ORCANES

Viceroy of Byron, wisely hast thou said: My realm, the Centre of our Empery Once lost, All Turkey would be overthrown: And for that cause the Christians shall have peace. Slavonians, Almains, Rutters, Muffs, and Danes Fear not Orcanes, but great Tamburlaine. Nor he but Fortune that hath made him great. We have revolted Grecians, Albanees, Cicilians, Jews, Arabians, Turks, and Moors, Natolians, Sorians, black Egyptians, Illicians, Thracians, and Bythimans, Enough to swallow forceless Sigismond Yet scarce enough encounter Tamburlaine, He brings a world of people to the field, From Scythia to the Oriental Plague Of India, where raging Lantchidol Beats on the regions with his boisterous blows, That never seaman yet discovered: All Asia is in Arms with tamburlaine, Even from the amid of fiery Cancers Tropic, To Amazonia under Capricorn. And thence as far as Archipellago. All Africa is in Arms with tamburlaine. Therefore Viceroys the Christians must have peace. Traitors, villains, damned Christians, Have I not here the articles of peace, And solemn covenants we have both confirmed, He by his Christ, and I by Mahomet: Can there be such deceit in Christians, Or treason in the fleshly heart of man, Whose shape is figure of the highest God? Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say, But in their deeds deny him for their Christ: If he be son to everliving Jove, And hath the power of his outstretched arm, If he be jealous of his name and honour, As is our holy prophet Mahomet, Take here these papers as our sacrifice And witness of thy servants perjury. Open thou shining veil of Cynthia And make a passage from the imperial heaven That he that sits on high and never sleeps, Nor in one place is circumscriptible, But every where fills every Continent, With strange infusion of his sacred vigor, May in his endless power and purity Behold and venge this Traitors perjury. Thou Christ that art esteemed omnipotent, If thou wilt prove thy self a perfect God, Worthy the worship of all faithful hearts, Be now revenged upon this Traitors soul, And make the power I have left behind (Too little to defend our guiltless lives) Sufficient to discomfort and confound The trustless force of those false Christians. To arms my Lords, on Christ still let us cry, If there be Christ, we shall have victory. Now shall his barbarous body be a pray To beasts and fool's, and all the winds shall breath Through shady leaves of every senseless tree, Murmurs and hisses for his heinous sin. Now scalds his soul in the Tartarian streams, And feeds upon the baneful tree of hell, That zoacum, that fruit of bitterness, That in the amid of fire is ingraft, Yet flourishes as Flora in her pride, With apples Like the heads of damned Fiends, The Dyuils there in chains of quencelesse flame, Shall led his soul through Orcus burning gulfs From pain to pain, whose change shall never end: What sayest thou yet Gazellus to his foil: Which we referred to justice of his Christ, And to his power, which here appears as full As rays of Cynthia to the clearest sighed? Yet in my thoughts shall Christ be honoured, Not doing Mahomet and injury, Whose power had share in this our victory: And since this miscreant hath disgraced his faith, And died a traitor both to heaven and earth, We will both watch and ward shall keep his trunk Amid these plains, for Fowls to pray upon. Go Uribassa, give it straight in charge. And now Gazellus, let us haste and meet Our Army and our brother of Jerusalem, Of So , Trebizon and Amasia, And happily with full Natolian bowls Of Greekish wine now let us celebrate Our happy conquest, and his angry fate. I have a hundred thousand men in arms, Some, that in conquest of the perjured Christian. Being a handful to a mighty host, Think them in number yet sufficient, To drink the river Nile or Euphrates, And for their power, enough to win the world. Our battle then in martial manner pitched, According to our ancient use, shall bear The figure of the semicircled Moon: Whose horns shall sprinkle through the tainted air, The poisoned brains of this proud Scythian. Now, he that calls himself the scourge of Jove, The Emperor of the world, and earthly God, Shall end the warlike progress he intends, And travel headlong to the lake of hell: Where legions of devils knowing he must die Here in Natoliam, by your highness hands) All brandishing their brands of quenchless fire, Stretching their monstrous paws, grin with their teeth. And guard the gates to entertain his soul. So from Arabia desert, and the bounds Of that sweet land, whose brave Metropolis Reedified the fair Semyramis, Came forty thousand warlike foot and horse, Since last we numbered to your Majesty. Now thou art fearful of thy armies strength, Thou wouldst with over match of person fight, But Shepherds issue, base born tamburlaine, Think of thy end, this sword shall lance thy throat. But Tamburlaine, first thou shalt kneel to us And humbly crave a pardon for thy life. Thou shewest the difference betwixt our selves and thee. In this thy barbarous damned tyranny. Revenge it Radamanth and Eacus, And let your hates extended in his pains, Expel the hate wherewith he pains our souls. Oh thou that swaiest the region under earth, And art a king as absolute as Jove, Come as thou didst in fruitful Scicilie, Suruaieng all the glories of the land: And as thou tookest the fair Proserpina, Joying the fruit of Ceres garden plot, For love, for honour, and to make het Queen, So for joust hate, for shame, and to subdue This proud contemner of thy dreadful power, Come once in fury and survey his pride, Haling him headlong to the lowest hell. First let thy Scythyan horse tear both our limbs Rather then we should draw thy chariot. And Like base slaves abject our princely minds To vile and ignominious servitude. Stay Sigismond, forgettest thou I am he That with the Cannon shook Vienna walls. And made it dance upon the Continent: As when the massy substance of the earth, Quiver about the Axletree of heaven. Forgettest thou that I sent a shower of darts Mingled with powdered shot and feathered steel So thick upon the blink-ei'd Burghers heads, That thou thy self, then County-Pallatine, The king of Boheme, and the Ostrich Duke, Sent Herralds out, which basely on their knees In all your names desired a truce of me? Forgettest thou, that to have me raise my siege, Wagons of gold were set before my tent: Stamped with the princely Foul that in her wings Caries the fearful thunderbolts of Jove, How canst thou think of this and offer war? So pressed are we, but yet if Sigismond Speak as a friend, and stand not upon terms, Here is his sword, let peace be ratified On these conditions specified before, Drawn with advise of our Ambassadors. But (Sigismond) confirm it with and oath, And swear in sighed of heaven and by thy Christ. By sacred Mahomet, the friend of God, Whose holy Alcaron remains with us, Whose glorious body when he left the world, Closed in a coffin mounted up the air, And hung on stately Mecas Temple roof, I swear to keep this truce imnolable: Of whose conditions, and our solemn oaths Signed with our hands, each shall retain a scroll, As memorable witness of our league. Now Sigismond, if any Christian King Encroach upon the confines of thy realm, Send word, Orcanes of Natoliam Confirmed this league beyond Danubius stream, And they will (trembling) found a quick retreat, So am I feared among all Nations. I thank thee Sigismond, but when I war, All Asia Minor, Africa, and Greece Follow my Standard and my thundering Drums: Come let us go and banquet in our tents: I will dispatch chief of my army hence To fair Natoliam, and to Trebizon, To stay my coming gainst proud Tamburlaine, Friend Sigismond, and peers of Hungary, Come banquet and carouse with us a while, And then depart we to our territories. EGregious Viceroys of these Eastern parts Placed by the issue of great Baiazeth: And sacred Lord the mighty Calapine: Who lives in Egypt, prisoner to that slave, Which kept his father in and iron cage: Now have we martcht from fair Natoliam Two hundred leagues, and on Danubius banks, Our warlike host in complete armour rest, Where Sigismond the king of Hungary Should meet our person to conclude a truce. What? Shall we parley with the Christian? Or cross the stream, and meet him in the field. GAzellus, Uribassa, and the rest, Now will we march from proud Orminus mount To fair Natoliam, where our neighbour kings Expect our power and our royal presence, T'incounter with the cruel tamburlain, That nigh Larissa sways a mighty host, And with the thunder of his martial tools Makes Earthquakes in the hearts of men and heaven, CAlepinus Cyricelibes, otherwise Cybelius, son and successive heir to the late mighty Empe rour Baiazeth, by the aid of God and his friend Mahomet, Emperor of Natoliam, Jerusalem, Trebizon, Soria, Amasia, Thraciam, Illyria, Carmo niam And all the hundred and thirty Kingdoms late con tributory to his mighty father. Long live Callepinus, Emperor of Turkey. Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods, And Christ or Mahomet hath be my friend. What, take it man. So he shall, and we are thy head in his Scutcheon: No, we will meet thee slavish ta ̄ burlain. Injurious tyrant, wilt thou so defame The hateful Fortune's of thy victory, To exercise upon such guiltless Dams, The violence of thy common Soldiers lust.