Tamburlaine the Great — Part 2. Christopher Marlowe

      SIGISMUND.  Now say, my lords of Buda and Bohemia,

      What motion is it that inflames your thoughts,

      And stirs your valours to such sudden arms?

      FREDERICK.  Your majesty remembers, I am sure,

      What cruel slaughter of our Christian bloods

      These heathenish Turks and pagans lately made

      Betwixt the city Zula and Danubius;

      How through the midst of Varna and Bulgaria,

      And almost to the very walls of Rome,

      They have, not long since, massacred our camp.

      It resteth now, then, that your majesty

      Take all advantages of time and power,

      And work revenge upon these infidels.

      Your highness knows, for Tamburlaine's repair,

      That strikes a terror to all Turkish hearts,

      Natolia hath dismiss'd the greatest part

      Of all his army, pitch'd against our power

      Betwixt Cutheia and Orminius' mount,

      And sent them marching up to Belgasar,

      Acantha, Antioch, and Caesarea,

      To aid the kings of Soria 63 and Jerusalem.

      Now, then, my lord, advantage take thereof, 64    

      And issue suddenly upon the rest;

      That, in the fortune of their overthrow,

      We may discourage all the pagan troop

      That dare attempt to war with Christians.

      SIGISMUND.  But calls not, then, your grace to memory

      The league we lately made with King Orcanes,

      Confirm'd by oath and articles of peace,

      And calling Christ for record of our truths?

      This should be treachery and violence

      Against the grace of our profession.

      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;

      But, as the faith which they profanely plight

      Is not by necessary policy

      To be esteem'd assurance for ourselves,

      So that we vow 65 to them should not infringe

      Our liberty of arms and victory.

      SIGISMUND.  Though I confess the oaths they undertake

      Breed little strength to our security,

      Yet those infirmities that thus defame

      Their faiths, 66 their honours, and religion, 67    

      Should not give us presumption to the like.

      Our faiths are sound, and must be consummate, 68    

      Religious, righteous, and inviolate.

      FREDERICK.  Assure your grace, 'tis superstition

      To stand so strictly on dispensive faith;

      And, should we lose the opportunity

      That God hath given to venge our Christians' death,

      And scourge their foul blasphemous paganism,

      As fell to Saul, to Balaam, and the rest,

      That would not kill and curse at God's command,

      So surely will the vengeance of the Highest,

      And jealous anger of his fearful arm,

      Be pour'd with rigour on our sinful heads,

      If we neglect this 69 offer'd victory.

      SIGISMUND.  Then arm, my lords, and issue suddenly,

      Giving commandment to our general host,

      With expedition to assail the pagan,

      And take the victory our God hath given.

      ORCANES.  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 70 tools

      Makes earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaven.

      GAZELLUS.  And now come we to make his sinews shake

      With greater power than erst his pride hath felt.

      An hundred kings, by scores, will bid him arms,

      And hundred thousands subjects to each score:

      Which, if a shower 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,