Citation (8)
Tamburlaine. 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!
Theridamas. 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.
Tamburlaine. 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 shalt stay with me,
Embalm’d with cassia, amber greece, and myrrh,
Not lapt in lead, but in a sheet of gold,
And, till I die, thou shalt not be interr’d.
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 conqered kindoms with my sword.
This cursed town will I consume with fire,
Because this place bereft me of my love;
The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourn’d….
—Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, part II
II.iv.109 — 31.
