The Infernal Imagery In Tamburlaine

The infernal imagery is used mainly in the speeches of Tamburlaine’s opponents, especially Bajazeth, who more than anyone else suffers brutal and inhuman treatment. His laments and curses compress all the dark and violent acts and emotions of the play into imagery alluding frequently to features of the classical underworld. Sometimes the afterworld is imagined as a celestial Heave, but much more frequently the characters picture it as Hades. He prays that the dread god of hell may with ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth. (p.41) He implores the furies to dive to the bottom of Avernus’ pool to bring up hellish poison for Tamburlaine. (p.46) His life becomes more odious to him
“Than noisome parbreak of the Stygian snakes
Which fills the nooks of hell with standing air.” (p.55)
This kind of images, which appear frequently, especially during Act IV in which Bajazeth is brutally humiliated, emphasise the darker aspects of Tamburlaine’s character and actions. They

Throughout the beginning of Tamburlaine’s rise, rival kings and emperors consistently referred to him and his men in animalistic terminology, for example calling Tamburlaine savage or incivil (p.4), or, doubly implying that he is either deity or beast, noting that he “was never sprung of human race” (p.24), and that his troops “lie in ambush waiting for a prey.” (p.17) The imagery of animalism in reference to Tamburlaine is not only an insult to his character, but also a hint at his low birth. While Tamburlaine may never directly hear these insults, it is almost as if he perceives them as he turns around and punishes formerly mighty kings as animals once he has gained authority. Marlowe is reinforcing Tamburlaine comparison to a beast in the latter’s abuses of former royalty. Though, like all things Tamburlaine does, he takes fighting like a beast to the extreme. The effect is a monarch almost entirely devoid of a human nature, or a