Marlowe's Verse

Between 1585 and 1593 Christopher Marlowe single-handedly transformed the face of English theater. Before him, neither true English blank verse nor genuine English tragedy existed. By 1593, the year he was arrested on suspicion of heresy, Marlowe had laid the foundations of what today we know as Shakespearean drama.

(Marlowe's complete works can be read here.)

Tamburlaine

TAMBURLAINE
Nature, that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wandering planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
(2.7.18−26)

TAMBURLAINE
What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds, and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem's period,
And all combined in beauty's worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.
(5.2.97−110)

Doctor Faustus

FAUSTUS. Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
(5.1.97−9)

The Jew of Malta

ITHAMORE. Content, but we will leave this paltry land
And sail from hence to Greece, to lovely Greece.
I'll be thy Jason, thou my golden fleece.
Where painted carpets o'er the meads are hurled,
And Bacchus' vineyards overspread the world,
Where woods and forests go in goodly green,
I'll be Adonis: thou shalt be Love's Queen.
The meads, the orchards, and the primrose lanes,
Instead of sedge and reed, bear sugar canes.
Thou in those groves, by Dis above,
Shalt live with me, and be my love.
(4.2.106−116)

The Massacre at Paris

GUISE. Now, Guise, begin those deep engendered thoughts
To burst abroad those never dying flames
Which cannot be extinguished but by blood.
Oft have I levell'd and at last have learned
That peril is the chiefest way to happiness,
And resolution honour's fairest aim.
What glory is there in a common good,
That hangs for every peasant to achieve?
That like I best that flies beyond my reach.
(1.2.34−42)

MORTIMER. Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down. That point I touched,
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall?
Farewell, fair Queen, weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world and, as a traveler,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
(5.6.59−66)