Poem of the Week – Tamburlaine the Great, Part One

Christopher Marlowe needs little introduction. A contemporary of William Shakespeare’s, Marlowe was an influential innovator of dramatic and poetic styles and structures. He was hailed as the foremost tragedian of the Elizabethan age and beguiled London’s large literary community with the originality of his elegant allegorical poetry.

Associated with several senior practitioners of espionage and accused of heresy and indecency by zealous detractors, Marlowe played the role of the inspired wayward youth perfectly. His death has been the cause of much debate. He was stabbed to death after a day’s drinking at an inn in Deptford on the banks of the Thames in 1593. He was twenty-nine years old.

Some historians believe he was assassinated by rival spies on the orders of Sir Francis Walsingham and that his violent demise confirms the claim that he was immersed in the murky world of 16th-century counter-intelligence and courtly intrigue.

This week’s poem is an extract from Marlowe’s celebrated play, Tamburlaine the Great. In the passage below, the eponymous hero expresses his understanding of human nature and our inherent impulse to explore the extent of our rational abilities. The poet describes the unconscious aim of our “aspiring minds” as a “sweet fruition” of our “earthly crowns”.

Today the trick of composing compact and substantial verse while advancing a compelling story may appear out-of-date and potentially artificial. Still, over four centuries after its completion, the execution of Marlowe’s verse dramas remain a technical feat unequalled by all, except perhaps by Shakespeare himself.

From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One by Christopher Marlowe (1587)

Nature, that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wandering planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown