by Colin McHugh
for Shakespeare: Shakespeare and Marlowe
Often times, when one looks back into the history of the world, it is quite easy to see the inequality of the times poured into the works of art. Through this modern lens, the lack of representation and agency of women within stories can seem to be something worthy of outrage. One should view older works as they existed at the time, and not condone something simply because of the views of the time, this should not be seen so generally. When one looks deeper into the works of the time, they can something far deeper than appears on the surface. One such story, the story of Zenocrate, is something on which I hope to expand, to show that her character is one of the strongest within Tamburlaine the Great written by Christopher Marlowe in either 1587-1588. The play is split into two parts and follows the deeds of one Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepard turned warrior, from his early beginnings to a near emperor and Godlike figure. The beginning of the play has Tamburlaine capture Zenocrate, the princess of Egypt, and over the course of all the violence the two fall in love with one another. It should be noted as well that at the time, that plays in this era did not allow for women actors, so on the stage there would have been a male playing the part of Zenocrate.
Within Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, everyone has goals, and aspirations. Everyone wants something. Though in the end, these can be boiled down to a few simple things: honor, virtue, and status. This is present in even the smallest cracks and crevices of Tamburlaine, when the Turkish Concubines plead with Tamburlaine to "save their honours" (II. IV. iii. 4062). This might seem strange for a concubine like Zenocrate, but then it should be remembered that they served great kings before, having a status to them. When Tamburlaine gives them to common soldiers instead, they lose that status and honor. These ideas are presented within “Tamburlaine, and Attitudes Towards Women”, by Charles Brooks.
And the second important idea comes from an academic essay titled “Who Taught Thee This,” by Claire Hansen, which explores in depth the agency of women, and how they learn, within several of Marlowe’s plays.
“...Marlowe’s female characters use ‘one form of knowledge’ drawn from proving and experiencing, against the male form of knowledge as ‘inherited rules’. This undermines the cliche´ of ‘female’ emotion versus ‘male’ reason, and provides an excellent framework upon which to build an argument for female agency and experiential learning in Marlovian texts” (Hansen 158).
The paper itself uses two theories: theory in use, and the single and double loop learning theory. The first deals with the idea that what you say, and how you act, are not always the same. The second theory, the single and double loop learning theory, has to do with what we do when our in action theory fails. Single loop thinking “is more straightforward, attributing errors to ‘defective strategies or actions,” while double loop learning “attributes errors to an ‘incompatibility of governing values or as incongruity between organisational espoused theory and theory-in-use’” (Hansen 159). To put it simply, single loop is thinking that your approach was wrong, but there isn’t anything wrong with how you think. Meanwhile, double loop makes you question the worldview that you have, and attempt to change it. This is important, as Zenocrate very quickly uses adopts this thinking.
And so finally we reach the start of the analysis of Zenocrate. At the beginning of the play, she is a princess already promised to another king and captured by Tamburlaine on the road to her betrothed. Like the other characters in the play, she seeks honor, virtue, and status. The pathway to these desires following the presented status. Marrying Arabia will grant her this. Her first attempt to solve the problem of being captured shows “the traits of a single-loop thinker. The princess first attempts to escape from Tamburlaine without questioning or altering her underlying values.” (Hansen 160.) Zenocrate herself is governed by her world view, specifically family, tradition, and the world as it is presented to her. This is why, when her attempts fail, it begins to change her world view. Zenocrate’s failed attempts to pity herself, challenge and make her aware of how she can manipulate her status.
After Zenocrate and Tamburlaine meet, Marlowe throws a real curve ball at us. “If you will willingly remaine with me, You shall have honors, as your merits be: Or els you shall be forc'd with slaverie” (I. I. ii. 448-9). Skipping over the slavery part, Tamburlaine just did something that no other man in that time period really had to, or was taught, to do. He gave her a choice. In the time of this play, something like this should have been unheard of. She was not only betrothed, but he was asking her, rather than demanding. It might have thrown Zenocrate for a bit of a loop. He was promising her what she wanted, as did everyone, and was essentially asking her to throw the dice. And she refuses, likely because she does not see what he has to offer save for himself.
Tamburlaine attempts to court Zenocrate, at least in Charles Brooks’s eyes. Very simply, “courtship is, then, a bargaining. Men have to be worthy to have something to offer, and women have to be beautiful and virtuous to be valuable to worthy men. Honor is the greatest motivation” (Brooks 4). Courtship, and marriage, is an arrangement between two people. A man must have either what a woman wants, or have the means to get her what she wants. And in exchange for this, the women have to be of a certain value to the men in beauty or virtue. And as Tamburlaine himself says "vertue solely is the sum of glorie" (I. V. ii. 1970). Tamburlaine is always seeking glory, seeking to expand it with a wife, Zenocrate.
Zenocrate now, will continue to have her world view, her theory in use, challenged, especially as Tamburlaine continues to become more and more worthy of her. She seeks power within a patriarchal world, where achieving success comes from attaching oneself to a man. Tamburlaine sees it already, but Zenocrate is still learning, and by the end, she does. The way to achieve her ends is through Tamburlaine, and it increases the status of them both to do so. And since she has chosen him, her theory in action, her world view, has as well changed. She indeed becomes more like Tamburlaine. She is not subject to what the world sets for her in tradition and values. Rather, she is in charge of her own destiny, setting the rules for the world. She shows a great amount of courage for attempting this within her world. And it perhaps shows something of Tamburlaine as well that such a thing is even offered.
“Marlowe thus controls attitudes toward women to present a heroine romantic in aim but only gradually learning how she can attain her aim, to contribute to the presentation of a hero above ordinary morality, and to contribute to action which gradually exposes the hero's nature at the same time that it gradually expands the picture of the world with which he is in conflict” (Brooks 9.)
Indeed, it is even reported, according to a source from Hansen, that this idea of choice spurned public discussion in Marlowe’s time, especially concerning marriage.
How does this show Zenocrate’s agency within the story? She learns that Tamburlaine can be manipulated by her and her emotions. Zenocrate’s “sorrows lay more siege unto my soul / Than all my army to Damascus’ walls” (5.1.155–56). That is to say, when she is sad, or rather, appears to be sad, Tamburlaine attempts to appease her through his actions. Hansen once more writes that “Tamburlaine’s attempts to placate Zenocrate demonstrate the effectiveness of her double-loop learning: she has learnt that Tamburlaine is susceptible to her sadness (‘why art thou so sad?’ (4.4.66)) and thus correctly assumes that the demonstration of her unhappiness through her silence may effect further change in Tamburlaine” (Hansen, 163). This can be seen when it comes time for their crowning ceremony at the end of the first act.
There are a few scholars who point to this moment, and state that it shows a lack of Zenocrate’s own agency within the story. After all, she has agreed to marriage, and so has fulfilled her purpose in the story to be arm candy to the main character. She is instead using that influence she now has over her husband to placate him. To put it more simply, she is giving him the silent treatment, for his belligerence and actions. And this, of course, works out for her rather well, “to ‘gratify’ Zenocrate (5.1.516) Tamburlaine promises an extension of the Sultan’s ‘mighty arm’ (5.1.521) and, in what could be construed as an attempt to ease his guilt, Tamburlaine promises an honourable entombment for Alcidamas and solemn burial for Bajazeth and Zabina, who in his eyes are transformed from mocked slaves to ‘this great Turk and his fair empress’(5.1.524)” (Hansen 163.) She is, by all rights, in control of her husband.
If one looks at the character of Zenocrate on only the most basic of levels, they may simply see a case of Stockholm Syndrome, of Zenocrate falling in love with her captor. Yet to simplify it to that is a disservice. She is a woman who achieved her goal of status and honor, who chooses a husband in a time when such a thing was frowned upon, challenging the social norms at the time. She learns and grows as a character, in a way attempting to achieve agency within the story itself, trying to find the means with which to progress it. And by the end, she finds it, something that Tamburlaine saw at the very start, yet it took her awhile to see it herself. She is by far one of the most interesting characters within the story itself, and to see her progress in that story is quite the show indeed. And while it is indeed a shame that her character in part two is lacking, she does have enlightenment, and even on her deathbed takes what she learns and attempts to use it: “Your grief and fury hurts my second life” (2.4.68). Even in the end, she is attempting to calm the great Tamburlaine. I believe that Charles Brooks does state it best: “Marlowe's heroes aspire to conquer. His women also strive vigorously for their own goals, and they are not prizes that are won by lovers who serve faithfully, but prizes that must be seized” (Brooks 11). Even if she was played by a man, Zenocrate is certainly more than meets the eye.
Work Cited:
Charles Brooks, author. "Tamburlaine and Attitudes toward Women." ELH, no. 1, 1957, p. 1. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2307/2871983.
"'Who Taught Thee This?' Female Agency and Experiential Learning in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta, and Edward the Second." Journal of Language, Literature & Culture, vol. 60, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 157-177. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1179/2051285613Z.00000000017.