[They take BAJAZETH out of the cage.] BAJAZETH. Ye holy priests of heavenly Mahomet, That, sacrificing, slice and cut your flesh, Staining his altars with your purple blood, Make heaven to frown, and every fixed star To suck up poison from the moorish fens, And pour it [193] in this glorious tyrant's throat! TAMBURLAINE. The chiefest god, first mover of that sphere Enchas'd with thousands ever-shining lamps, Will sooner burn the glorious frame of heaven Than it should [194] so conspire my overthrow. But, villain, thou that wishest this [195] to me, Fall prostrate on the low disdainful earth, And be the footstool of great Tamburlaine, That I may rise into [196] my royal throne. BAJAZETH. First shalt thou rip my bowels with thy sword, And sacrifice my heart [197] to death and hell, Before I yield to such a slavery. TAMBURLAINE. Base villain, vassal, slave to Tamburlaine, Unworthy to embrace or touch the ground That bears the honour of my royal weight; Stoop, villain, stoop! stoop; [198] for so he bids That may command thee piecemeal to be torn, Or scatter'd like the lofty cedar-trees Struck with the voice of thundering Jupiter. BAJAZETH. Then, as I look down to the damned fiends, Fiends, look on me! and thou, dread god of hell, With ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth, And make it swallow both of us at once! [TAMBURLAINE gets up on him into his chair.] TAMBURLAINE. Now clear the triple region of the air, And let the Majesty of Heaven behold Their scourge and terror tread on emperors. Smile, stars that reign'd at my nativity, And dim the brightness of your [199] neighbour lamps; Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia! For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth, First rising in the east with mild aspect, But fixed now in the meridian line, Will send up fire to your turning spheres, And cause the sun to borrow light of you. My sword struck fire from his coat of steel, Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk; As when a fiery exhalation, Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud, Fighting for passage, make[s] the welkin crack, And casts a flash of lightning to [200] the earth: But, ere I march to wealthy Persia, Or leave Damascus and th' Egyptian fields, As was the fame of Clymene's brain-sick son That almost brent [201] the axle-tree of heaven, So shall our swords, our lances, and our shot Fill all the air with fiery meteors; Then, when the sky shall wax as red as blood, It shall be said I made it red myself, To make me think of naught but blood and war.