Tamburlaine depicts a low-born nomadic shepherd’s progressive conquest of a large part of the known world. Tamburlaine’s staggering confidence in his own success, from the very beginning, is nearly as unbelievable as his actual uninterrupted string of victories. His ambition is plainly to conquer the world, and the total certainty with which he sets about his task (in the face of impossible odds, at the beginning) proves instrumental in winning him crucial allies like Theridamas (henchman of the Persian usurper Cosroe): as he tells him, “Forsake thy king and do but join with me/ and we will triumph over all the world./ I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains/ And with my hand turn Fortune’s wheel about.” This braggadocio proves persuasive, not only flipping Theridamas’s loyalty but convincing Cosroe, sight unseen, that “Nature doth strive with Fortune and his stars/ To make him famous in accomplished worth,/ and well his merits show him to be made/ his fortune’s master and the king of men.” Tamburlaine himself explicitly makes his unstoppable destiny a matter of astrological influence, citing the “stars that reigned at [his] nativity”: early on, he claims that “gracious stars have promised [him the Persian crown] at [his] birth,” and later (speaking in the third person), that his “smiling stars give him assured hope/ Of martial triumph ere he meet his foes.” Again, his claims influence his enemies’ perception of him: the conquered emperor Bajazeth laments that “such a star hath influence in [Tamburlaine’s] sword/ As rules the skies and countermands the gods/ More than… Destiny.”
Given Tamburlaine’s outstanding, improbable rise from total obscurity and succession of unchecked victories, the play forces its audience to ask whether he may in fact be somehow cosmically destined for triumph. Yet for all the characters’ talk of the stars’ interference, the play itself never depicts anything supernatural or anything that cannot be explained by merely a lot of luck and skill. In this way, the play suggests that, whether Tamburlaine is actually divinely blessed or not, his success in becoming “his fortune’s master” lies in his total confidence that he is (and his resulting charisma).
Related Themes from Other Texts
Fortune and Destiny ThemeTracker
Fortune and Destiny 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 […]
Art thou but captain of a thousand horse,
That by characters graven in thy brows
And by thy martial face and stout aspect
Deservest to have the leading of an host?
Forsake thy king and do but join with me
And we will triumph over all the world.
I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains
And with my hand turn Fortune’s wheel about,
And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere
Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome.
A god is not so glorious as a king.
I think the pleasure they enjoy in heaven
Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth.
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 ‘will’ and ‘shall’ best fitteth Tamburlaine,
Whose smiling stars gives him assurèd hope
Of martial triumph, ere he meet his foes.
I, that am termed the scourge and wrath of God,
The only fear and terror of the world,
Will first subdue the Turk, and then […]
AMYRAS: Why may not I, my lord, as well as he,
Be termed a scourge and terror of the world?
TAMBURLAINE: Be all a scourge and terror to the world,
Or else you are not sons of Tamburlaine.
Black is the beauty of the brightest day—
The golden ball of heaven's eternal fire
That danced with glory on the silver waves
Now wants the fuel that inflamed his beams,
And all with faintness, and for foul disgrace
He binds his temples with a frowning cloud,
Ready to darken earth with endless night.
Zenocrate that gave him light and life,
Whose eyes shot fire from their ivory bowers
And tempered every soul with lively heat,
Now by the malice of the angry skies,
Whose jealousy admits no second mate,
Draws in the comfort of her latest breath
All dazzled with the hellish mists of death […etc.]
We shall not need to nourish any doubt
But that proud Fortune who hath followed long
The martial sword of mighty Tamburlaine,
Will now retain her old inconstancy,
And raise our honours to as a high a pitch
In this our strong and fortunate encounter.
But now, my boys, leave off, and list to me,
That mean to teach you rudiments of war.
I'll have you learn to sleep upon the ground,
March in your armour thorough watery fens,
Sustain the scorching heat and freezing cold,
Hunger and thirst, right adjuncts of the war.
And after this, to scale a castle wall,
Besiege a fort, […]
Now, Mahomet, if thou have any power,
Come down thyself and work a miracle,
Thou art not worthy to be worshipped
That suffers flames of fire to burn the writ
Wherein the sum of thy religion rests.
Why send'st thou not a furious whirlwind down
To blow thy Alcoran up to thy throne,
Where men report thou sitt'st by God himself,
Or vengeance on the head of Tamburlaine
That shakes his sword against thy majesty
And spurns the abstracts of thy foolish laws?
Well, soldiers, Mahomet remains in hell—
He cannot hear the voice of Tamburlaine.
Inestimable drugs and precious stones,
More worth than Asia and the world beside;
And from th' Antarctic Pole eastward behold
As much more land, which never was descried,
Wherein are rocks of pearl that shine as bright
As all the lamps that beautify the sky:
And shall I die, and this unconquerèd?
Here, lovely boys, what death forbids my life,
That let your lives command in spite of death.
