Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/614

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io" s. v. JUNE so, im.

his cage, followed by Zabina Exeunt all

except Bajazeth and Zabina] Bajazeth.

O dreary engines of my loathed sight,

Why feed ye still on day's accursed beams ?

You see my wife, my queen and emperess

Now thrown to rooms of black abjection,

Smeared with blots and basest drudgery, And villainess to shame O poor Zabina !

my queen, my queen ! Fetch me some

water for my burning brain [Exit Zabina]

Bajazeth. Now, Bajazeth, abridge thy baneful days, And beat the brains out of thy con- quer'd head, Since other means are all

forbidden me [He brains himself against

his cage.]" (V. i. 200, 213, 259-76, 285-7, 304.)

From Primaudaye, chap, xxiii. p. 253 :

"The Great Tamburlaine used far re

greater and more barbarous severitie towards Baiazet, Emperour of the Turks, whome, after he had overcome him and made him his prisoner, he caused to be ledde about with him in a cage wheresoever he went, feeding him onely with the crums that fell under his table." "[They put him into the cage.] Bajazeth. Is this a place for mighty Bajazeth? Confusion light on him that helps thee thus ! Tamburlaine. There, whiles he lives, shall Bajazeth be kept ; And where

1 go be thus in triumph drawn; And thou his wife shalt feed him with the scraps My servitors shall bring thee from my board "

(IV. ii. 82-8). "Tamburlaine Feed, you

slave ; thou mayst think thyself happy to

be fed from my trencher. Bajazeth

Unless I eat, I die. Zabina. Eat, Bajazeth ;

let us live in spite of them Tamburlaine.

Here, Turk, wilt thou have a clean trencher 1 Baj. Ay, tyrant, and more meat" (IV. iv. 94-105).

" And whensoever he tooke horse he used his bodie for an advauntage." "Tambur- laine But, villain, thou that wishest this

to me, Fall prostrate on the low disdainful earth, And be the footstool of great Tambur- laine, That I may rise into my royal throne

stoop, villain, stoop [Tamburlaine

gets upon him into his chair]" (IV. ii. 12-15, 22, 29). "Tamburlaine. Bring out my footstool. [They take Bajazeth out of

the cage]" (IV. ii. 1). "Tamburlaine

And now, my footstool, if I lose the field,

You hope of liberty Pray for us, Bajazeth:

we are going. [Exeunt all except Bajazeth and Zabina.] Bajazeth. Go, never to return

with victory Sharp forked arrows light

upon thy horse Or roaring cannons sever

all thy joints, Making thee mount as high as eagles soar " (V. i. 209-24). The force of these lines is lost without the knowledge that

Tamburlaine mounts his horse from off his footstool, or advantage, Bajazeth.

It seems probable that Marlowe was attracted by Primaudaye's summary, and that he bore it in mind and made exact and legitimate use of it when turning to fuller sources of information. There are a few of the translator's expressions word for word in the drama. But it is quite certain that Greene helped himself plenis manibus, in a most ignoble fashion, from this little-known author.

I find, from the essay in The Academy* previously referred to, that two principal points in Marlowe's treatment of his subject are not to be found in Mexia :

"Perondinus alone speaks of Bajazet's wife as caused not only, as Chalcocondylos says, to serve the wine to the conqueror, but to do so with the additional ignominy devised by the Tacitean Tiberius ; this is Marlowe's version also." Academy, 20 Oct., 1883.

It is also Primaudaye's version. And the other point :

" His death, too, is finally brought about in Perondinus, not as Cambinus, and most of the Italians say, after a long course of perambulation in the cage, still less, as Cuspinian reports, after release from it, but by dashing himself against the iron bars in indignation at his treatment. This dramatic version is Marlowe's also." Academy.

And it is Primaudaye's exactly. So that Marlowe gleaned much, perhaps, before he began to ransack for Latin authorities. We may also attach considerable weight to the apposite date at which T. Bowes's transla- tion appeared the year or thereabouts preceding that of ' Tamburlaine.'

What was the accepted view of Timour's career, in England, at the date of T. Bowes's translation of Primaudaye, who appears to have first called him Tamburlaine? At that very date (1586) Puttenham was writing 'The Arte of English Poesie,' which was printed in 1589. On p. 119 of Arber's reprint he says :

"Yet is it no more allowable then it were to beare the device of Tamerlan, an Emperour in Tartary, who gave the lightning of heaven, with a posie in that language these worde, Ira Dei, which also appeared well to answer his fortune. For from a sturdie shepeheard he became a most mighty Emperour, and with his innumerable great armies desolated so many countreyes and people, as he might justly be called [the wrath of God]. It appeared also by his strange ende : for in the midst of his greatnesse and prosperitie he died sodainly and left no child or kinred for a successour to so large an Empire, nor any memory after him more then of his great puissance and crueltie."

This view emphasizes to the full the agree- ment of Marlowe with Primaudaye.