THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



was due not solely to the resonance and splendour of the 

 verse or the magic of the strange names. The audience 

 listened to it in a temper quite unlike the temper that 

 Coleridge's Kubla Khan begets in the modern reader. 

 This drama of the world at stake was to them a 

 representation of real affairs, and the high speeches of 

 Tamburlaine voiced for them the defiance and the 

 pride of England. 

 The romance How entirely Marlowe's imagination had been cap- 

 o; tscovery. ^^j.^^ j^y ^j^g discoveries and exploits of the navigators 

 is clearly shown in Tamburlaine's dying speech, which 

 expresses all the romance of geography and all the 

 ambition of empire. The Conqueror feels his vital 

 powers failing, and, with his sons by his side, calls for 

 a map of the world : 



* Give me a map ; then let me see how much 

 Is left for me to conquer all the world, 



That these, my boys, may finish all my wants.' 



The map is brought, and he traces on it his victorious 

 progress through Asia and Africa, ' backwards and for- 

 wards near five thousand leagues.' The Suez Canal is 

 one of his unfulfilled schemes : 



* Here, not far from Alexandria, 

 Whereas the Terrene and the Red Sea meet. 

 Being distant less than full a hundred leagues, 

 I meant to cut a channel to them both 

 That men might quickly sail to India.' 



The dream of Then, for a legacy to his sons, he points to that part 

 Empire. q£ ^^^ world, better than all the rest, which remains to 



conquer : 



* Look here, my boys ; see what a world of ground 

 Lies westward from the midst of Cancer's line, 

 Unto the rising of this earthly globe ; 



Whereas the sun, declining from our sight, 

 io6 



