From Robert Greene, Selimus (1594)

[Selimus is a fictional dramatization of the rise to power of Selim I who deposed his father and murdered his older brothers in order to become Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1512. Selimus became part of the repertoire of the Queen's Men acting company in 1588 and is one of a number of so-called "Turk plays" that offer an English perspective on the increasing military and economic dominance of the Ottomans in Europe around the turn of the seventeenth-century. While they vary considerably in quality, tone, and historical argument, these plays rely heavily on stereotypes of violent, power-hungry, and untrustworthy Turks. In the excerpt reproduced here, Selimus, Iago-like, talks aloud about his wicked plans to betray those who trust him most, and, in the process, reveals his own lack of faith, his contempt for virtue, and his ruthless ambition.]

1Now Selimus, consider who thou art.
2Long hast though marched in disguised attire,
3But now unmask thyself and play thy part,
4And manifest the heat of thy desire;
5Nourish the coals of thine ambitious fire,
6And think that then thy empire is most sure
7When men for fear thy tyranny endure.
8Think that to thee there is no worse reproach
9Than filial duty in so high a place.
10Thou oughtst to set barrels of blood abroach,
11And seek with sword whole kingdoms to displace.
12Let Mahound's laws be locked up in their case,
13And meaner men and of a baser spirit
14In virtuous actions seek for glorious merit.
15I count it sacrilege for to be holy
16Or reverence this threadbare name of good.
17Leave to old men and babes that kind of folly;
18Count it of equal value with the mud.
19Make thou a passage for thy gushing flood
20By slaughter, treason, or what else thou can,
21And scorn religion -- it disgraces man.
22My father Bayazet is weak and old,
23And hath not much above two years to live.
24The Turkish crown of pearl and Ophir gold
25He means to his dear Acomat to give,
26But ere his ship can to her haven drive,
27I'll send abroad my tempests in such sort
28That she shall sink before she get the port.
29Alas, alas, his highness's agèd head
30Is not sufficient to support a crown.
31Then Selimus, take thou it in his stead,
32And if at this thy boldness he dare frown
33Or but resist thy will, then pull him down —
34For since he hath so short a time t'enjoy it,
35I'll make it shorter or I will destroy it.
36Nor pass I what our holy votaries
37Shall here object against my forward mind;
38I reck not of their foolish ceremonies,
39But mean to take my fortune as I find.
40Wisdom commands to follow tide and wind,
41And catch front of swift Occasion
42Before she be too quickly overgone.
43Some man will say I am too impious
44Thus to say siege against my father's life,
45And that I ought to follow virtuous
46And godly sons, that virtue is a glass
47Wherein I may my errant life behold
48And frame myself by it in ancient mould.

. . . . .

49Avaunt such glasses! Let them view in me
50The perfect picture of right tyranny.
51Aye, like a lion's look — not worth a leek
52When every dog deprives him of his prey —
53These honest terms are far enough to seek.
54When angry Fortune menaceth decay,
55My resolution treads a nearer way.
56Give me the heart conspiring with the hand,
57In such a cause my father to withstand.
58Is he my father? Why, I am his son.
59I owe no more to him than he to me.
60If he proceed as he hath now begun
61And pass from me the Turkish signory
62To Acomat, then Selimus is free.
63And if he injure me that am his son,
64Faith, all the love 'twixt him and me is done.