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Marlowe's Debasement of Bajazet: Foxe's Actes and Monuments and Tamburlaine, Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

William J. Brown
William J. Brown*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
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Extract

One interesting facet of Tamburlaine, Part I is Marlowe's dramatic characterization of Bajazet. The Great Turk's defeat and humiliation by Tamburlaine are standard features of Marlowe's acknowledged sources: his captivity in an iron cage, his being fed like a dog from Tamburlaine's table scraps, his use as Tamburlaine's footstool, and his final desperate suicide by braining against the bars of his cage. But Marlowe's debasement of Bajazet is more radical and all-encompassing. From his first appearance (III.i), the Ottoman emperor is portrayed as pompous, tyrannical, and prone to flattery. His confrontation with Tamburlaine (III.iii) is farcical rather than heroic. In short, Marlowe's Bajazet totally lacks the dignity and bravery accorded the Bajazet of his historical authorities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , Spring 1971 , pp. 38 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1971

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References

1 For discussion of Bajazet's dramatic characterization with regard to Marlowe's acknowledged sources, see Ellis-Fermor's, U. M. Introduction to Tamburlaine the Great in Two Parts, 2nd ed. rev. (London, 1951), pp. 23–41 Google Scholar, 48-49, and 57, with notes on pp. 125, 144, 291-293, and 304. All references to the play are to this edition—hereafter cited as Tamburlaine.

2 ‘The Influence of Marlowe's Sources on Tamburlaine I,’ MP, XXVI (1926), 185, and ‘Tamburlaine and Marlowe,’ PMLA, XLII (1927), 614. In the latter (p. 620), Miss Spence also suggests that Marlowe's humorous treatment of the confrontation (III.iii) reflects his awareness that battles no longer held any suspense, the audience having already become convinced of Tamburlaine's invincibility.

3 Tamburlaine, pp. 40, 48-49, and 57.

4 ‘Tamburlaine Sources Once More,’ SP, XLVI (1949), 154-155.

5 Clifford Davidson, Cf., ‘Doctor Faustus at Rome,’ SEL, IX (1969), 231–239 Google Scholar; N. W. Bawcutt, ‘Marlowe's “Jew of Malta” and Foxe's “Acts and Monuments,” ‘ N&Q, N.S. xv (1968), 250; and my ‘Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part II and Foxe's Actes and Monuments,’ read at the S A M L A Convention in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 7, 1969, in which I propose Foxe as the formative source for Marlowe's selection and invention of episodes for Part II. Certainly the evidence of Foxe in Marlowe's plays can no longer be treated as a means of identifying the work or name of a ‘collaborator.’ The indebtedness seems too pervasive.

6 All references to Foxe are to the 1583 edition, but the account of Bajazet's reign is the same in all three editions.

7 Haller, William, The Elect Nation: The Meaning and Relevance of Foxe's Book of Martyrs (New York and Evanston, 1963), pp. 56–59 Google Scholar and 127-135. Foxe's statements of the fivefold pattern are neither simple nor always consistent. For clarity and brevity, the summary in the next paragraph is a simplification of the formulation by Haller, pp. 136-137.

8 Haller, , The Elect Nation, p. 171.Google Scholar

9 Marlowe's Tamburlaine, corr. ed. (Nashville, Tenn., 1964), pp. 131-133. Battenhouse (p. 133, n. 6) cites seventeen declarations or assertions of the scourge motif; but only five of these occur in Part I, and one of these five is in the Prologue (1. 6) and another spoken by the Soldan of Egypt (rv.iii.o) in denunciation of Tamburlaine. The three remaining declarations are by Tamburlaine; and the first of these, to Zenocrate, that he ‘means to be a terror to the world’ (I.ii.38), is of questionable application, or at best innocuous. The remaining two declarations in Part I are made, one to Theridamas (1n.iii.44ff.) with reference to the coming battle with Bajazet, and the other (rv.ii.30-33) as Tamburlaine mounts his throne with Bajazet as his footstool. The scourge motif is hardly a ‘running theme’ in Tamburlaine, Part I, although the concept assumes increasing importance in Part II. In Marlowe's first play, the theme of Tamburlaine as Christian scourge is emphatically localized to his conflict with Bajazet.

10 Christopher Marlowe (Chapel Hill, N. C , 1946), p. 184; also pp. 79-83, especially n. 13. See also Spence, ‘Tamburlaine and Marlowe,’ pp. 612-614.

11 On Chalcondylas, see Ellis-Fermor, , Tamburlaine, p. 25 Google Scholar, especially n. 2. At the conclusion of his Turkish history, Foxe gives a list of ‘The Authors of the Turkes storyes’ C1. 757). and ‘Laonicus Chalcondila’ heads the list. The only author he cites in the text or margin of his account of Bajazet, however, is Sebastian Munster (1, 739), once in the text and once marginally.

12 ‘Et cum Tamerlanes ascenderet equu, usus est eo tanquam scabello’ ('Appendix Geographica,’ Claudius Ptolemaeus Geographia, ed. Münster, Sebastian [Basle, 1540], p. 181)Google Scholar [Theatrvm Orbis Terrarvm Series of Atlases in Facsimile, 3rd series, vol. v (Amsterdam, 1966)]. Pius II uses an almost identical phrase in his Historia De Europa: ‘… ascensurus equum, eo tanqua scabello usus est’ (Aeneae Sylvii Piccolominei Senensis … opera … [Basle, 1571], p. 395c) [Minerva Facsimile reprint (Frankfurt a. M., 1967)]. Fulgotius reads, ‘… secū trahebat, eo pro scabello utens, ut faciliorem in equum pararet ascensum’ (De Superbia,’ Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri ix [1578], fol. 329, quoted from Bakeless, John, The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe [Cambridge, Mass., 1942], 1, 222)Google Scholar. In his Thesavrvs Lingvac Romanae & Britannicae (London, 1584), sig. Xxxxx.I.v, Thomas Cooper defines ‘Scabellum’ as a diminutive of ‘Scamnum,’ meaning ‘A foote stole or low settle.'

13 Whetstone, p. 72. The point is of some significance because Thomas C. Izard, in ‘The Principal Source for Marlowe's Tamburlaine,’ MLN, LVIII (1943), 411-417, uses Fortescue's omission of the footstool episode as one piece of evidence to argue that Whetstone, not Fortescue nor any Latin author, is the source for Part I. See Ellis-Fermor, , Tamburlaine, pp. 286–287 Google Scholar; also n. 20 below.

14 Shute, p. 3v—although Cambinus’ Libro … delta origine Turchi (1529) reads: ‘faciendoselo inclinare davanti lo usava in luogo di scanno’ (quoted by Ellis-Fermor, , Tamburlaine, p.28 Google Scholar). Florio, John, in A Worlde of Wordes (London, 1598), p. 349 Google Scholar, defines ‘Scanno’ as ‘any kinde of stoole, forme, bench, or seate. Also a dominion or state.’ ‘Scannetto’ or ‘Scannello’ he defines as ‘afoote-stoole, a little stoole.’ Thomas Newton, in ‘A Summarie or breefe Chronicle’ appended to his Notable Historie of the Saracens (1575), a translation of Curio, states, ‘When so euer hee tooke Horse, he … vsed his necke as a Styrrope’ (p. 129); and Primaudaye's The French Academie (1586), translated by T. B., shows similar but variant phraseology: ‘whensoever he tooke horse, he vsed his bodie for an adnauntage’ (p. 253). Knolles, Richard, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603)Google Scholar, p. 220m, states that ‘vpon festiuall daies [Tamburlaine] vsed him for a footstoole to tread vpon, when he mounted to horse'; his use of'footstoole’ is of some significance since Dick, ‘Tamburlaine Sources Once More,’ pp. 156-166, raises a distinct possibility that Marlowe may have known and made use of Knolles's MSS and source materials long before publication of the Historie.

15 ‘The Inheritance of Christopher Marlowe,’ Theology, LXVIII (1964), 302. Also English Dramatic Form (London, 1965), p. 49: ‘Marlowe's doctrine of power, like that of his age, was largely a doctrine of sovereignty. In every parish church of the land, a copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs displayed the Pope riding in triumph, with kings at his stirrup; then Henry VIII enthroned, and spurning the crown from the head of the Pope, now his abject footstool.'

16 My italics. I have quoted from Smith, Hallett, ‘Tamburlaine and the Renaissance,’ Elizabethan Studies and Other Essays in Honor of George F. Reynolds (Boulder, Colo., 1945), p. 129 Google Scholar, who quotes from a microfilm copy in the Princeton University Library.

17 Ellis-Fermor, , Tamburlaine, pp. 6 and 61-62Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., iv.ii, p. 140, n. 1

19 Ellis-Fermor, loc. cit.; Smith, ‘Tamburlaine and the Renaissance,’ p. 130. Miss Ellis-Fermor cites Smith's short article in her revised edition on almost every point he makes: twice in her ‘Introduction,’ pp. 12 and 33, and three times in notes to the text of the play, pp. 113,140, and 254. But she does not refer to his rebuttal to the note on Raleigh's reminiscence of the play 20 Fortescue's ‘mistranslation’ is another piece of Izard's argument in favor of Whetstone as Marlowe's source. See n. 13, above.

21 Specific references as follows: ‘flag(s),’ rv.ii.112 and 116, v.ii.5; ‘colours,’ rv.i.6o, v.1.9; ‘streamers,’ rv.ii.120, v.ii.252-253; ‘tent(s),’ iv.i.50, rv.ii.ni and 117, v.i.7, v.ii.o; ‘pavilion,’ rv.i.6o. Except for v.ii.252-253, Zabina's mad scene, in every instance Marlowe balances his usage of one term by reference in the same passage to the other. In Part II, three additional color references occur, all unbalanced: ‘flag,’ n.iv.i 16, and ‘tents,’ V.i.86 and 103; but these do not seem relevant to a discussion of Marlowe's use of the color motif in Part I.

22 Some quibble is possible with regard to spear, shield, horse, armour, and plumes (iv.i.61), which I interpret as taking on adjectival coloration from 11. 60 and 62; all other instances cited have specific color reference or modification.

23 Cf. Theridamas's remark (111-112) that ‘tents of white’ and ‘gentle flags of amity’ are now displayed, and Tamburlaine's rejoinder (115ff.) that the Governor must not ‘stay until the bloody flag / Be once advanc'd on my vermilion tent’ if he hopes to receive mercy.