Wounded and broken with your highness' grief, Cel. Your pains do pierce our souls; no hope For by your life we entertain our lives. Tamb. Let not thy love exceed thine honour, Nor bar thy mind that magnanimity Sit up, my boy, and with these* silken reins Tamb. But, sons, this subject, not of force Since fate commands and proud necessity. enough To hold the fiery spirit it contains, By equal portions into† both your breasts; [They assist TAMBURLAINE to descend from the chariot. Ther. A woful change, my lord, that daunts our thoughts More than the ruin of our proper souls! Amy. Heavens witness me with what a broken And damned‡ spirit I ascend this seat, [They crown AMYRAS. Usum. Then feels your majesty no sovereign ease, Tamb. Casane, no; the monarch of the earth, Tech. Then let some god oppose his holy power Tamb. Sit up, my son, [and] let me see how well Against the wrath and tyranny of Death, Amy. With what a flinty bosom should I joy Of Death and Hell be shut against my prayers, * subjects] Mr. Collier (Preface to Coleridge's Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. cxviii) says that here “subjects" is a printer's blunder for "substance": yet he takes no notice of Tamburlaine's next words, "But, sons, this subject not of force enough," &c.-The old eds. are quite right in both passages: compare, in p. 62, first col.; "A form not meet to give that subject essence Whose matter is the flesh of Tamburlaine," &c. tinto] So the 8vo.-The 4to "vnto." t your seeds] So the 8vo.-The 4to "our seedes." (In p. 18, first col., we have had "Their angry seeds"; but in p. 47, first col., "thy seed" :-and Marlowe probably wrote "seed" both here and in p. 18.) $ lineaments] So the 8vo.-The 4to "laments."-The Editor of 1826 remarks, that this passage "is too obscure for ordinary comprehension." That his tear-thirsty and unquenched hate [They bring in the hearse of ZENOCRATE. scorch'd, And all the earth, like Ætna, breathing fire: * these] So the 4to.-The 8vo "those." & Clymene's] So the 8vo.-The 4to "Clymeus." Phyteus'] Meant perhaps for "Pythius'", according to the usage of much earlier poets: "And of Phyton [i.e. Python] that Phebus made thus fine Came Phetonysses," &c. Lydgate's Warres of Troy, B. ii. Sig. K vi. ed. 1555. Here the modern editors print "Phoebus"". |