The Complete Plays
Page 58
7 Filling… breach: Rubble from the breach in the enemy’s walls will be used to fill in their defensive ditches.
11 drum: Addressed to a drummer.
14.2 SD above: They enter on the gallery over the stage.
26 his ruin: The falling rubble.
33 any: Omitted in all early texts.
39 that can: That you can.
53 full point-blank: With direct aim; all the way.
54 see: See to.
56 gabions: Defensive emplacements made of earth held together by a cylinder of stakes (for O’s Galions ).
62 alarum: Sound the attack.
Scene 4
9 orifex: Orifice; the wound to his liver and veins.
21 the wheel: An instrument of torture; victims were pinned to it and their limbs broken.
33.1 SD burns the bodies: Necessary in the light of lines 36 and 71–2.
48–50 from… Cynthia sits: I.e. from the circle of fire at the edge of the universe (the empyrean), which forms the under-surface of heaven, down to the sphere of the moon.
51 Like lovely Thetis: The moon in her sphere is associated with a nymph of the sea (N).
57 Rhamnusia: Nemesis (N).
64–5 straight line… heaven: I.e. the axletree of heaven.
75 frame: Framing, making.
79 No remedy: (There is) no alternative.
81 fatal: Fated.
Scene 5
3 Here at Aleppo: Callapine and his army appear not in fact to be in Syria (indicated by its capital city), but in southern Natolia.
6 Ida’s forest: Mount Ida, near Troy, is imagined with a royal forest in which the sultan of Turkey hunts.
8 Natolia’s: I.e. the king’s.
14 play the men: Act like men.
34 showed: Displayed before.
36 metropolis: Babylon, rebuilt by Semiramis (N).
40 Asia the Less: Asia Minor.
46 from Halla is repaired: Have come from Halla (a town south-east of Aleppo).
58 knot: Cluster.
65–8 Hector… his fame: This chivalric incident comes not from the Iliad, but from the post-Homeric tradition, retold, for example, in John Lydgate’s Troy Book (fifteenth century). The scene is largely concerned with honour and chivalry.
74 my glove: The gauntlet thrown down as a challenge to combat.
75–6 Now… person fight: Now that you doubt your army’s power, you seek victory through single combat.
80–82 Heaven… world: Tamburlaine’s birth, though humble, was favoured by a conjunction of stars uniquely propitious to a conqueror and never to be repeated.
87 That villain: Almeda.
95 his ancient trade: Robbery.
100–101 clog… for: A heavy weight… to prevent.
115 journey you: Drive you hard (like horses).
137 make up… dozen: Tamburlaine is scornful of the number of petty kings Callapine has crowned.
138 give arms: (i) Display a coat of arms, (ii) fight.
ACT 4
Scene 1
26 flesh our taintless swords: Give our unstained swords their first taste of blood.
32 house: Family, race.
34 toward: (i) Promising, (ii) willing.
39 lay: I.e. lay dead.
51.1 SD run in: Amyras and Celebinus leave the stage for the battle, not to the tent; Calyphas remains on stage.
68 taratantaras: Trumpet calls.
69 net of gold: Fine veil of gold thread.
and: And who.
76 stoops: Humiliate. ‘Children’ is treated as singular.
87 fresh supplies: I.e. new enemies.
95 may: Which may.
100 argument of arms: Code of military conduct.
104 jealousy: Zeal, ardour.
108 Jaertis’ stream: The river Jaxartes, here supposed to flow through, or around, Samarkand.
112–15 A form… consists: Calyphas’s soul (‘form’) is unworthy of its living connection with Tamburlaine’s flesh, which is animated by a spirit like that of Jove himself. (The Aristotelian categories of matter and spirit are confused.)
117 thy: Jove’s.
12.3 massy dregs: Densest and least valued parts (the metaphor continued in the next line is from the fermentation of wine).
12.8 he: An unspecified Titan.
129 the burden: I.e. the heavens.
131 for being seen: To avoid being seen.
132 cankered curs: Worm-ridden dogs.
137 Approve: (i) Demonstrate, (ii) experience.
157 resist in: For O’s resisting.
188 Cimbrian: The Cimbri were a Teutonic tribe who, in the second century BC, overpowered several Roman armies. Marlowe is imitating Spenser, Faerie Queene I.viii.11: ‘As great a noyse, as when in Cymbrian plaine / An heard of Bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting, / Do for the milkie mothers want complaine’.
189 the females’ miss: For the loss of their females.
190 their following: Following them.
198 For hot… pride: For the burning of his country’s cities and palaces (193–4).
Scene 2
0.1 SD: Olympia may emerge from a tent, like that of Calyphas in the previous scene.
11 Contagious smells… infect: Foul air was considered the source of infectious disease.
13 invention: (Here) scheme, device.
30 Cynthia’s… wilderness: The moon’s effect on the tides of the sea.
55 And, will you: And if you will.
61–3 simplest extracts… metaphysical: Olympia claims that the alchemist has distilled the pure essence (the hardness) of marble, worked into an ointment by supernatural (‘metaphysical’) knowledge.
86 theoria of: Contemplation, survey of (only instance in OED ).
Scene 3
1 jades: Horses (contemptuous). Marlowe borrows from Golding’s Ovid (IX, 238): ‘pampered jades of Thrace’.
5 Asphaltis: See (N); the bituminous lake near Babylon is now retrospectively identified as the site of Orcanes’s defeat.
10 governor: Apollo, who drove the horses of the sun.
12–15 headstrong jades… divine: The flesh-eating horses belonged to Diomedes of Thrace. Marlowe perhaps confused their owner with King Augeas, whose stables Hercules (‘Alcides’) had to clean in one of his labours.
21 racking clouds: Clouds driven before the wind.
24 right: Indeed.
25 figure: Emblem (perhaps his whip).
32–42 O thou… hell!: An invocation of Pluto (N).
41 once: Once and for all.
46 hedges: I.e. their teeth. ‘Hedge of teeth’ is, perhaps coincidentally, a formulaic phrase in Homer.
49 their kicking colts: Their unruly tongues.
61–2 Raise me… heaven: Classical heroes were frequently stellified when they died, as Tamburlaine imagines he may be raised to join ‘Aldebaran’ (N) in the constellation Taurus.
threefold astracism: A cluster of three stars also in Taurus, or the tripartite division of the universe into earth, planets and stars.
63 triple world: Europe, Asia and Africa.
65 prefer: Promote (ironic).
70–71 queens… queens: Punning on ‘queans’ (= whores).
73 let… your turns: I.e. take turns raping them.
75 Brawl not… lechery: Tamburlaine warns the soldiers against fighting over the concubines.
86 ’Twere but time: It’s a bit late for that (spoken ironically).
89 jesting pageants: Laughable spectacles.
104 Sinus Arabicus: The Red Sea (sinus = gulf).
119–24 Like… is blown: Adapted from Spenser’s Faerie Queene, I.vii.32. For details of the Sicilian place-names, see (N).
125 Saturn’s royal son: Jupiter.
126 Mounted: Mounted on.
127 the path: The Milky Way, as in line 132.
ACT 5
Scene 1
0.1 SD upon the walls: In the gallery over the stage.
14 As… conceit: As anything you esteem valuable.
&
nbsp; 15 for all: Despite.
17–19 famous lake… stream: The bituminous lake (seemingly identified with the ‘Asphaltis’ of 4.3.5) petrifies anything that falls into it, making fresh defences.
33 Will: Who will (the omission of the pronoun makes the verb emphatic).
34 environèd: Surrounded (like a city under siege).
54 I turn… throat: I return the word ‘traitor’ back down your own throat.
64–5 lofty pillars… the deep: In reality Babylon was 100 miles from the sea.
66 Being carried thither: Blown all the way to Limnasphaltis.
69 Belus, Ninus… Alexander: For Tamburlaine’s predecessors in Babylon, see (N).
72 Drawn with: Drawn by.
75 trod the measures: Danced.
87–90 the region… earth: Exhalations were believed to catch fire in the region below the circle of fire, and, as comets, to shed disastrous influences from their tails (‘trains’).
93 quailed: Made to quail.
98 black Jove: Pluto.
104 the anger… Highest: I.e. the scourge of God.
126 something quail: Be somewhat daunted.
158 like Baghdad’s governor: As beseems the governor of Baghdad (here identified with Babylon): explained in lines 159–60.
165 Assyria: For O’s Affrica (cf. Part One 1.1.89n).
196 abstracts: Summaries, digests (i.e. the Koran).
214 be removed the walls: From the walls.
217 distempered: Unwell.
Scene 2
9 full from Babylon: I.e. back to full strength after the siege (cf. 58).
19 record: (Here) remember.
58 Or that: Before.
Scene 3
19 retain… holiness: Still deserve to be worshipped.
22 Bear… burden: Do not join in the chorus (‘burden’ = refrain).
34 they think… out: The devils think their allotted time of suffering is over.
38 note: Mark, sign.
41.1–3 SD This entrance could instead be placed at the beginning of the scene.
44 a man: A mere mortal.
58 charge: Level.
his: Atlas’.
62 Apollo: Here as god of healing.
82 hypostasis: Sediment (for O’s Hipostates ).
84 accidental: Abnormal.
86 humidum… calor: Moisture… natural heat.
91 critical: Astrologically unfavourable (but also linked to ‘crisis’ (92): the day of the turning-point of an illness).
96 organons: Organs (or fluids: the ‘animal spirits’) acting as instru ments of the soul.
97 by argument of art: According to medical diagnosis.
111 endure: Harden, strengthen.
116 vanished: Dispelled.
125 all my wants: All the conquests I leave incomplete.
145–9 Look here… Antipodes: Tamburlaine imagines conquering the western hemisphere, from the point (near the Canary Islands) where the Greenwich meridian intersects the Tropic of Cancer, to the far east, where the sun rises on the other side of the world.
149 Antipodes: Those who live on the other side of the globe.
151 here: I.e. in the Americas.
154–5 from th’Antarctic… descried: The still-undiscovered Australasia (terra incognita in the maps).
164–5 your soul… flesh: Your soul animates our bodies, whose substance is derived from your flesh. Cf. 4.1.112–15.
168 this subject: This substance (my body).
170 Must part… impressions: Must depart, leaving behind its traces.
185–90 With what… dignity!: How hard-hearted I would have to be to enjoy the burden of my life, and if my body, all made up of pain, could still put into action the feelings of a heart that felt joy at a worldly honour!
195–8 How should… sovereignty?: How could I stir against the promptings of my heart, living only with the wish to die, and with only an unwelcome crown to cite as an argument?
203 steelèd stomachs: Tough spirits.
207 damnèd: Doomed, wretched.
208 send: May heaven send to.
211 my fatal chair: The throne in which I am fated to die, or the chariot.
216–17 The monarch… monster: Death.
225 And when… sight: And when my soul enjoys its spiritual sight.
237 Phyteus: Apollo, the sun (continuing the thought of lines 230–33 and picked up in lines 242–4).
238–41 The nature… clifts: Combining the proverb ‘Take occasion (or time) by the forelock’ (Tilley T311 ) with the fate of Hippolytus (N), the anger of whose great father Theseus caused his chariot to be dragged on to rocks where he was torn apart.
250 earth… fruit: Earth has exhausted the finest thing she has borne.
252 timeless: Untimely.
THE JEW OF MALTA
The play dates from c. 1590: Machevil’s prologue alludes to the death of the duke of Guise (23 December 1588), and the play’s first recorded performance was on 26 February 1592 by Lord Strange’s Men, at the Rose. It was immensely popular: thirty-six performances are recorded by June 1596; its title-role was one of Edward Alleyn’s great parts; and its influence on Ben Jonson (Volpone) and Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Othello) was profound. It was further revived in 1601 and, at an uncertain date, for Caroline audiences at court and at the Cockpit theatre. No text survives earlier than a quarto edition of 1633. This has a dedication, prologue and epilogue by Thomas Heywood, but there seems little reason to think that he interfered with the text, and it forms the basis for the present edition.
The play’s action has a teasingly uncertain relation to historical fact. No narrative source has been found for its plot, and its events are apparently fictional. Yet it is persuasively set in the Mediterranean world of the later sixteenth century, and, in a way, Fernand Braudel’s great history The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (1949, tr. 1972–3) is the best guide to the complex and ambiguous relations between races, nations and cultures the play evokes. Malta was repeatedly besieged by the Turks, most notably in 1565, though its Christian occupiers, the Knights of the Order of St John, never in fact compounded with their Ottoman enemies. There were historical Jews whose lives may have provided prototypes for the career of Barabas. The favourite candidate is Joseph Mendez Nassi (also known in his native Portugal as Joao Miques), who led an exodus from Christian persecution to Constantinople in 1547. A fabulously wealthy merchant and ‘diplomat’, he rose to become an adviser to Siileyman the Magnificent’s son Selim. Created duke of Naxos on Selim’s succession in 1566, he was reputed to have persuaded the Sultan to attack Venetian-held Cyprus in 1570, and was treated as a notorious enemy by European chroniclers and diplomatic agents.
But Barabas is not copied from a specific historical person. He is, rather, derived from the collective fantasy of ‘the Jew’ – the focus not only of continuing medieval anti-Semitism, but also, by the sixteenth century, the object of a more specific fear: the few, converted, Jews living in western Europe were commonly suspected of being covert allies of ‘the Turk’, a fifth column whose conversion to Christianity and commitment to the security of Christendom were merely nominal, not to be trusted. (It is hard to say whether this was fear or paranoia: disquietingly, the converted Jews living in London were, apparently, much involved in conspiracies against the Elizabethan regime. See David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England 1485–1850 (Oxford, 1994), ch. 2, ‘The Jewish Conspirators of Elizabethan England’.) It would, however, be dull-witted to complain about our uncertainty over the play’s links with reality, since such uncertainties are exactly what The Jew of Malta is about.
The uncertainties begin with its vertiginously ironic prologue. Machevil speaks like the Presenter of a Morality play, but instead of instruction he offers the beginnings of a ‘lecture’ (29) (almost, at this date, a sermon) on atheism. Seemingly an immortal soul, he ‘count[s] religion but a childish toy’ (14). One of the Presenter’s functions was to gain a hospitable reception f
or the players – an essentially reciprocal entertainment (cf. 34) – and Machevil too comes to ‘frolic with his friends’ (4). If we react with horror to his amorality, we are caught in his paradoxical trap:
To some perhaps my name is odious,
But such as love me guard me from their tongues,
…
Admired I am of those that hate me most. (5–6,9)
Critics have debated how far the play reflects first-hand knowledge of Machiavelli’s writings, how far the common stereotype of ‘the murderous Machiavel’. The answer appears to be, ‘Both.’ Barabas may be a poisoner, but he is conspicuously less Machiavellian than the canny and unscrupulous Christians.
His first appearance leads us to expect a Morality about the evils of avarice, but the ‘desire of gold’ (3.5.4) is a universal in the play, and Barabas himself is soon less interested in riches than in revenge. His name associates him with the thief who was released instead of Christ, but it is the Christians who steal Barabas’s wealth in 1.2. Ferneze’s opportune production of ‘the articles of our decrees’ (67) and the appearance of the soldiers who have already seized Barabas’s goods suggest that he is the victim of a preconcerted trick. When he makes the point – ‘Is theft the ground of your religion?’ – he is answered:
No, Jew, we take particularly thine
To save the ruin of a multitude;
And better one want for a common good
Than many perish for a private man. (96, 97–100)
Ferneze’s words are uncomfortably close to the sentiments of Caiaphas plotting the death of Christ (John 11:50). G. K. Hunter (1964) argues that the persistent biblical allusions imply the play’s conformity with traditional theological anti-Semitism. They seem rather to highlight the gap between reality and ‘counterfeit profession’ (291).
Similarly, Barabas casts himself as Job later in the scene, only to reveal that he has provided a further hoard against such a calamity (under a board mockingly marked with a cross). Like the Morality-play Vice, he is protean and unpredictable. Audiences delight in his ambiguities, which frequently occur on the fault line between the material and the spiritual, traditionally the distinction between Judaism and Christianity:
LODOWICK
This is thy diamond. Tell me, shall I have it?
BARABAS
Win it and wear it. It is yet unfoiled.
O, but I know your lordship would disdain
To marry with the daughter of a Jew;