Monologue

Tamburlaine Monologue

From Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe

male · defiant · 1:42 min

Now clear the triple region of the air, And let the Majesty of Heaven behold Their scourge and terror tread on emperors. Smile, stars that reign'd at my nativity, And dim the brightness of your neighbour lamps; Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia! For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth, First rising in the east with mild aspect, But fixed now in the meridian line, Will send up fire to your turning spheres, And cause the sun to borrow light of you. My sword struck fire from his coat of steel, Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk; As when a fiery exhalation, Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud, Fighting for passage, make the welkin crack, And casts a flash of lightning to the earth: But, ere I march to wealthy Persia, Or leave Damascus and th' Egyptian fields, As was the fame of Clymene's brain-sick son That almost brent the axle-tree of heaven, So shall our swords, our lances, and our shot Fill all the air with fiery meteors; Then, when the sky shall wax as red as blood, It shall be said I made it red myself, To make me think of naught but blood and war.

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