Christopher Marlowe - Atheistic, Bicurious, Playwrighting Spy
An Introduction to the Playwright slash Rakehell in Queen Elizabeth I's Secret Service.
Christopher Marlowe’s play ‘The Jew of Malta’, written in 1589, opens with Machiavelli coming on stage and delivering to the crowd the following prologue:
MACHIAVELLI. Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead,
Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps,
And now the Guize is dead, is come from France
To view this Land, and frolic with his friends.
To some perhaps my name is odious,
But such as love me, guard me from their tongues,
And let them know that I am Machiavel,
And weigh not men, and therefore not men’s words:
Admired I am of those that hate me most.
Though some speak openly against my books,
Yet will they read me, and thereby attain
To Peter’s Chair: And when they cast me off;
Are poisoned by my climing followers.
I count Religion but a childish Toy,
And hold there is no sin but Ignorance.
Birds of the Air will tell of murders past;
I am ashamed to hear such fooleries:
Many will talk of Title to a Crown.
What right had Caesar to the Empire?
Might first made Kings, and
Laws were then most sure
When like the Draco’s they were writ in blood.
Quod me nutrit, me detruit. That which nourishes me destroys me. Is the quote in the portrait presumed to be of the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.
It’s not exactly known whether or not it is Marlowe in the portrait, all that’s known is that the birth-year of the sitter matches with Marlowe’s.
Bizarrely, although it was painted near the end of the XVIth century, it was only discovered, hidden in the walls of Corpus Christi college in Cambridge, Marlowes’ alma matter, in the 50’s – yes, the 1950’s. It was in such a pitiful state that it was actually thrown out, only to be salvaged by a student.
Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564 - the same year as Shakespeare - and he died at the age of 29, allegedly in a fight over a food bill. There are, however, those who suppose he was murdered. Because Marlowe wasn’t a regular playwright, he was a spy, for her majesty’s secret service, at the behest of which, he is supposed to have travelled to the catholic college in Rheims (and possibly working as the tutor of the niece of Mary Queen of Scots), in order to try to find any information on extant plots against the protestant queen, who was understandably aggrieved ever since the pope effectively issued a fatwa on her for her blasphemous protestant ways. But that’s another story.
Despite being employed as a spy and dying at age 29. Marlowe left behind 7 plays, some of which are still performed to this day. As well as some slightly homoerotic translations of Ovid and Lucan and an unfinished narrative poem ‘Hero and Leander’.
Marlowe’s work is often compared to Shakespeare, so much so that some people think they’re the same person, and that Marlowe faked his death and continued to write under an alter ego. To put things into perspective, by the age Marlowe passed away, as far as we know Shakespeare had written: Henry the 6th parts 1,through 3, Titus Andronicus, the two gentlemen of Verona and possibly Richard the III. No Hamlet. No Macbeth. No Othello, King Lear, Julius Caesar, and none of the other works with which Shakespeare bought his share of immortal fame. If Marlowe had lived another twenty years, could he be the crown jewel of Elizabethan theatre? Taking Shakespeare’s place? Maybe. But that’s not the point. The point is that we’ll never know just how many brilliant plays have we missed out on.
Then again, it can be argued that if Marlowe hadn’t died Shakespeare would never have had the space to flourish and wouldn’t have been able to write all the plays that he did. Or maybe he would’ve been limited to writing only romantic comedies. Which would be a tragedy in and of itself.
Anyways, Marlowe was an immensely talented playwright, as well as a professed atheist a homosexual and a spy in 16th century England; who truly did die over that which nourished him, viz. the hot-tempered emotion that ran through his heart.
You can find all of Marlowe’s plays online, the most famous being ‘Doctor Faustus’, which has been adapted into film as well as ‘The Jew of Malta’ and ‘Edward II’.
To end this introduction to the life and works of Christopher Marlowe, I’ll leave you with a monologue from the second part of ‘Tamburlaine the great’: Where Zenocrate, empress of Persia, is dying in her bed as Tamburlaine sits by her side:
TAMBURLAINE. Proud fury, and intolerable fit,
That dares torment the body of my love,
And scourge the scourge of the immortal God!
Now are those spheres, where Cupid us'd to sit,
Wounding the world with wonder and with love,
Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death,
Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul.
Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven;
And, had she liv'd before the siege of Troy,
Helen, whose beauty summon'd Greece to arms,
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,
Had not been nam'd in Homer's Iliads,—
Her name had been in every line he wrote;
Or, had those wanton poets, for whose birth
Old Rome was proud, but gaz'd a while on her,
Nor Lesbia nor Corinna had been nam'd,—
Zenocrate had been the argument
Of every epigram or elegy.
[The music sounds—ZENOCRATE dies.]
What, is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword,
And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,
And we descend into th' infernal vaults,
To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair,
And throw them in the triple moat of hell,
For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.
Casane and Theridamas, to arms!
Raise cavalieros higher than the clouds,
And with the cannon break the frame of heaven;
Batter the shining palace of the sun,
And shiver all the starry firmament,
For amorous Jove hath snatch'd my love from hence,
Meaning to make her stately queen of heaven.
What god soever holds thee in his arms,
Giving thee nectar and ambrosia,
Behold me here, divine Zenocrate,
Raving, impatient, desperate, and mad,
Breaking my steeled lance, with which I burst
The rusty beams of Janus' temple-doors,
Letting out Death and tyrannizing War,
To march with me under this bloody flag!
And, if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the Great,
Come down from heaven, and live with me again!