Summary
Scene 2.1. Cosroe and his followers are drawing near to Theridamas and Tamburlaine, and Cosroe asks Menaphon for a description of the Scythian. Menaphon discourses Tamburlaine’s appearance at length, drawing comparisons to mythical figures such as Atlas and even the “heavenly bodies in their spheres” (2.1.16). He all but agrees with Tamburlaine that the man is destined to subdue the world.
Impressed, Cosroe decides to enlist Tamburlaine’s help, and to make him a king after defeating Mycetes, while Cosroe himself will reign as emperor. They set off to meet up with Theridamas and Tamburlaine and propose joining forces against Mycetes.
Scene 2.2. Mycetes rages with his typical ineloquence to Meander about the betrayals of Cosroe and Theridamas. Once again, having said his small bit, he asks Meander to speak for him to the other lords and soldiers. After describing their situation and recommending that they attack quickly, Meander reveals that, though Theridamas is to have a bounty on his head, Mycetes intends to take mercy on Cosroe.
A spy reports that the forces of Cosroe and Tamburlaine are much larger than the Persians’. Meander nevertheless predicts an easy victory over the supposedly disorganized, brutish Scythian forces. Mycetes expresses admiration for Meander’s rhetoric, but even as he does so he shows his lack of understanding of language’s power: “And ‘tis a pretty toy to be a poet,” he comments (2.2.54). Meander again assures Mycetes of victory, since “You, fighting more for honor than for gold, / Shall massacre those greedy-minded slaves” (2.2.66-67). They exit to prepare for battle.
Scene 2.3. As they get ready to take on Mycetes, Cosroe asks Tamburlaine if he thinks they’ll win, saying that he respects Tamburlaine’s judgment as that of an oracle. “And so mistake you not a whit, my lord,” Tamburlaine replies, and predicts that “We’ll chase the stars from heaven and dim their eyes / That stand and muse at our admirèd arms” (2.2.23-24).
Satisfied, Cosroe promises riches and noble titles to Tamburlaine, Usumcasane, and Tamburlaine once he rules Persia. Tamburlaine agrees on these terms to fight to make Cosroe emperor.
Analysis
In these scenes, Marlowe continues to reinforce, rather than rebuke in accordance with convention, Tamburlaine’s extravagant claims to near-omnipotence. Virtually every character so far that has come into direct contact with Tamburlaine seems to more or less share Tamburlaine’s self-evaluation, such as when Cosroe calls him, essentially, an oracle. Menaphon’s description of Tamburlaine, besides echoing those earlier in the play, reinforces Tamburlaine’s status as an agent of fate, or a “scourge” of divine will, by invoking comparisons to and images of the gods and the most inexorable forces of nature. The “heavenly bodies in their spheres...guid[e] his steps and actions to the throne...” (2.1.16-17). His features encompass the entire natural cycle of mortal existence: “His lofty brows in folds do figure death, / And in their smoothness amity and life” (2.1.21-22).
Just as Tamburlaine’s features are an exact outward figuration of Tamburlaine’s own nature as a man—a classic Renaissance and Romantic trope—they also seem to figure the impersonal powers of nature itself. The intermingling of the gods (often portrayed in antiquity as the personification of natural forces) and natural phenomena seen as governed by scientific law evidences Marlowe’s particular fusion of classical and Renaissance sensibilities. Furthermore, similarly to Marlowe’s addition of the capacity for deep romantic love to his hero, Tamburlaine’s physical features fuse the imposing stature of the warlord with the archetypical features of a poet. The Poet’s sensitivity and even otherworldliness were often figured in imagery much like Menaphon’s here: “Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion...” (2.1.19-20).
The inclusion of this description makes all the more clear the kind of near-hubris evident in Mycetes and Cosroe’s treatment of Tamburlaine. After what we’ve seen of the Scythian, the self-satisfied predictions of victory of Meander and Mycetes seem ridiculous. We know better than to believe Meander’s assertion that, “You [Mycetes], fighting more for honor than for gold, / Shall massacre those greedy-minded slaves” (2.2.66-67). In context, the smug words of these “civilized” nobles are highly ironic: their confidence in their superiority by royal birth looks quite ignoble in contrast to the supposedly barbarous Scythian Tamburlaine’s more action-based conception of virtue.
Mycetes' belittling comment about poetry—“’tis a pretty toy to be a poet”—further suggests a connection between this attitude and their inability to grasp the nature of Tamburlaine. Perhaps we can see Tamburlaine—whose physical form other characters almost seem to “read” as one would a text—as a kind of embodied poetry, whose words are so powerful as to function as actions, and whose body and actions are as expressive as a poem.
Cosroe, as always, fares slightly better than Mycetes and his cronies: he at least recognizes Tamburlaine for what he is. Yet although he defers to Tamburlaine’s judgment about the outcome of the battle, Cosroe never seems to question whether his plan to simply reward Tamburlaine with a subordinate kingdom while he (i.e. Cosroe) rules as emperor is really plausible. It’s clear to the reader, at least, that a man who claims to “hold the fates bound fast in iron chains” won’t settle for the role of vassal to Cosroe.
