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.
موضوع: Good and Short plot of Tamburlaine 
الإثنين يونيو 07, 2010 2:04 am
