elizabethan drama
He had his capital at Samarkand, was ruler of vast territories in central Asia and a great part of India, and died while preparing to invade China. Tamburlaine the Great (acted in 1587), a blank verse tragedy, was Marlowe's first play. In Rowe's play, Tamerlane (1702), the warrior appears as a calm, philosophic prince — out of compli- ment to William III.