The Reputation of Christopher Marloivc. 369 



barbarous taste, 'which had nothing in them but the scenical strut- 

 ting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant 

 gapers.' The use of Bajazet as footstool is travestied by Mas- 

 singer in The Maid of Honour (II. ii) : 



Page . . . Do it, and neatly ; 



Or, having first tripped up tlij' heels, I'll make 



Thy back my footstool. 



Sylli. Tamburlaine in little ! 



Am I turned Turk ? What an office am I put to ! 



Dekker jokes at Tamburlaine's 'bloody flag' (11. 1560 f.) : 



What, dost thou summon a parlie my little drumsticke? tis too late; thou 

 seest my red flag is hung out. (Satiroinastix IV. ii. 38-40) ;^ 



and John Cooke has similar passages in Greene's Tu Quoque 

 (1614)."^ William Rowley ridicules the soldan's mighty threats 

 (11. 1633 ff.) in A Nciv Wonder (1632).*° Even the truest and 



^^ Dekker's familiarity with the play is evidenced by many other passages ; 

 e.g., Satiromastix (ed. Penniman, IV. iii. 210 f.), 'dost stampe mad Tam- 

 berlaine, dost stampe?'; (ibid. V. ii. 361 ff.), 'brag that your Vize-royes 

 or Tributorie-Kings, haue done homage to you' ; Jests to Mafse You Merry 

 (Grosart, Non-Dram. Wks. ii. 349), 'It thundered and lightened all night, 

 3^et was it faire day the very next morning for furious Tatnberlaine, who 

 as 3'ou heard was cutting" out 3. sorts of banners for his three sworne 

 enemies'; Seven Deadly Sins (Grosart ii. 63), 'If therefore you, and Fine 

 companies greater then yours, should chuse a Colonel, to lead you against 

 this mightie Tamburlaine, you are too weake to make him Retire, and if you 

 should come to a battell, you would loose the day'; Nezvs from Hell (Gro- 

 sart ii. 100), 'Nay, since my flag of defiance is hung forth, I will yeelde to 

 no truce, but with such Tamburlaine-lilie furie match against this great 

 Turke, and his legions, that Don Belzebub shall be ready to damne himselfe, 

 and be horne-mad . . .'; The Wonderful Year (Grosart i. no), 'Imagine 

 then that all this while, Death (like a Spanish Leagar, or rather like stalking 

 Tamberlain) hath _pitcht his tents (being nothing but a heape of winding 

 sheetes tackt together) in the sinfully-polluted Suburbes.' 



^ 'I will spread the Ensigne of my knighthood ouer the face of the Citty, 

 which shall strike as great a terrour to my enemies, as euer Tambcrlaine to 

 the Turkes.' (Hazlitt-Dodsley xi. p. 186.) Also in the same play (p. 226) : 

 ' 'S foot, she plays the terrible tyrannising Tamberlane over him.' 

 'A noysc above at Cards. 



How now, how now, my roaring Tamberlaine 



Take heede the Soldan comes.' 



