Live still, my lord! O, let my sovereign live And sooner let the fiery element

Dissolve and make your kingdom in the sky,

Than this base earth should shroud your majesty:
For should I but suspect your death by mine,
The comfort of my future happiness,

And hope to meet your highness in the Heavens,
Turned to despair, would break my wretched breast
And fury would confound my present rest.
But let me die, my love; yet let me die;

With love and patience let your true love die!
Your grief and fury hurts my second life.—
Yet let me kiss my lord before I die,
And let me die with kissing of my lord.
But since my life is lengthened yet a while,
Let me take leave of these my loving sons,
And of my lords, whose true nobility
Have merited my latest memory.
Sweet sons, farewell! In death resemble me,
And in your lives your father's excellence.
Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord.

They call for music.
Tamb. Proud fury, and intolerable fit,
That dares torment the body of my love,
And scourge the scourge of the immortal God:
Now are those spheres, where Cupid used to sit,
Wounding the world with wonder and with love,
Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death,
Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul.
Her sacred beauty hath 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 Iliad;
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.

[The music sounds.-ZENOCRATE dies.

What is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword
And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,
And we descend into the infernal vaults,

To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair,

And throw them in the triple moat of hell,
For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.
Casane and Theridamas, to arms!

Raise cavalieros higher than the clouds,

And with the cannon break the frame of Heaven;
Batter the shining palace of the sun,

And shiver all the starry firmament,

For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence,
Meaning to make her stately queen of Heaven.
What God soever holds thee in His arms,

Giving thee nectar and ambrosia,

Behold me here, divine Zenocrate,
Raving, impatient, desperate, and mad,
Breaking my steeled lance, with which I burst
The rusty beams of Janus' temple-doors,
Letting out Death and tyrannising War,
To march with me under this bloody flag!
And if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the Great,

Come down from Heaven, and live with me again!

Ther. 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.

Tamb. "For she is dead!" Thy words do pierce my soul ! Ah, sweet Theridamas! say so no more;

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

And feed my mind that dies for want of her,

Where'er her soul be, thou [To the body] shalt stay with me,
Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh,

Not lapt in lead, but in a sheet of gold,
And till I die thou shalt not be interred.
Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus'
We both will rest and have one epitaph
Writ in as many several languages

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword.
This cursed town will I consume with fire,
Because this place bereaved me of my love;
The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned;
And here will I set up her statua,

And march about it with my mourning camp
Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.

[The scene closes.

As a good specimen of Marlowe's powerful but over-charged verse, and also of his stage business, take his speech to his timorous son :

Tamb. Villain! Art thou the son of Tamburlaine,
And fears't to die, or with a curtle-axe

To hew thy flesh, and make a gaping wound?
Hast thou beheld a peal of ordnance strike
A ring of pikes, mingled with shot and horse,

Whose shattered limbs, being tossed as high as Heaven,
Hang in the air as thick as sunny motes,

And canst thou, coward, stand in fear of death?
Hast thou not seen my horsemen charge the foe,
Shot through the arms, cut overthwart the hands,
Dyeing their lances with their streaming blood,
And yet at night carouse within my tent,
Filling their empty veins with airy wine,
That, being concocted, turns to crimson blood,
And wilt thou shun the field for fear of wounds?
View me, thy father, that hath conquered kings,
And, with his horse, marched round about the earth,
Quite void of scars, and clear from any wound,
That by the wars lost not a drop of blood,
And see him lance his flesh to teach you all.

A wound is nothing, be it ne'er so deep;
Blood is the god of war's rich livery.
Now look I like a soldier, and this wound
As great a grace and majesty to me,
As if a chain of gold, enamèlled,

Enchased wilh diamonds, sapphires, rubies,
And fairest pearl of wealthy India,
Were mounted here'under a canopy,

And I sate down clothed with a massy robe,

That late adorned the Afric potentate,

[He cuts his arm.

Whom I brought bound unto Damascus' walls.

Come, boys, and with your fingers search my wound,

And in my blood wash all your hands at once,

While I sit smiling to behold the sight.

Now, my boys, what think ye of a wound?

But the very height of audacity is reached in Scene III, Act IV, where Tamburlaine enters in his chariot which is actually drawn by the Kings he has taken captive in war! He holds the reins in his left hand, and scourges the Kings with his right :

"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 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 nosterils,
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 tam'd,
That King Egeus fed with human flesh,

And made so wanton that they knew their strengths,
Were not subdu'd 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.'

Here our extracts from this play must cease. It has already been. stated that Marlowe became an actor, but he did not tread the boards long, for, having broken his leg in one of the performances, he became so incurably lame as to put acting out of the question. Henceforth he was to confine himself to writing. To a man of Marlowe's presumably fiery, impatient character, exclusion from active pursuits must have been inexpressibly galling; but, fortunately for English literature, his lameness did not affect the powers of his mind, nor the poetic ardour of his soul, for in 1588 he produced Dr. Faustus, regarded by some critics as his masterpiece. The play is founded upon a popular prose History of Dr. Faustus, an English edition of the old Faust legend; but although Marlowe follows the prose account very closely he has instilled so much poetry and passion into it-rising sometimes to heights of terrific grandeur-that the tragedy is as much his own as if he had invented the fable.

As Tamburlaine depicts the lust for ruling power, Faustus personifies the lust for knowledge and pleasure. It is deeply interesting to compare this play with Göthe's Faust-the Englishman's thrilling throughout with unrestrained passionate emotionthe German's saturated with modern philosophical thought. The very fiend in Marlowe's hands is tragically melancholy, whilst in Göthe's he is always mocking and sceptical-der Geist der stets verneint. Göthe himself admired Marlowe's Faustus, saying of it, "How grandly it is all planned!" Certainly the great German's work-superior as it is in other respects-has nothing comparable to that fearful display of mental agony to be found in the last scene of Marlowe's tragedy. This is very high praise if we remember that Göthe's Faust and Shelley's Prometheus Unbound are the two greatest poems since Paradise Lost.