Part I closes. This portrait is peculiar to the 1597 edition * '

Part I closes. This portrait is peculiar to the 1597 edition * '.
The portrait of Tamburlaine common to all except the 1605
edition appears in this text on the verso of F5. This is the
least clear and the hardest to read of all the texts ; blots,
blind and broken letters are frequent.
The fourth edition has survived in at least five complete
copies of its two parts (in the Bodleian, British Museum,
Huntington, Dyce and White libraries), in further copies of
single parts, Part II in the Library of J. L. Clawson and a
mutilated copy of Part I wanting the title leaf and A 2,
in the Huntington Library.^ It consists also of two
Black Letter octavos,^ Part I, 1605 (A— 14), Part II, 1606
(A— l4v) with a separate title-page for the second part.
1 In a note upon this copy Professor C. F. Tucker Brooke says that it
is bound with J. Sylvester's translation, The Maiden's Blush (1620), that
the title-page bears the signature ' Mary Leigh ', and that the verso of the
last leaf, 1. 8, has a MS. note ' Radulphus Farmar est verus possessor
huius libri '.
2 See R. B. McKerrow, Printers' and Publishers'' Devices (1913).
3 See the note on Part II, Heading.
* Note by Professor C. F. Tucker Brooke.
^ See below under ' quarto ' of 1590.
^ These two parts have been generally referred to as quartos, but the
position of the chain lines and the water-marks shows that the original
sheet has been folded as an octavo. The signatures (in fours) and the
relatively large size of the volume have caused it to appear a quarto.
In the B.M. copy of Part II the outer forme of sheet H has been smudged
(H, H2v, H3, H4v) while the rest of the printing is clear. These facts
suggest quarto imposition with octavo folding. As, strictly, the folding
of the paper is the determining factor, it seems preferable to refer to
the volumes as octavos.
4 TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT
These then run : ' Tamburlaine the | Great e. | Who, from
the state of a Shepheard | in Scythia, by his rare and | won-
derfull Conquests, became | a most puissant and mighty]
Monarque. | [Device : McKerrow, No. 270.] | London |
Printed for Edward White, and are to be solde | at the little
North doore of Saint Paules | Church, at the signe of the
Gunne. | 1605 * and ' Tamburlaine the | Greate. | With his
impassionate furie, for the | death of his Lady and Love
faire Zenocra | te : his forme of exhortation and discipline |
to his three Sonnes, and the manner of | his owne death. |
[Rule] I The second part | [Rule] | [Device] | London |
Printed by E.A. for Ed. White, and are to be solde | at
his Shop neere the little North doore of Saint Paules | Church
at the Signe of the Gun. | 1606 |.' ^
These four octavos are the only editions known to-day,
but some of the older commentators have references to two
which appear at first to be different editions but resolve
themselves upon examination into one or other of these
four. Dyce, Hazlitt, Cunningham and Bullen have refer-
ences to a quarto of 1590, supposed to survive only in its
title leaf and first subsequent leaf which were ' pasted into
a copy of the First Part of Tamburlaine in the Library at
Bridge-water House ; which copy, excepting the title-page
and the Address to the Readers, is the impression of 1605 '.^
It was assumed by Hazlitt that the play had thus gone
through two editions within the year 1590.^ Wagner, in
the preface to his edition in 1885,* showed that this title
leaf and A 2 were no other than fragments of the already
known 1590 8vo, the two copies corresponding exactly in
position, size of letters, spacing, etc. In 1926 the Short Title
1 This is, on the whole, a clear and legible edition in a type of approxi-
mately the same size as that of 1590 and 1597, but averaging five or six
more lines to the page.
2 A, Dyce, Works of Christopher Marlowe . . . (i 850-1 858),
3 W. C. Hazlitt, Handbook to Early English Literature (1867), p. 373,
under Tamburlaine (a).
* Marlowes Werke {Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe), I, Tamburlaine v.
A. Wagner. Heilbronn, 1885.
INTRODUCTION 5
Catalogue, in addition to the two copies already mentioned,
entered under No. 17424 ' Tamburlaine the Great. [Anon.]
P*^. I, 8°Sig. A — 14, R.Jhones, 1590 ' . . ., thus reviving the
myth in a slightly modified form, the quarto becoming a
previous octavo. In point of fact there is, as Wagner
pointed out, one 1590 edition only, which we now know
to exist in the two complete copies described above and
this fragment of a third.
The other case of duplication is that of the 1592/1593
8vo of which mention has already been made,^ which, owing
to the dubious condition of the date on its title-page, is
generally cited as a 1593 edition in references before 1850
and as a 1592 edition in those between 1850 and our own
day. As I have shown elsewhere, ^ there is little likelihood
that these two sets of references imply the existence, at
any time, of a 1592 and a 1593 edition.^
The relations of three of these texts were examined care-
fully by A. Wagner in the Preface to his edition and there
is little to add to his conclusions except in so far as they
are affected by the addition of the octavo of 1597 which
was unknown to him. Briefly, the relations may be summed
up thus : the surviving 1590 octavo appears to be the
original edition upon which all the others are more or less
directly based ; none of them appear, by their readings,
to suggest the existence of another and lost early edition
which would rival the 1590 octavo, Oi, as a foundation for
the later texts. The text of Oi is by no means devoid of
errors and misprints, many of which all three of the later
texts faithfully reproduce. O2 thus appears to be based
directly on Oj, introducing a large number of fresh errors
and very seldom correcting those of any importance in its
predecessor ; ^ O3 goes back, not to O2, but to Oj, coinciding
1 See supra, p. 2. 2 gee T.L.S., June 1929.
^ Allusions to a 1600 410 also occur in MS. notes by Oldys in Langbaine
(B.M.C. 57. 1. 12 and C.28.g.l.).
* Wagner says (op. cit., p. xxv), 'In der Tat ist B (= 1593) nichts
anderes, als ein Abdruck von A. (= 1590), allerdings ein durch eine grosse
Anzahl neu hinzugefiigter Fehler bedeutend verschlechterter. . . . B hat
6 TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT
with it in a large number of cases in which O2 differs from
it, introducing some fresh errors, but by no means so many
as O2 and occasionally correcting an original error which
O2 had retained. It only once agrees with O 2 independently
of the other editions. O4 appears to be based on O3, from
which it differs sometimes to introduce a hitherto un-
represented reading or an obvious misprint, but seldom
to agree with Oi in conflict with O3 and in only eight cases
in the whole text to agree with O 2 in conflict with O3.
There is therefore no question as to which text should
form the basis of an edition of Tamburlaine}
II
DATE OF THE PLAY
The date which has been generally accepted for the com-
pletion of the first part of Tamhurlaine and its first perform-
ance is the winter of 1587/8 and that for the second part
very shortly afterwards, the spring or early summer of 1588.
It has been diflicult to find conclusive evidence in support
of either of these dates as the first edition and the entry
at Stationers' Hall both belong to 1590 (' xiiij*° die Augusti |
Richard Jones | Entred unto him for his Copye | The twooe
commicall' discourses of Tomberlein the Cithian shepparde \
under the handes of Master Abraham Hartewell, and the
Wardens . . . Vjd ') and the first performances of which we
have a record run from August 28, 1594 onwards. ^ But
it is obvious from contemporary allusions that the play
was known to the general reading and writing public before
the earlier of these and upon the most definite allusion,
that of the preface to Greene's Perimedes, the arguments
for dating the play have generally depended. The passage
zwar eine Anzahl von Fehlern seiner Vorlage korrigiert, aber dies sind
meistens Druckfehler der einfachsten Art.'
^ For a fuller discussion of this relationship, see Appendix A, ' The Text
of Tamhurlaine i and 2.'
2 See Henslowe's Diary, ed. W. W. Greg, Pt. II, pp. 167, 168, and p. 61
of this introduction. The Stage History of the Play.
INTRODUCTION 7
from Greene's epistle is quoted below (see pp. 12-13) and the
words ' daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tam-
hurlan ' have always seemed a sufficiently clear allusion to
the passage in which Tamburlaine, collecting and burning
the Alcoran and other religious works of the Mahometans
in his camp before Babylon, denounces Mahomet in the
bitter words which vibrate with Marlowe's hatred of con-
ventional religious observance, while still suffused with his
passionate desire for religion :
' Now Mahomet, if thou have any power,
' Come downe thy selfe and worke a myracle,
' Thou art not woorthy to be worshipped,
' That suffers flames of fire to burne the writ
' Wherein the sum of thy religion rests.
' Why sends 't thou not a furious whyrlwind downe,
' To blow thy Alcaron up to thy throne,
' Where men report, thou sitt'st by God himseJfe,
' Or vengeance on the head of Tamhurlain,
' That shakes his sword against thy majesty,
' And spurns the Abstracts of thy foolish lawes.
' Wei souldiers, Mahomet remaines in hell,
' He cannot heare the voice of Tamhurlain,
' Seeke out another Godhead to adore,
* The God that sits in heaven, if any God,
'For he is God alone, and none but he.'
[Part II. Act V. Sc. i. 11. 186-201]
There are, of course, a number of other passages in the
second part of the play and not a few, even, in the first
|