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The empire of Timur, or Tamerlane, or in Marlowe’s spelling Tamburlaine, was the last great Eurasian land‐empire before the emergence of the western European sea‐based empires in the early modern period. The Oxford historian John Darwin’s account of the ‘Global History’ of those latter empires is titled, tellingly, After Tamerlane. Western Europeans of the Renaissance did not, on the whole, look down on or patronize the ‘Oriental’ rulers of such empires, Islamic, Chinese or other (cf. IA3 and 5). The overriding emotion tends to shift between respect and fear. In the later parts of Marlowe’s play, Tamburlaine is revealed as a model of the ‘Oriental despot’, but in its opening pages he is characterized as the very definition of a Renaissance prince. The play depicts a conflict between the decadent Persian Empire and the nomadic and victorious ‘Scythian’ Tamburlaine. In the short extract presented here, a group of disaffected Persian lords enquire of one of their number, who has encountered him, what Tamburlaine is actually like. The extract is from Act 2, Scene 1 of Tamburlaine the Great, Part One of c.1590, in Christopher Marlowe: Complete Plays and Poems, edited by E. D. Pendry, London: J. M. Dent, Everyman, 1976, p. 18.

COSROE.

Thus far are we towards Theridamas,

And valiant Tamburlaine, the man of fame,

The man that in the forehead of his fortune

Bears figures of renown and miracle.

But tell me, that hast seen him, Menaphon,

What stature wields he, and what personage?

MENAPHON.

Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned

Like his desire, lift upwards and divine;

So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit,

Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear10

Old Atlas’ burden; ’twixt his manly pitch

A pearl more worth than all the world is plac’d,

Wherein by curious sovereignty of art

Are fix’d his piercing instruments of sight,

Whose fiery circles bear encompassed

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres,

That guides his steps and actions to the throne

Where honour sits invested royally;

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion,

Thirsting with sovereignty, with love of arms;20

His lofty brows in folds do figure death,

And in their smoothness amity and life;

About them hangs a knot of amber hair,

Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles’ was,

On which the breath of heaven delights to play,

Making it dance with wanton majesty.

His arms and fingers long and sinewy,

Betokening valour and excess of strength;

In every part proportioned like the man

Should make the world subdu’d to Tamburlaine.30

COSROE.

Well hast thou portray’d in thy terms of life

The face and personage of a wondrous man.