Quotes from Christopher Marlowe

TAMBURLAINE: Live still, my love, and so conserve my life, Or, dying, be the author of my death.

Infinite riches in a little room

But that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say)

Hell and confusion light upon their heads.

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena.

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the the universe

BARABAS: A reaching thought will search his deepest wits, And cast with cunning for the time to come; For evils are apt to happen every day.

BARABAS: Things past recovery Are hardly cur'd with exclamations. Be silent, daughter; sufferance breeds ease, And time may yield us an occasion, Which on the sudden cannot serve the turn.

I wish, grave governor, 'twere in my power To favour you; but 'tis my father's cause, Wherein I may not, nay, I dare not dally.

On receiving his M.A. from the University of Cambridge in 1587, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) had already written parts I and II of his play Tamburlane the Great. Bringing fame to its author, and a new style to tragic theater, Tamburlane was the beginning of a brilliant, unfortunately brief, career. Marlowe's plays were to prove original in their earnest portrayal of single personalities who were deeply flawed, often criminal, but still somehow heroic.

Bell, book, and candle, candle book and bell, forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell. Anon you shall hear a hog grunt,a calf bleat, and an ass bray, Because it is Saint Peter's holy day

Menaphon : Your Majestie shall shortly have your wish, And ride in triumph through Persepolis. Tamburlaine : And ride in triumph through Persepolis? Is it not brave to be a King, Techelles? Usumcasane and Theridamas, Is it not passing brave to be a King, And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

Stipendium peccati mors est.

This tottered ensign of my ancestors Which swept the desert shore of that dead sea Whereof we got the name of Mortimer, Will I advance upon these castle-walls. Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport, And sing aloud the knell of Gaveston!

YOUNG MORTIMER: Thou proud disturber of thy country's peace, Corrupter of thy king, cause of these broils, Base flatterer, yield! and were it not for shame, Shame and dishonour to a soldier's name, Upon my weapon's point here should'st thou fall, And welter in thy gore. LANCASTER: Monster of men! That, like the Greekish strumpet, train'd to arms And bloody wars so many valiant knights; Look for no other fortune, wretch, than death! King Edward is not here to buckler thee.

Forbid me not to weep; he was my father; And, had you lov'd him half so well as I, You could not bear his death thus patiently.

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.

Oh, Fausto, ahora tienes apenas una hora de vida, y serás maldecido para la eternidad. ¡Quedaos quietas, esferas celestiales siempre en movimiento, que el tiempo pare y no llegue nunca la medianoche!

What virtue is it that is born with us? Much less can honor be ascribed thereto, Honor is purchased by the deeds we do. Believe me, Hero, honor is not won, Until some honorable deed be done. ----From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad I

Love always makes those eloquent that have it. ---From Hero and Leander, Sestiad II

Thus Time, and all-states-ordering Ceremony Had banished all offense: Time's golden thigh Upholds the flowery body of the earth In sacred harmony, and every birth Of men and actions makes legitimate, Being used aright. The use of time is Fate. ---From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad III

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self place, but where we are is hell, and where hell is, there must we ever be; and, to be short, when all the world dissolves and every creature shall be purify'd, all places shall be hell that is not heaven. - Philly Boy

What ho, hostess! Where be these whores?

Time passeth swift away; Our life is frail, and we may die to-day.