Soliman. Why, so. O Brusor, seest thou not
Her milkwhite neck, that alabaster tower?
'Twill break the edge of my keen scimitar,
And pieces, flying back, will wound myself.
Brusor. Now she is all covered, my lord.
Soliman. Why, now at last she dies.
Perseda. O Christ, receive my soul!
Soliman. Hark, Brusor; she calls on Christ:
I will not send her to him. Her words are music,
The selfsame music that in ancient days
Brought Alexander from war to banqueting,
And made him fall from skirmishing to kissing.
No, my dear love would not let me kill thee,
Though majesty would turn desire to wrath:
There lies my sword, humbled at thy feet;
And I myself, that govern many kings,
Entreat a pardon for my rash misdeed.
(2)
[Basilisco is asked to declare his country and past achievements.]
Basilisco. Sooth to say, the earth is my country,
As the air to the fowl or the marine moisture
To the red-gill'd fish. I repute myself no coward,
For humility shall mount; I keep no table
To character my fore passed conflicts.
As I remember, there happened a sore drought
In some part of Belgia, that the juicy grass
Was sear'd with the Sun-God's element.
I held it policy to put the men-children
Of that climate to the sword,
That the mother's tears might relieve the parched earth:
The men died, the women wept, and the grass grew;
Else had my Friesland horse perished,
Whose loss would have more grieved me
Than the ruin of that whole country.
Christopher Marlowe, the greatest of all the University Wits, has been reserved to the last because in his work we rise nearest to the excellence of Shakespearian drama. By the inexhaustible force of his poetic genius he created literature for all time. We read the plays of his contemporaries chiefly for their antiquarian interest; we are pleased to discover in them the first beginnings of many features popular in later productions; one or two appeal to us by their own beauty or strength, but the majority are remembered only for their relationship to greater plays. This is not so with Marlowe's works. Having once been so fortunate as to have had our attention directed to them, we return again and again for the sheer joy of reading his glorious outbursts of poetry, of being thrilled with the intensity of his greater scenes.