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 |  موضوع: Tamburlaine  الخميس مايو 13, 2010 5:58 pm | |
| Tamburlaine
Plot Summary
Part 1, Acts 1 – 2
Tamburlaine the Great begins with a prologue declaring that, unlike the silly wordplay of previous literature, this play will feature the "high astounding" words and actions of a conqueror. Act 1 then opens with the king of Persia, Mycetes, complaining to his brother Cosroe of a band of outlaws led by a "Scythian" shepherd named Tamburlaine. Scythians would technically have lived north and northeast of the Black Sea, but Marlowe uses the term interchangeably with "Tartar," which signifies the area of East Asia controlled by Mongol tribes. Cosroe criticizes his brother for being a weak and foolish king, and Mycetes instructs his chief captain Theridamas to kill Tamburlaine and his band before they enter Persia. Then, two Persian lords inform Cosroe of widespread unrest and offer him the crown, which Cosroe accepts.
Act 1, scene 2 introduces Tamburlaine, who has captured the Egyptian princess Zenocrate and is declaring his love for her. Theridamas arrives with one thousand soldiers, compared to Tamburlaine's five hundred, but Tamburlaine convinces Theridamas in a parlay to join his side. In act 2, Cosroe joins with Tamburlaine to overthrow his brother. When Mycetes hears of this, his lord Meander forms a plan to throw gold on the field in order to distract soldiers, whom he considers to be greedy thieves. Tamburlaine encounters Mycetes attempting to hide his crown in a hole; Tamburlaine tells Mycetes that he will not steal his crown yet, but take it when he wins the battle. After Tamburlaine and Cosroe conquer Mycetes's army, Cosroe departs for Persepolis, the capitol. Tamburlaine decides to challenge Cosroe to a battle for the Persian crown. Tamburlaine triumphs and Cosroe dies, cursing Tamburlaine and Theridamas.
Part 1, Acts 3 – 5
In act 3, scene 1, the Turkish Emperor Bajazeth discusses with his subsidiary kings their siege of Constantinople, which was then held by Christians. He warns Tamburlaine not to enter Africa or "Graecia," which included much of the Balkan peninsula, then under Turkish control. In the next scene, Tamburlaine overhears the Median, or Iranian, Lord Agydas urge Zenocrate to disdain Tamburlaine's suit, but Zenocrate stresses that she wants to be his wife. Tamburlaine surprises them, and Agydas stabs himself to avoid torture. Act 3 concludes with Tamburlaine's victory over the Turks and Tamburlaine making slaves of Bajazeth and his wife Zabina.
Zenocrate's father, the "soldan," or sultan of Egypt, opens act 4 by vowing to stop Tamburlaine's advances upon Egypt with the help of the king of Arabia, who was Zenocrate's betrothed before Tamburlaine kidnapped her. Tamburlaine and Zenocrate then humiliate and torture Bajazeth and Zabina. Tamburlaine vows to overtake Egypt despite his wife's plea to pity her father. In act 5, the governor of Damascus, besieged by Tamburlaine's army, sends a group of virgins to plead for mercy, but Tamburlaine has them slaughtered and hoisted on the city walls. When Tamburlaine goes to fight the soldan and the king of Arabia, Bajazeth and Zabina kill themselves by beating out their brains. Zenocrate finds them and is dismayed by their and her people's blood on Tamburlaine's hands. After the king of Arabia dies and Tamburlaine wins the battle, sparing the soldan's life and actually giving him more territory than before, Tamburlaine crowns Zenocrate queen of Persia.
Part 2, Acts 1 – 3
Orcanes, the king of "Natolia," or Anatolia, the region east of the Bosporus in present-day Turkey, and Sigismond of Hungary begin act 1 by swearing to uphold a truce, while Tamburlaine advances on Anatolia from Egypt. Bajazeth's son Callapine, who is Tamburlaine's prisoner in Egypt, then convinces his jailer Almeda to help him escape, promising him a kingdom. Meanwhile, Tamburlaine instructs his three sons on the arts of war; he harasses Calyphas, the son not inclined to fight, for being a coward. Tamburlaine meets Theridamas, Techelles, and Usumcasane, and they prepare to march on Natolia.
In act 2, Sigismond agrees to break his vow with Orcanes and attack the Natolian army while Orcanes is preparing to engage Tamburlaine. Orcanes wins the battle, however, attributing the victory partly to Christ, since Sigismond broke his vow to the Christian savior. Tamburlaine then discovers that Zenocrate is sick. Her physicians can do nothing to save her, and she dies. Act 3 begins with the crowning of Callapine as the Turkish emperor, and Callapine's vow to avenge his father's wrongs. Tamburlaine then burns down the town in which Zenocrate died, forbidding the world to rebuild it, and gives his sons a lesson in fortitude. Theridamas and Techelles march northward, where they sack Balsera, a town on the Natolian frontier. They capture its captain's wife, Olympia, after she burns her son's and husband's bodies. Tamburlaine and Usumcasane then parlay with Callapine and his subsidiary kings, threatening each other and boasting.
Part 2, Acts 4 – 5
Act 4, scene 1 reveals Tamburlaine's sons Amyras and Celebinus attempting to convince their brother Calyphas to fight, but Calyphas refuses. After Tamburlaine returns in triumph, he stabs Calyphas, calling him slothful and weak and ordering that the Turkish concubines bury him. In the next scene, Theridamas attempts to court Olympia, but she wishes to die and tricks him into stabbing her. Tamburlaine then rides in his chariot drawn by the former kings of "Soria," or Syria, and "Trebizon," or Trabzon, an area in the northeastern section of present-day Turkey, and tells his soldiers to rape the Turkish concubines.
Tamburlaine's next conquest is of Babylon. Since the governor refuses to yield the city, Tamburlaine has him hung in chains and shot. He then orders the kings of Trebizon and Soria hung, bridles Orcanes and Jerusalem on his coach, orders all Babylonian men, women, and children drowned, and commands that sacred Islamic books be burnt. Afterwards, Tamburlaine feels "distempered," and soon it becomes clear that Tamburlaine is deathly ill. En route to Persia, a messenger arrives to inform Tamburlaine that Callapine, who escaped from the battle in Natolia, has gathered a fresh army and means to attack. Tamburlaine scares them away, but he is too weak to pursue them. He retires to review his conquests and regret that he cannot conquer more. He then crowns his son Amyras, orders Zenocrate's hearse to be brought in, and dies.
"Plot in very Brief "
The play opens in [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. The [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] emperor, Mycetes, dispatches troops to dispose of Tamburlaine, a [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] shepherd and at that point a nomadic bandit. In the same scene, Mycetes' brother Cosroe plots to overthrow Mycetes and assume the throne.
The scene shifts to Scythia, where Tamburlaine is shown wooing, capturing, and winning Zenocrate, the daughter of the Egyptian king. Confronted by Mycetes' soldiers, he persuades first the soldiers and then Cosroe to join him in a fight against Mycetes. Although he promises Cosroe the Persian throne, Tamburlaine reneges on this promise and, after defeating Mycetes, takes personal control of the Persian Empire.
Suddenly a powerful figure, Tamburlaine decides to pursue further conquests. A campaign against Turkey yields him the Turkish king Bajazeth and his wife Zabina as captives; he keeps them in a cage and at one point uses Bajazeth as a footstool.
After conquering Africa and naming himself emperor of that continent, Tamburlaine sets his eyes on [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]; this target places the Egyptian Sultan, his father-in-law, directly in his path. Zenocrate pleads with her husband to spare her father. He complies, instead making the Sultan a tributary king. The play ends with the wedding of Zenocrate and Tamburlaine, and the crowning of the former as Empress of Persia.
In Part 2, Tamburlaine grooms his sons to be conquerors in his wake as he continues to conquer his neighbouring kingdoms. One of his sons, Calyphas, preferring to stay by his mother's side and not risk death, incurs Tamburlaine's wrath. Seeing this son as a coward, Tamburlaine kills him in anger after a battle in which he refuses to fight. During this time, Bajazeth's son, Callapine, plans to avenge his father's death. Finally, while attacking an Islamic nation, he scornfully burns a copy of the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and claims to be greater than God. Suddenly, Tamburlaine is struck ill and dies, giving his power to his remaining sons, but still aspiring to greatness as he departs life.
"Themes"
The play is often linked to [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] which idealises the potential of human beings. Tamburlaine's aspiration to immense power raises profound religious questions as he arrogates for himself a role as the "scourge of God" (an epithet originally applied to ([ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]). Some readers have linked this stance with the fact that Marlowe was accused of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. Others have been more concerned with a supposed anti-Muslim thread of the play, highlighted in a scene in which the main character burns the Qur'an, though Tamburlaine's eventually fatal illness strikes him immediately after this act, suggesting divine retribution . Jeff Dailey in his article "Christian Underscoring in Tamburlaine the Great, Part II, has shown that, rather than being evidence of Marlowe' atheism, Tamburlaine the Great, Part II actually reinforces Anglican religious orthodoxy.
The New Human
Tamburlaine, with his cruelty, his ambition, his tremendous capacity for violence, and his intense passion for his wife, represented a new and shocking type of hero for late sixteenth-century audiences. He was the equivalent of what audiences today might consider a Romantic hero — a passionate male obsessed with war who defies convention and whose fervency goes far beyond what is even conceivable for most people. Audiences were not even necessarily intended to understand Tamburlaine, such was his shock value and his capacity to break through the very fabric of society with his ceaseless conquests and unquenchable thirst for power.
Because Tamburlaine was a new type of hero, conquering the traditions of restraint and mercy with his passion, eloquence, and power, he challenged the traditional morality system that pervaded London theaters in the early Elizabethan period. Unlike the conventional plays that preceded Tamburlaine the Great, Marlowe's work does not consist of a simplistic didactic, or morally instructive, lesson emphasizing that humans must adhere to a strict and traditional moral code. Instead, the play attacks the philosophical problem of humanity's relationship to the universe and provides an example of a new and extreme worldview that seems to ignore traditional morality. It is Tamburlaine's conviction that he is as powerful as a god, and he refuses to see himself as an impotent human in a massive, oppressive universe. He believes that he can control the world and is tremendously optimistic about the possibilities of human achievement.
Marlowe does not straightforwardly advocate this worldview; Tamburlaine's relationship with the audience is complex, and he often inspires repugnance and alienation. However, Tamburlaine is not simply an anti-hero whose worldview the audience finds persuasive solely because he is a devilish figure of temptation. Tamburlaine is likely an exhilarating figure, in part, because he represents a passion that the audience is meant to admire. The play challenges the idea that humans are locked into an oppressive moral system and suggests that a new type of humanity is possible, which will break through these boundaries. The Renaissance movement in continental Europe stressed the emergence of a new model for humanity, open to diverse types of knowledge and entirely new ideas, and Tamburlaine was a vital contribution to the development of this ethos in England. Although Marlowe raises the possibility that he has gone too far, Tamburlaine provides a compelling case for a new type of human.
Power and Ambition
One of the play's principle themes is conveyed in its depiction of excessive cruelty and ambition, the characteristics that define its main character and make him controversial. In fact, the theme of power pervades nearly every aspect of the play, from Tamburlaine's conquests, to his role as a father, to his relationship with Zenocrate. Tamburlaine's military brilliance and his ability to carry out such horrendous acts — such as slaughtering the virgins of Damascus and drowning the population of Babylon
— are the results of these character traits, as are his eloquence and rhetorical power that convince Theridamas and others to join him. Marlowe's audience could be expected to find such excessive displays of power un-Christian and even repulsive, as well as to find themselves somewhat captivated by it.
Ambivalent reactions to these themes extend to the other aspects of Tamburlaine's life; the audience is asked to ponder whether the hero's extraordinary passion for his wife is actually romantic love or a form of perverted possession and desire. They must judge whether Tamburlaine is justified in murdering his own son because that son is weak and lazy. Tamburlaine is generally unwilling to place his love above his military ambitions (although he does spare Zenocrate's father). He often seems to perceive Zenocrate as a treasure to be won, such as in his initial declaration of love for her, when he describes her in terms of great wealth and power. Similarly, he views his sons solely in terms of their courage and fortitude, and he has no regrets about stabbing Calyphas because he was too slothful to enter a battle.
It is possible that Marlowe implies, according to the conventions of a tragedy, that Tamburlaine's downfall occurs because of the excessive appetite for power that is his tragic flaw. If this is the case, Tamburlaine's and Zenocrate's illnesses and deaths could be seen as apunishment from the heavens for Tamburlaine's presumptuousness. This is not necessarily clear, however, since there is no great evidence that the illness involves any divine intervention; in fact, God does not seem to interfere with human affairs in the play. In any case, Marlowe poses provocative questions about the place of power and ambition in society, the desirability of these characteristics in an age of tremendous artistic and scientific advances and the evils that can result from an excessive display of power.
Comment on Tamburlaine""
THE Scythian Shepherd, Tamburlaine, moved by an ambition far beyond the circumstances of his humble birth, had made himself leader of a gang of brigands that prey successfully on the rich merchant trains that cross Persia. In one of their raids the brigands capture the party escorting Zenocrate, daughter of the Sultan of Egypt, to her nuptials with the King of Arabia. Tamburlaine promptly falls in love with her and resolves, whether she will or no, to make her his empress when that happy time shall come.
Meanwhile, Mycetes, the not too bright King of Persia, has heard that Tamburlaine might have designs on the throne of Persia. He therefore sends one of his lords, Theridamas, with a thousand horsemen to take Tamburlaine prisoner. Such is the Scythian's eloquence, however, that Theridamas and his cavalry join Tamburlaine's ranks. Hearing this, Mycetes' brother, Cosroe, decides that the help of so powerful a man as Tamburlaine might make his own chances of seizing his brother's crown more sure. Accordingly he promises Tamburlaine preferment if he will help to unseat Mycetes. Tamburlaine and his followers do so, then turn on Cosroe and dispatch him, taking Persia for themselves.
By this time Zenocrate is as much in love with Tamburlaine as he with her. The Persian crown, alone, he decides, is all too little to offer her great beauty. His insatiable ambition impels him next to try his fortunes against the all-powerful Bajazeth, emperor of Turkey. After this conquest Tamburlaine is drunk with success. It becomes his custom on the first day of a seige to have his camp and all his accoutrements in purest white as an indication prompt surrender will save all bloodshed. Failing to receive the city's submission, the second day sees Tamburlaine's camp decked out in crimson as a sign that the resisting forces will be put to the sword. The third day all is deepest black spelling death for every living being in the hapless city.
In spite of Zenocrate's pleas, Tamburlaine now marches against her native Egypt, which her father, the Sultan, and her former betrothed of Arabia, prepare to defend. The Arabian is killed, but, true to his promise, Tamburlaine spares the Sultan and makes him one of his tributary kings. With such a valiant start toward conquering the known world Tamburlaine feels that his crown is now worth Zenocrate's acceptance and the play closes with the wedding rites.
Part II of Tamburlaine, evidently written at a later date due to the immense popularity of Part I, details Tamburlaine's subsequent victories and inglorious death from illness.
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