Tamburlaine the Great | Summary

Part 1, Acts 1–2
Tamburlaine the Great begins with a prologue declaring that, unlike the silly wordplay of previous literature, this play will feature the ‘‘high astounding’’ words and actions of a conqueror. Act 1 then opens with the king of Persia, Mycetes, complaining to his brother Cosroe of a band of outlaws led by a ‘‘Scythian’’ shepherd named Tamburlaine. Scythians would technically have lived north and northeast of the Black Sea, but Marlowe uses the term interchangeably with ‘‘Tartar,’’ which signi- fies the area of East Asia...

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