I repose my life! Whose heavenly presence, beautified with health, Gives light to Phoebus and the fixed stars; Whose absence makes 87 the sun and moon as dark As when, oppos'd in one diameter, Their spheres are mounted on the serpent's head, Or else descended to his winding train. Live still, my love, and so conserve my life, Or, dying, be the author 88 of my death. ZENOCRATE. Live still, my lord; O, let my sovereign live! And sooner let the fiery element Dissolve, and make your kingdom in the sky, Than this base earth should shroud your majesty; For, should I but suspect your death by mine, The comfort of my future happiness, And hope to meet your highness in the heavens, Turn'd to despair, would break my wretched breast, And fury would confound my present rest. But let me die, my love; yes, 89 let me die; With love and patience let your true love die: Your grief and fury hurts my second life. Yet let me kiss my lord before I die, And let me die with kissing of my lord. But, since my life is lengthen'd yet a while, Let me take leave of these my loving sons, And of my lords, whose true nobility Have merited my latest memory. Sweet sons, farewell! in death resemble me, And in your lives your father's excellence. 90 Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord. [They call for music.] TAMBURLAINE. Proud fury, and intolerable fit, That dares torment the body of my love, And scourge the scourge of the immortal God! Now are those spheres, where Cupid us'd to sit, Wounding the world with wonder and with love, Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death, Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul. Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven; And, had she liv'd before the siege of Troy, Helen, whose beauty summon'd Greece to arms, And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos, Had not been nam'd in Homer's Iliads,— Her name had been in every line he wrote; Or, had those wanton poets, for whose birth Old Rome was proud, but gaz'd a while on her, Nor Lesbia nor Corinna had been nam'd,— Zenocrate had been the argument Of every epigram or elegy. [The music sounds—ZENOCRATE dies.] What, is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword, And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain, And we descend into th' infernal vaults, To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair, And throw them in the triple moat of hell, For taking hence my fair Zenocrate. Casane and Theridamas, to arms! Raise cavalieros 91 higher than the clouds, And with the cannon break the frame of heaven; Batter the shining
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