Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/188

 of 'Tamburlaine' that impressed Marlowe's contemporary critics. Nashe held his effort up to ridicule in his preface to Greene's 'Menaphon,' which was probably written in 1587. Nashe writes doubtless with a satiric reference to Marlowe's recent graduation as M.A.: 'Idiote artmasters intrude themselves to our eares as the alcumists of eloquence; who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to outbrave better pens with the swelling bumbast of a bragging blank verse.'  A little later Nashe refers to 'the spacious volubility of a drumming decasillabon.'  Greene—who unfairly sneered at Marlowe in 'Menaphon' as a 'cobler's eldeste sonne'—soon afterwards, in his 'Perimedes,' 1588, denounced his introduction of blank verse, and, affecting to be shocked by Marlowe's ambitious theme, deprecated endeavours to dare 'God out of heaven with that atheist "Tamborlaine."'  In his 'Mourning Garment' Greene again ridiculed 'the life of Tomlivolin' (i.e. Tamburlaine).

Marlowe seems to have mainly depended for his knowledge of his hero on 'Thomas Fortescue's 'Foreste,' 1571, a translation from the Spanish of Pedro Mexia's 'Silva de Varia Lecion,' Seville, 1543. Perondinus's 'Vita Magni Tamerlanis,' Florence, 1651, doubtless gave him suggestions when describing Tamburlaine's person, and he derived hints for his description of Persian effeminacy from Herodotus, Euripides, and Xenophon (cf. Englische Studien, xvi. 459). The play, although in two parts, is really a tragedy in ten acts. Its full title when published ran: 'Tamburlaine the Great. Who, from a Scythian Shephearde by his rare and woonderfull Conquests, became a most puissant and mightye Monarque. And (for his tyranny and terrour in Warre) was tearmed, "The Scourge of God. Deuided into two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed upon Stages in the Citie of London. By the right honorable the Lord Admyrall, his seruauntes.  Now first and newlie published. London. Printed by Richard Jhones, 1590,' 8vo (Bodleian and Duke of Devonshire's libraries): another 8vo edition, 1593 (Brit. Mus.)  The half-title of the Second Part is: 'The Second Part of the bloody Conquests of mighty Tamburlaine.  With his impassionate fury for the death of his Lady and loue faire Zenocrate; his fourme of exhortation and discipline to his three sons, with the maner of his own death.'  The first part was reissued in 1605, and the second part in 1606 (for E. White), 4to (Brit. Mus.)  A modern edition, by Albrecht Wagner, appeared at Heilbronn in 1885.

As in most of Marlowe's plays, some buffoonery figures in the extant texts of 'Tamburlaine,' but Marlowe's reprobation in the prologue of the 'conceits' of 'clownage seems to clear him of responsibility for it. Richard Jones, the publisher, in his preface states that he purposely omitted 'some fond and frivolous gestures digressing, and, in my poor opinion, far unmeet for the matter.' But Jones would appear to have treated some of the actors' interpolations with much gentleness; he admits that all of them were 'greatly gaped at' by 'some vain conceited fondlings' when they were shown upon the stage. With playgoers the piece was from the first very popular. Taylor the Water-poet states that 'Tamburlaine perhaps is not altogether so famous in his own country of Tartaria as in England.' The title-rôle was filled by Alleyn, who wore breeches of crimson velvet, while his coat was copper-laced. A ballad on the plot was licensed to John Danter on 5 Nov. 1594. At the same time Marlowe's extravagances readily lent themselves to parody. The ludicrous line in Tamburlaine's address to the captured kings

was parodied by Pistol, and was long quoted derisively on the stage and in contemporary literature. Hall, in his 'Satires,' ridiculed the stalking steps of Tamburlaine's 'great personage.' Ben Jonson, in his 'Discoveries,' notes that 'the true artificer will not fly from all humanity with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-Chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers.'  About 1650 the play was revived at the Bull Theatre. Thirty years later it had passed into obscurity. Charles Saunders, in the preface to his play, 'Tamerlane,' 1681, wrote: 'It hath been told me there is a Cockpit play going under the name of "The Scythian Shepherd, or Tamberlaine the Great," which how good it is any one may judge by its obscurity, being a thing not a bookseller in London or scarce the players themselves who acted it formerly, cow'd call to remembrance.' In 1686 Sir  [q. v.] made Tamerlane the Great the hero of his tragedy, 'The Sacrifice,' and clearly owed something to Marlowe.

'Faustus' may fairly he regarded as Marlowe's second play. Its date may be referred to 1588. A 'Ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, the Great Conjurer,' was entered on the Stationers' Registers on 28 Feb, 1588–9. It was doubtless founded on Marlowe's tragedy, and may be identical with The 'Ballad of Faustus' in the Roxburghe collection. Henslowe did not