Crowns in Tamburlaine represent, of course, the apex of political power, which for Tamburlaine is synonymous with the apex of human achievement. The slapstick scene with Mycetes attempting to hide his crown reveals how unworthy he is to bear it, as opposed to the low-born Tamburlaine, to whom the crown nevertheless seems naturally suited. Tamburlaine could simply snatch the crown from Mycetes during that scene, but he insists on winning it properly in battle, showing the respect it commands from him as a symbol. After seeing Cosroe crowned Persian emperor, “The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown” compels him to attack Cosroe’s forces. Again, he yearns for the crown, but he likewise relishes the opportunity to prove himself worthy of it through the violent process of obtaining it. This is his life’s work: he feels driven to “never rest/ Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,/ That perfect bliss and sole felicity,/ The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.” Indeed, he finds that “kingly joys on earth—/To wear a crown enchased with pearl and gold,/ Whose virtues carry with it life and death” surpass the pleasures and glories even of the gods in heaven.
Yet, if you think about a crown, its perfect circle shape symbolically closes its wearer off from the world. This elevates but also isolates Tamburlaine, making him deaf to the pleas of pity from the vestal virgins, and of his own men when he stabs his son Calyphas. The crown, then, captures both the grandeur of total power and the inhumanity required to achieve it.
Crowns Quotes in Tamburlaine
Zenocrate, lovelier than the love of Jove,
Brighter than is the silver Rhodope,
Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills,
Thy person is worth more to Tamburlaine
Than the possession of the Persian crown,
Which gracious stars have promised at my birth.
A hundred Tartars shall attend on thee
Mounted on steeds swifter than Pegasus […]
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair
And place himself in the empyreal heaven,
Moved me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature […]
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,
still climbing after knowledge infinite
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills 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.
For he that gives him other food than this
Shall sit by him and starve to death himself.
This is my mind, and I will have it so.
Not all the kings and emperors of the earth,
If they would lay their crowns before my feet,
Shall ransom him or take him from his cage.
Crowns Symbol Timeline in Tamburlaine
