Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of English Department of English Literature

Home , Murat Reis the Elder, The Island Princess

ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI SCHOOL OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

ÖZ ÖKTEM

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE MUSLIM WOMAN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

DOCTORAL THESIS

THESSALONIKI 2013

Contents

Acknowledgments Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction: Re-Orienting Gender and Islamic Alterity in the Early Modern English Drama 1

Chapter 2 Erasing the Cultural and Religious Difference: Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Greene’s Alphonsus 42

Chapter 3 The Muslim Woman and A Christian Turned Turk: Islamic Apostasy and the Gender Paradigm on the Jacobean Stage 94

Chapter 4 Redeeming the Islamic Eve inside the Palace of the Ottomans: Philip Massinger’s The Renegado 134

Chapter 5 Dark Female Sexuality and the Fear of Ottoman Colonialism in The Knight of Malta 176

Chapter 6 The Island Princess: Colonialism, Religion, (Inter)sexuality, and Intertextuality 217

Conclusion 250

Works Cited 254

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank several people for the material and moral support they offered me while I worked on this PhD thesis. I express my deepest gratitude to Tina

Krontiris, my supervisor, who put considerable time and effort in guiding me, both academically and intellectually, throughout my studies. I appreciate her sincere attention to my project and her insightful recommendations. She also patiently helped me edit my work and provided me with constant encouragement. Professor Krontiris is an outstanding scholar and teacher and will always remain a role model for me. I also wish to thank George Kalogeras and John Alexandropoulos, the members of my

Supervisor Committee; their comments on particular sections of the study were very helpful.

I am grateful to both of my parents for their continuous love and support. My mother’s financial gift enabled me to settle in a new country with ease and my father has always been my best advocate and advisor in all matters. Also, I wish to thank my cousin Aslı, in New York, and her husband Evren, who provided me with accommodation while I conducted research on my topic in several libraries in the

United States. Thanks to their hospitality I accessed many original historical resources, which otherwise would be near impossible to obtain.

Many friends in Greece supported me in various ways. Jeni, Popi, and

Aristotelis in Thessaloniki and Thodoris in Amorgos offered me graciously their friendship and ensured that I always felt at home. Nadia and Theodora read several of my draft chapters and shared their ideas and suggestions with me. Dimitra helped me a great deal with the final editing. I kindly thank them all.

Finally, I wish to express my gratitude for both the academic and the administrative staff of the Department of English Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. They have always been very helpful to me and treated me with kindness, and the faculty generously provided me with a scholarship between the years 2009 and 2012.

Abstract

Recent scholarship in early modern studies often reads the representation of the Muslim woman in English dramatic works in the light of postcolonial identity politics, which sees an organic relationship between the West’s historical domination of the East and the Western discourse on the East. Within this view, the Islamic woman is rendered a symbol for her land and people and her conquest by European men is supposed to signify the Western superiority over Islam. This thesis problematizes the above trajectory, which is largely informed by Said’s theory of

Orientalism, by arguing that the assumption of a power relation between a dominating

West and a subordinate East cannot be sustained within the context of the political and historical realities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although the

English acquired an experience in the New World that enabled them to articulate their first colonial aspirations, in the East they were far from the position of superiority that they assumed in later centuries. Against the Islamic superpower of the Ottomans, which was a threat to the entire Europe, England was only a nascent nation seeking the Ottomans’ commercial and military support to rival the other nations within the radically fractured Christendom. For this reason, the image and the function of

Islamic femininity in the period’s drama should be re-interpreted so as to reflect this overturn in the world’s power balances, as well as the complex and intricate dynamics of England’s intensified contact with Islam in the Mediterranean.

While referring to historical and theoretical texts, the present study analyzes in detail a series of early modern plays that thematize Islam, including plays by Marlowe, Massinger, as well as Beaumont and Fletcher. The analysis discusses the representation of the Muslim woman by reformulating Said’s theory in line with the unique global dynamics of the age. At the same time, it pays attention to the interconnection of gender notions across the Muslim and Christian cultures. The early modern era witnessed significant transformations with respect to the position of women within the English society. Humanism, the Reformation, and new forms of production enabled Englishwomen for the first time to articulate ideas of equality and defend their rights for greater liberties. Women’s transgression of their culturally prescribed roles caused serious patriarchal anxieties, which are evidenced by the substantial effort observed in the writings of many male writers and moralists to legitimize women’s subordination. The same constant preoccupation with proper gender roles can also be seen in the dramatic works with Islamic themes and characters, and in these plays Muslim women are constructed as negative feminine figures who embody what the patriarchal understanding found threatening and undesirable in women. By extending the arguments countering the post-colonial theory with references to the period’s gender debate, this thesis shows how the fictional Muslim female figures of the early modern English stage functioned as a versatile dramatic material that allowed playwrights to reflect on the Christian patriarchal anxieties with respect to both the overwhelming power of Islam and the oppositional voices of Englishwomen.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Re-Orienting Gender and Islamic Alterity in Early

Modern English Drama

The relationship between gender and cultural difference has been theorized by a number of scholars of early modern literary studies. In general, these critics tend to regard sexual, racial, and religious difference as overlapping categories, intensifying a variety of cultural and social effects in Renaissance England. In

Literary Fat Ladies (1987), for example, Patricia Parker has shown how various economic, sexual and rhetorical links come together so as to provide a mode of description for a patriarchal discursive strategy in which “a particular mode of control over a woman’s body” expresses mercantile ambitions and imperial desire

“through conquest of a territory traditionally figured as female” (132). Similarly, in his insightful essay “The Work of Gender in the Discourse of Discovery”

(1991), Louis Montrose has demonstrated that the female body in the English proto-colonial discourse functioned as a metaphor for the colonized land, and identified gender difference as the language in which colonial relations were first articulated. This critical approach observing a particular pattern employed in early modern English representations in which gender hierarchies naturalize colonial domination has been adopted by a number of scholars who extended the discussion to English cross-cultural relations with the peoples of the Old World as 2

well as to racial prejudices intensified with the increasing black presence in

England as a consequence of the slave trade. In Things of Darkness, Kim Hall has emphasized the value of women as a means for the appropriate transfer of property and formation of blood lines in the early modern age and argued that black women were coded as “the ultimate in undesirability” and thus were not “suitable objects of social exchange” (22). This coding, as Linda Boose has noted, pointed to a crucial juncture in the historical development of racial fiction and its deep association with the negative primacy of skin color (41). Most prominently, Ania

Loomba’s extensive research has shown how the notion of skin color and religion, as markers of difference, informed understandings of gender, the state, political life, and private existences, as well as the early modern connections between the formation of the modern family, the consolidation of the imperial state and

Europe’s global domination.1

The work of these critics has covered an important gap in the early modern studies by pointing to the dynamic and intricate intersections of categories of cultural and sexual difference in the creation of Renaissance culture. Yet, the great majority of this body of literature concentrates on English interactions with non-

European peoples mainly in the New World, the East Indies, and Africa, where

England could claim or, at least, had projections to claim colonial control. In other

1 See for example: Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism (Oxford University Press, 2002), Colonialism/ Postcolonialism (Routledge, 1998; Second Edition, 2005), and Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama (Manchester University Press; 1989; Oxford University Press, 1992). Other scholarly studies that focus on gender and cultural difference include Joan Pong Linton’s The Romance of the New World: Gender and Literary Formations of English Colonialism (1998), Michael Neill’s Putting History to the Question: Power, Politics, and Society in English Renaissance Drama (2000), Shankar Raman’s Framing India: The Colonial Imagery in Early Modern Culture (2002), Claire Jowitt’s Voyage Drama and Gender Politics 1589 – 1642: Real and Imagined Worlds (2003).

words, these critics are not interested in divorcing their ideas from concerns of a materialistically and culturally overpowering Europe; thus they offer mostly a unidirectional mode of analysis for understanding English perceptions with respect to foreign people. However, the cross-cultural interaction of England was not restricted to these geographies in the early modern age. In fact a much greater volume of trade was going on in the Mediterranean than in the Atlantic and the

Indian oceans, and any colonial pretensions against the Other that the English faced in this part of the world, namely the Ottoman Empire, were only “laughable”

(Vitkus, Turning Turk 30). In addition, while the connection of religious difference is not absent from the works of these scholars, it is largely seen within the context of Spain’s interaction with the Moorish population of the Iberian

Peninsula, which took the form of subordination and cultural assimilation of these

Islamic people in the name of redeeming the occupied Christian territories. Thus, in these analyses there is still uneasiness with respect to European imperial hegemony in Christian-Islamic relations.

In this study, I turn attention to a part of the world where the European interactions with the Islamic people were completely free of colonial assumptions.

Drawing on the recent critical work in cultural studies which has argued for an entire reconstruction of early modern perceptions with respect to the Ottoman

Empire – seeing it central, rather than peripheral to the evolving political, social, and economic dynamics of the European world – I suggest alternative readings for the representative pattern that draw an analogy between gender and cultural difference. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Ottoman

Empire remained a culturally, militarily and economically dominant superpower, 4

which was a threat to entire Europe. Its territories expanded throughout North

Africa, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, controlling many of the trade routes in the East, as well as the Holy Lands. Europe could not establish a sustained and coherent response against this Islamic enemy; rather, individual

Christian nations often found themselves entering into commercial and military alliances with the Ottomans, and in these interactions, European potentates never entertained or articulated projects for colonizing these people. This new historical perspective on the power of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern age has been applied in analyses of the image of the Turk in English drama by a number of critics, including Nabil Matar, Daniel Vitkus, and Jonathan Burton. However, its implications on the representation of the Muslim woman still need to be discovered. Apparently, the Islamic female figures in early modern plays with

Ottoman themes and settings cannot be sufficiently analyzed by resorting to postcolonial arguments, which assume a colonizer-colonized hierarchy in cross- cultural interaction. This dissertation attempts to fill this gap by looking at the role and the function of the Muslim woman in early modern drama from a non-colonial perspective and reading the gendered pattern of representing Christian-Muslim relations against historical realities of the age which indicate Ottoman superiority over Europe.2

In one of her essays Loomba argues that because “the Eastern enterprises were conceived of as ‘trade,’ as opposed to colonization and settlement,” unlike the representations of the New World natives, who “were placed within a

2 Throughout the study I will use the terms “Muslim womanhood” and “Islamic femininity” interchangeably. 5

discourse of primitivism,” the representation of the peoples of the Eastern countries “were embedded within a discourse of cultural excess” (“Shakespeare and Cultural Difference” 183, 176). She suggests that this distinction brought about alternative discursive strategies to signify the availability of non-European women of the Old World and the sanctions for Europeans to possess them. Since the English traders in Asia could not encode themselves as the “male deflowerers of a feminized land,” as in the New World narratives, they came up with a fantasy of an Eastern queen, who is rescued and converted to Christianity by a virile but courteous European hero. Despite this distinction, however, Loomba still argues that the “universal tropes of colonial domination seem to function without too much regard to regional difference” (Loomba 170). The underlying motive in both narratives is “a shared dream of empire” and both represent the non-European woman as an interchangeable terrain on which colonial power could be deployed

(Loomba 185).

While there is no doubt that, as Loomba suggests, the exchangeability of women formed an important discursive strategy in the articulation of England’s cross-cultural interaction, making it a “delicious traffick,” I suggest that this gendered pattern of representation does not necessarily imply a shared imperial dream in England’s relations with foreign peoples everywhere throughout the world. In fact, even the Eastern queen narrative that Loomba observes to be employed in the representations of the Old World can be interpreted differently depending on where and with whom the Christians interact.

Let us consider for a moment two early modern plays that use the story of an Eastern queen in articulating Europe’s interaction with the Old World. The first 6

one, Fletcher’s The Island Princess (1621) is set in Tidore, one of the Moluccan islands which remained as the heart of the spice trade throughout this period. The play is centered around the manly competition among the two Portuguese suitors of the princess of Tidore, Quisara. The princess’s favored suitor Ruy Dias, the captain of the Portuguese garrison in Tidore, fails to display the courage and heroic action that the princess demands of the man she would marry. However,

Armusia, the newcomer merchant, proves himself to be worthy of becoming

Quisara’s husband when he saves her brother, the king, from the enemy. Despite the temporary conversion threat posed on him, Armusia successfully resists and marries Quisara after converting her to Christianity. A similar pattern is repeated in Phillip Massinger’s play The Renegado (1621), which takes place in the

Ottoman province of Tunis. Donusa, a niece of the Turkish sultan, falls in love with Vitelli, a Venetian, and tries to convert him to Islam. Vitelli becomes sexually and emotionally involved with Donusa, yet like Armusia, he also resists to “turning Turk” and convinces Donusa to convert to Christianity and escape with him to Europe.

While both plays employ the same gendered pattern that involves the voluntary conversion of a Muslim woman because of her love for a Christian man,

I argue that simply because of the fact that the events of their plots take place in different settings, where Christian-Muslim relations were informed by different sets of political and economical forces, these two plays can be read in contradistinction to one another, rather than being placed within a single monolithic picture of a non-European world overpowered and subordinated by

Europe. Fletcher’s play is based on a history of the Spanish conquest of the islands 7

of Moluccas which were the seat of long-standing colonial competition between the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch and the English. The Portuguese garrison on the island of Tidore indicates the established military authority of the

Europeans over the native people. The fact that princess Quisara’s most favored suitor is the captain of this garrison, Ruy Dias, also underlines the colonial motive of the plot. Yet, in Massinger’s Ottoman setting of Tunis, such a colonial motive is altogether absent. Rather, the Christians are constantly under the Turkish threat.

Vitelli, a disguised Venetian gentleman, in fact has come to Tunis to save his abducted sister, Paulina, whose chastity is threatened by the lustful and villainous

Turkish ruler Asambeg. Vitelli’s own life is endangered when he is caught by the

Turks in Donusa’s private room and he heroically resists the attempts of the Turks who threaten him with death if he rejects to become a Muslim. While the conversion motif is also present in The Island Princess, the real action in

Fletcher’s play revolves around the competition between two types of European colonialists embodied in Ruy Dias and Armusia for the winning of Quisara, who stands for her land and people. In Fletcher’s play the conversion threat is only accessory to the main action. Religious difference is not an issue of conflict up to the point of the evil conspiracy that the governor of the neighboring Ternata orchestrates to destroy everyone. In fact, earlier in the play Quisara promises Ruy

Dias to convert to Christianity if he saves her brother and asks for her hand.

Furthermore, at the end of the play, the king of Tidore not only gives Ternata’s main castle to the Portuguese, but also declares that he is “half-persuaded” to become a Christian, indicating colonial infiltration, if not an ultimate conquest, on the part of the Portuguese. 8

In The Renegado, however, Vitelli’s conquest of Donusa does not entail any territorial possession or military authority. Though Donusa is no less beautiful than Fletcher’s Quisara, the Turkish princess’s tempting allures do not indicate the availability of her land, but the overwhelming power of Islam in attracting

Christians with the wealth and sexual liberty it offered to its adherents. While

Quisara’s conversion to Christianity is an essential part of the imperial scope of

Fletcher’s play, as spreading the word of Christ was the religious purpose of the colonial enterprise, the Ottoman princess’s conversion simply remains an imaginary answer to bitter contemporary realities like thousands of Christians who converted to Islam to pursue better material advantages in the Mediterranean and

North Africa, as well as many Christian women who were captured and enslaved in Islamic harems to become concubines to sultans. The lengthy discussions of religious nature between the two lovers and the on-stage baptism of the Turkish princess indicate an anxious effort and urgency to prove Christianity’s supremacy over the false religion of Islam. Donusa’s conversion does not involve any “dream of empire,” it is rather a wish fulfillment, speaking of European resentment against the imperial power of the Ottomans, who with their aggressively expanding rival form of monotheism seemed to be able to overrule the gospel of Christ.

The East has always had a special place in Western discourse as Europe’s cultural opponent. It is one of the significant and most frequently recurring images of the Other which Europe has defined as its contrasting image, idea, personality, and experience. According to Edward Said’s renowned theory of Orientalism, in order to come to terms with this special opposite, the Europeans produced a whole repertoire of literature and scholarly writing, creating a style of thought based 9

upon an ontological and epistemological distinction between the Orient and the

Occident which positioned Europe as superior to all the other non-Europeans as the direct result of Western political hegemony over the Orient (Said, Orientalism

2). In other words, Orientalism was a discourse generated from the interplay between power and knowledge, in particular the power exercised upon the Orient by the West and the knowledge about the Orient accumulated by the West. As

Said says,

Orientalism depends for its strategy on this flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing him the relative upper hand. And why should it have been otherwise, especially during the period of extraordinary European ascendancy from the late Renaissance to the present? The scientist, the scholar, the missionary, the trader, or the soldier was in, or thought about the Orient, because he could be there, or could think about it, with very little resistance on the Orient’s part. (7)

It can be misleading however to apply this power relation between the dominant

West and the subordinate East to the period prior to the eighteenth century. Said himself is careful to specify that Orientalism emerged as a discipline only after

Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 (42).

In fact, the power equilibrium between the Christian West and the Islamic

East was quite the contrary throughout the medieval and the early modern periods.

During the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, and later during the Ottoman expansion, the Europeans were often dominated by Islamic powers and awed by their culture (Vitkus, “Early Modern Orientalism” 210). Rather than pretending to possess any kind of superiority over the Orient, Christian nations constantly felt the threat of being militarily and culturally overpowered by Islam. 10

The European scholar, trader or soldier still “thought about the Orient,” but not from the perspective of dominating it. Many of the distorted images of Islam produced in this period are reflections of European amazement and anxiety about the power of Islam and they should be seen as part of the tradition of polemical misrepresentation, a response to the superiority of this rapidly growing cultural and religious rival (Vitkus 210).

In fact hostility against Islam was a well-established notion in European discourse and consciousness, and it was shaped by a long history of religious wars and crusades that began with the rise of Islam in the early middle ages. Only eight years after the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula started in 711 AD, the

Moors occupied almost the entire peninsula, as well as the Pyrenees and a part of today’s Southern France. The Christian Reconquista, which began soon after that, continued as an intermittent war of conquest to recapture the Christian lands which were under Islamic domination for about 800 years. With the advent of the

Crusades in the eleventh century, much of the ideology of the Reconquista was subsumed within the wider context of crusading, and the rhetoric and symbolism produced by the ideology of these movements were crucial in the development of the European discourse about the world of Islam. However, neither the

Reconquista nor the Crusades exactly qualifies as imperialism (Kahf 17). The

Crusades concluded in 1272 as a financial and military failure and never involved intentions of cultural domination or assimilation. Though the Reconquista gradually succeeded, leaving the Moors as a powerless minority which was regularly discriminated and repressed by the church and the absolutist state of

Spain, the Christian-Muslim opposition in the Iberian Peninsula was too slow and 11

too politically fragmented to be termed imperialism and “the Reconquistadores always maintained that they were only taking back what had originally belonged to them” (Kahf 17).

In addition, while Spain was busy with scrubbing the remnants of Islam off its territories, the Islamic fear was renewed and reinforced by the emergence of a new Islamic power, the Ottoman Turks, who captured Constantinople in 1453 and constantly expanded towards North Africa, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many European cities and islands of strategic significance were invaded by the Turks in this period, including Athens in 1459, Otranto in 1480, Rhodes in 1522, Budapest in 1526,

Cyprus in 1571, and Crete in 1669. Also the Turks besieged Vienna twice, in 1529 and 1683, and in the first attempt they almost captured the city.3 European potentates were often amazed with the extraordinary military aggression of the

Turks. Despite continuous efforts for a united action against this Islamic threat, religious and nationalistic prejudices and rivalries disallowed the formation of another crusade. On the contrary, profitability of the Eastern trade often forced

Christians to enter into commercial and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman

Empire and in these relations there was no question about who had the upper hand.4

3 For a detailed description of the Ottoman expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean see Molly Green’s “The Ottomans in the Medditeranean” (2007).

4 In “Negotiating with the Renaissance State: The Ottoman Empire and The New Diplomacy” (2007) Daniel Goffman suggests that the fact that the Ottoman Empire not only presented a threat but also offered trade opportunities to Renaissance Europe gave way to the rise of the system of Western diplomacy (62). 12

The inversion of the world’s power balance in favor of Islam following the spectacular rise of the Ottoman Empire to political and commercial preeminence in the eastern Mediterranean constitutes one of the fundamental arguments of my analysis of the representations of the Muslim woman in the early modern period.

Said’s argument on the organic relationship between the hegemonic power and the discursive knowledge does not exactly fit the material realities of the early modern global dynamics. Rather it should be reformulated so as to explain the needs and anxieties of a politically divided and vulnerable Christian Europe against their militarily, economically, and culturally superior Islamic rival. While Islam and

Islamic people are demonized in the early modern representations, as in later

Western colonial discourses, the motive of demonization in these early texts is not to justify Western superiority but to produce “imaginary resolutions of real anxieties about Islamic wealth and might” (Vitkus, “Early Modern Orientalism”

210).

In this study I argue that this shift in the European outlook on Islam disallows us to see the representations of the Muslim woman in this period simply within the patterns of interpretation offered by postcolonial readings, where the

Muslim/non-European woman represents the colonized subject and with her attributions attests to the backwardness and incivility of her culture.5 I do not deny

5 Gender was not a central issue in Said’s theory, however the unique nature of the articulation of cultural and sexual difference in the case of Orientalism has been investigated by a number of feminist scholars. In general, these critics have argued that in constituting the West as the sovereign subject, sexual difference was of fundamental importance to set the boundaries for the colonial subject position and the stereotypes of the Oriental woman were crucial to negative depictions of the region and its cultures. For example, in her insightful book Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (1998), Meyda Yeğenoğlu has shown how “cultural and sexual difference are constitutive of each other” in Orientalism (1) and discussed the crucial role played by “unconscious processes” of “fantasy and desire” in the colonizer-colonized relation (2). Scholars also objected to Said’s assertation that Orientalism was "an exclusively male province" (207), by exploring and documenting the ways in which women historically participated in the construction of

that that the discursive constitution of Otherness is achieved “simultaneously through sexual as well as cultural modes of differentiation,” as suggested by postcolonial feminist scholars (Yeğenoğlu 1), nor do I object to the essential role of fantasy and desire in managing the relationships of power between the East and the West. Yet, in light of the revised perspective on the early modern Ottoman

Empire that I outlined above, I argue that the relationship of power that existed between Europe and Islam in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not the one between the colonizer and the colonized. The Christian men in the Ottoman territories were not in the position of domination and the representations and knowledge that they produced about the Orient did not imply any projects of establishing Western authority. Rather, the Ottomans had the power of self- representation which came with or without the Europeans’ consent and the

Christian identity was constructed in relation to this Islamic self-image, not from the perspective of the West as “a self-sustaining, autonomous, and sovereign subject” (Yeğenoğlu 2). For this reason, early modern representations of the

Muslim woman and the dynamics of gender and sexuality employed in these representations do not aim to assert Western superiority or control over the Islamic

East, instead, they function as a means to compensate the Christians’ weakness in the face of the hegemonic power of the Ottomans. It should also be added that individual European nations did not always establish their identity in opposition to the Islamic Ottomans. Diplomatic and commercial alliances sometimes required

Orientalism. Said’s work has also been part of the inspiration behind important new scholarship about women and gender in the Middle East and in Islam. Works that focus on gender in Orientalism include Rana Khabbani’s Europe’s Myths of Orient (1986), Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam (1992), Billie Melman’s Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work (1995), and Reina Lewis’s Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation (1996). 14

the mutilation of religious and cultural differences. In other words, reading the image of the Muslim woman merely within a colonial context falls short of recognizing the versatility of this image in the period’s representations.

I do not say that the colonial inscription is absent from the early modern texts; yet clearly the representations of the Muslim woman throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were much more nuanced than that. In some instances we see them figured as powerful and articulate Eastern empresses who have a say on the construction of power balances in the contemporary empire- building. Dramatic figures that echo this image of the Muslim woman are completely free of attributions of Islamic alterity. In addition, in these plays the conventional gendered pattern of desire between a Christian man and a non-

Christian woman is not employed. The Muslim female body is not available for

Christian possession. Also, when this gendered pattern is actually put to use, it does not always articulate an imperial dream, as the short comparison of The

Island Princess and The Renegado has shown earlier. In the contexts where the

Christian identity is threatened by the Islamic power, the Muslim woman appears as a striking picture of the rival superpower of Islam in female form. In many plays, she is portrayed as a wicked seductress whose intimidating sexuality tempts

Christian souls. Combining the overwhelming allures, wealth, and danger of Islam in her enticing beauty, she presents a subtle challenge to Christian patriarchy in overcoming the threat of Islam.

In the following chapters I analyze a series of early modern English plays that depict Islamic female characters against the prevalent notions of identity, religion, gender, race and class in the English society, in light of the renewed 15

scholarly perspective on the power of Islam in this period. I argue that while the representations of the era also contain the seeds of the prototype of the Muslim woman in later colonial literature, more often than not, they depict Islamic female figures in non-colonial contexts where these women embody not the inferiority but the superiority of Islam and the threat it poses to Christian identity. Early modern notions of gender hierarchies will also be an essential plane of analysis for this study. There is a significant contrast between the articulate and transgressive

Islamic femininity of early modern drama, on the one hand, and the voiceless and subordinated Muslim woman of the twentieth century English discourses on the other. I see this discrepancy in relation to the difference in the notions of womanhood between the early modern and the contemporary western world.

Today, women’s liberation is considered an indication of the level of development of a country; however in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the question of women’s liberties was a source of anxiety for Christian patriarchy. In today’s world the veiled and segregated Islamic femininity is offered as a negative example for modern western women who presumably enjoy the same rights as men do. However, we should not forget that these rights were not given willingly by the patriarchal authority; they were won through a hard struggle on the part of

European women. The early modern period was a time when Englishwomen for the first time articulated their aspirations and determination for equality, and I argue that the unruly Muslim female figures we see in the period’s drama are what

English husbands feared their wives to become if women were allowed to enjoy such liberty. 16

While it is possible to draw distinctions between the representations of

Muslim women in different ages and contexts, we should not ignore the fact that there are certain common elements of these representative practices which originated very early in history, even before there was any Muslim woman, and remained sediment in later representations. This was due to the fact that the vision of difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, “us”) and the strange (the

Orient, the East, “them”) instigated the Western imagination since antiquity, and the Eastern woman always had a special place in the Western discourse. Greek and

Roman writers drew a line between Europe and Asia and they attributed to the two continents specific characteristics which were both contrasting and complementing each other. They imagined Europe as masculine, rational, active, and articulate, while identifying the East as feminine, excessive, savage, and mysterious, and through the use of the language of passion they expressed “the desired relationship of power sought over the Orient as woman” (Said 5).

The famous love story of the Roman conqueror Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra which relates the events that took place in the first century BC is a good example from the classical tradition that demonstrates how a certain

European vocabulary in representing the Orient and the Oriental woman was initially formed. A well-known version of this story is found in Plutarch’s The

Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans. This legendary love was inspiration also for

Shakespeare who revived and immortalized the story in his 1607 play Antony and

Cleopatra, and the fact that Shakespeare’s play is largely constructed on the same representational patterns and symbols employed in Plutarch’s narrative shows how this vocabulary was inherited and expanded over the centuries. Plutarch’s story 17

draws a dichotomy between the masculine West and the feminine East and conflates the dynamics of the passionate love between Antony and Cleopatra with the dynamics of imperial domination. The male political virtue of the imperial

Rome, which is rendered rational and moral, is set against its subjugated and feminized dominion Egypt, which represents extreme sensuality, luxury and degeneration; and sexual possession of Cleopatra by Antony stands for the political domination of Egypt by Rome. Yet, such a venture is clearly not free of its dangers, because despite her position as the colonized subject, Cleopatra is also known as a cunning and manipulative woman who seduces men for her political ends. Though desirable, she presents a potential threat to Western patriarchal order.

Cleopatra’s exotic beauty is her strongest attribute that enables her to conquer powerful Western men. She is beautiful, ageless, and magical, and she uses these qualities to construct herself as a spectacle which gives her an irresistible power over the will of any man. Cleopatra’s arrival in Tarsus in a barge, which is elaborately described in both Plutarch’s and Shakespeare’s works, is one such spectacle that attests to the Egyptian queen’s overwhelming influence.

Plutarch first informs us that Cleopatra had already been summoned to Tarsus by

Antony and his Roman friends several times:

… but she took no account of these orders; and at last, as if in mockery of them, she came sailing up the river Cydnus, in a barge with gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She herself lay all along under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea nymphs and graces, some steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes. The perfumes diffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with multitudes, part 18

following the galley up the river on either bank, part running out of the city to see the sight. The market-place was quite emptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal; while the word went through all the multitude, that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus, for the common good of Asia. (5:178-179)

The description of Cleopatra’s entrance into Tarsus with all her extravagance before the amazed eyes of Antony and the locals offers a dream of wealth and an erotic fantasy which renders the Egyptian queen an image rather than a real person, and the symbols and figurative elements that construct this image inaugurate the archetypal codes and patterns that were regularly put to use in later ages by European writers to represent the Orient. Dressed like the goddess of love, surrounded by Cupid-like servants and beautiful maids on a golden vessel, which diffuses melodies and perfumes to the shore, the spectacle of the Egyptian queen’s arrival is clearly symbolic of the sensual pleasures and extreme luxuries frequently associated with the Eastern lands in Western discourse.6

The passage also acknowledges an analogy between the sexual possession of the Egyptian queen and the political possession of Egypt, as it describes the meeting of Cleopatra and Antony as the feasting of Venus with Bacchus “for the common good of Asia” (5:179). The seductive arrival of Cleopatra in Tarsus has political implications, because the Egyptian queen’s offering herself to Antony is intended to assure him of her country’s political subjection to Rome. In this scenario, Cleopatra’s available female body stands for both the territory and the

6 In fact, thinking that Plutarch himself did not witness the spectacle of Cleopatra’s entrance to Tarsus, this elaborate and detailed description which was largely built on hearsay an imagination can be considered as a prime example of textuality of history. 19

people of her country and Rome’s imperial domination over Egypt is normalized through the possession of her body by Antony.

This patriarchal pattern of representing imperial domination through sexual possession is complicated by the fact that the colonized Cleopatra has a will of her own. This is implied in Plutarch’s text where the writer considers Cleopatra’s late arrival in Tarsus as a “mockery” that she intended in order to show off her independent and disobedient nature. In addition when they meet, Cleopatra rejects

Antony’s invitation to supper and substitutes her own, and, as Belsey argues in her commentary on Shakespeare’s play, by doing so, the Egyptian queen “anticipates the command that she would exercise over Antony’s will” (41). Indeed, Antony’s extreme passion for Cleopatra captivates him to such an extent that he gets distracted from his primary role as the colonizer. He gives in too much to the indulgences and sensualities of the Egyptian court and subsumed by a new cultural identity which appears to be incompatible with his Roman martial self (Loomba,

Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism 126). Antony not only allows Cleopatra to become his co-ruler, but donates almost all of his share in the Roman empire to her, terrifying the Egyptian queen’s enemies in Rome with the idea that she is

“planning a war of revenge” that would “array all the East against Rome, establish herself as empress of the world at Rome, cast justice from Capitolium, and inaugurate a new universal kingdom” (Syme 274).

In both Plutarch’s narrative and Shakespeare’s play Antony’s loss of control implies emasculation. For Plutarch, Antony’s love for Cleopatra “is his last and crowning mischief” that has corrupted “any elements that yet made resistance 20

in him of goodness and sound judgment” (5:177). In Shakespeare’s play Caesar comments that Antony’s revelry in Egypt has effeminized him; Antony is now:

… no more manlike Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy More womanly than he. (1.4.5-7)

Antony’s loss of his masculine identity is most overtly displayed during his opposition to Caesar, who declares war on him, claiming that “he had let a woman exercise in his place” (Plutarch 5:213). Antony indeed proves these claims as he makes a strategic mistake under Cleopatra’s influence, by insisting on challenging

Caesar in the sea, and most spectacularly, when he puts off fighting in the middle of the battle as he sees Cleopatra fleeing back to Egypt with her forces. Antony’s passion for Cleopatra proves to be a fatal attraction, leading to his death as a

Roman soldier deprived of his martial honor and authority. By giving too much to

Cleopatra’s allures, Antony allows the Egyptian queen to invert the gender hierarchies implied in the Roman patriarchal domination project, and the colonized female becomes a threat to the political and territorial unity of Rome.

This pattern of intertwining the patriarchal prerogatives of heterosexual desire with the dynamics of control and domination over foreign peoples became a regular feature of Western representations in later ages. The fantasy about the worldly goods of the East, embodied in the image of an alluring Oriental female conquered and possessed by virile Western masculinity, saturates European literature, art, and political thought. The biblical tale of Sheba, the Queen of

Ethiopia, and King Solomon also plays upon this theme. According to this story, after Solomon demonstrates his “wisdom” to Sheba, the black queen gives all her 21

wealth to the king. The outcome of their union is a child called Menelik who later ensures that Ethiopia becomes a Christian land. Within the context of the Spanish

Reconquista and the Crusades, the story of the enamored Muslim princess who falls in love with a Christian man, converts to Christianity and absconds with her jewels is a widespread motif found in medieval romances. In the early modern age, with the discovery of the New World, analogies between sexual and territorial possession are expanded so as to articulate also the colonial penetration to the newfound fertile lands of the Americas, which are repeatedly identified as virgin female bodies ready to be embraced and deflowered by their colonial husbands.

In this period, we observe similar gendered patterns employed in representations of Christian-Muslim relations in the Mediterranean context.

However, here the stories are informed by different ideological and political forces resulting from the inversion of power balances which positions the East, not the

West as the colonizer. While the Eastern riches are still desirable for Europeans,

“most often what stands in the way of fulfillment of that desire is the Ottoman

Empire” (MacLean, “Ottomanism before Orientalism” 86). In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the “new universal rule” which Cleopatra’s Roman commentators had feared had arrived in the early modern period in the form of the

Ottoman Empire. After all, Egypt was not a province of ancient Rome anymore but a Turkish domain since 1517, and the Ottoman sultan who colonized it was ruling over one third of the world, although not from the Capitolium but from

Constantinople.

Despite the fact that England was not an immediate target for Ottoman expansion, the commercial and colonial threat that the Turkish empire posed by 22

virtue of its incredible size, wealth and military capacity was acutely felt also by the English in the early modern period. The Turkish menace was seen by many as the “scourge of God” upon sinful Christians who had forsaken the true faith and became divided in themselves. The psychology of fear against the Turkish expansion was so deeply established that authorities were calling for unification among Christian potentates to launch a crusade against the Ottoman Empire.7 In

1575, Thomas Newton in his translation of Augustine Curio’s Notable Historie of the Saracens warned that Turks

were indeed at the first very far off from our clime and region, and therefore the less to be feared, but now they are even at our doors and ready to come into our houses, if our penitent hearts do not sooner procure the mercifull hands of God, an unity, peace and concord among the princes, potentates of that little portion of Christendom yet left, which through division and civil dissention hath from time to time enticed and brought this Babylonian Nabuganazar and Turkish Pharao so near under our noses. (sig. A3V) 8

However, the complex political, economic, and religious structures that characterized early modern Europe made it uneasy to form an alliance among

Christians against the Islamic enemy in the East. Despite a common Christian culture which to some extent still bound Europeans together, nationalism,

7 European authors regarded the Ottoman Turks not as an ordinary political force but as the aggressive representatives of the hostile Islamic world, the traditional antagonist of Christendom. Driven by anti-Islamic prejudices they depicted the Turks as the “present terror of the world” determined to root out the Christian religion and believed that it was the will of God that sent them as “scourge” on Christian princes who failed to realize the ideal of Christian commonwealth (Knolles iv). Yet, it is interesting to note that, as Burian argues, when pushing their frontiers in the West, the Turks “were little motivated by the missionary impulse to spread Islam among the conquered, but were moved by the desire of aggrandizement, an ambition to establish a greater and more powerful political order than history had known” (225-26).

8 Ogier Ghiselm De Busbecq, the Archduke Ferdinand’s ambassador at Süleyman’s court (1554-62), observes in one of his letters translated by Edward Seymour Forster: “I tremble when I think of what the future must bring when I compare the Turkish system with our own ... On their side are the resources of a mighty empire, strength unimpaired, experience and practice in fighting, a veteran soldiery, habituation to victory, endurance of toil, unity, order, discipline, frugality, and watchfullness. On our side is public poverty, private luxury, impaired strength, broken spirit, lack of endurance and training ... Can we doubt what the result will be?” (112-113). 23

mercantilist ambitions, and the effects of Reformation pulled them apart, and selfish interests of individual Christian states proved to be stronger than the shared

European pride or religious convictions (Howard, “Gender on the Periphery” 348).

In fact, instead of medieval projects like the Crusades, many European monarchs dealt with the reality of the Ottoman Empire in more pragmatic terms.

Recognizing the European inferiority to this Islamic power, which was in possession of vast resources and extensive territories, they felt compelled to establish friendly relations with the Ottomans (Vitkus, Turning Turk 31). The majority of the Mediterranean seaways and the most lucrative overland trade routes between Asia and mainland Europe were under Turkish control and good relations with the Ottomans could ensure that European potentates did business throughout this geography where they could access Eastern luxury goods.9

In addition, the Ottomans were eager to continue the commercial heritage of the Byzantine empire and maintain the cultural and political connections that

Europe had cultivated with the Greco-Roman world throughout the fifteenth century (Brotton 92). Eventually, the Mediterranean became a place where the commercial and cultural contact between Christians and Muslims was intense, with the result that alliances shifted rapidly and the binary oppositions between

Christianity and Islam were often blurred (Vitkus, Turning Turk 36).

9 Since the early fifteenth century there had been treatises between the Ottomans and the two Italian republics of Genoa and Venice to ensure safe passage of vessels bringing grain from Russia and Anatolia. In 1453 Genoa and afterwards Venice obtained concessions for direct trade with the Porte. These two Italian cities controlled this trade almost as a monopoly for a long time. However in 1535 formal capitulations were granted to France and with this arrangement the French ambassador was constituted as the official diplomatic representative of Europeans in Constantinople (Chew 150). 24

Despite the undercurrent of uneasiness and alarm in England in the face of

Turkish incursions in Europe, Elizabeth I was also among the Christian monarchs that saw the advantages of forging an alliance with Islam. As a latecomer in the

European mercantile economy and with its military weakness and insecure national and religious identity, England could hardly be described as an imperial power in this period.10 Its increasing dependence on the Mediterranean trade and the longstanding religious and political rivalry with Catholic Spain forced

Elizabeth to observe “a policy of neutrality if not of actual friendship” with the

Turks (Chew 104). In order to find new markets for her merchants and secure military support against Spain throughout the 1580s and 1590s Elizabeth entered into extensive commercial and diplomatic relations with the Turks. The common anti-idolatrous doctrine of Protestantism and Islam had become a useful strategy for England to construct an ideologically justified rapprochement with Turkey

(Burton 59).

In 1580 England obtained the first capitulations, and one year later, the

Levant Company was founded, ensuring the safety of the English merchants and privateers trading in the Turkish lands. In the following decades, the ports of Asia

10 Despite the habitual critical practice of reading all English Renaissance texts as products of an imperialist culture that perceived peoples around the world as its potential colonies, scholars like Nabil Matar, Daniel Goffman, Daniel Vitkus and Jonathan Burton persuasively argued against the tendency to describe England as an imperial power before English imperialism actually began. While they acknowledge the fact that the roots of the empire can be traced back to the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries, they argue that calling England an empire in this age does not mean that the country was a colonizing and conquering power in the sense that Spain or ancient Rome was. While in Ireland, England had a history of colonization before its overseas imperialism began, this initiative was successful only partially and until the Union was effected in 1707 there was no British empire (Vitkus, Turning Turk 6). In addition, the early reports coming from the first English plantations in North America were not promising. Many of the English voyages to the New World failed and the attempts of permanent settlement in America came to a bad end. Even as late as the 1630s, the empire of the English had only been enlarged by a handful of miserable outposts in Virginia and Massachusetts. England found the opportunity to develop a much broader and more successful enterprise in the Mediterranean in this period, yet in its relations with its cultural contestants in the Mediterranean, like France, Spain, Portugal, Venice and Turkey, England was, in many ways, “a society of mimic-men who were learning (or hoping) to imitate alien models of power wealth and luxury” (Vitkus 9). 25

Minor and North Africa, such as Constantinople, Smyrna, Tunis and Zante, became increasingly common destinations for English vessels. Despite his open dislike for affiliation with the Turks, even King James could not risk to intervene with the profitable Mediterranean trade. In 1605 he renewed the charter of the

Levant Company with greatly extended privileges, ensuring a long period of orderly administration and prosperity, which made the Levant Company the most important successful English overseas venture in this period (Burton 13).11 The cultural and commercial exchange with Islam in the early modern age did not allow the English to perceive the Ottomans “as mysterious, demonic others, anterior to the culture of confidently self-defined European polity” (Brotton 103).

Rather, the Ottoman Empire was considered as a powerful ally with whom it was possible to do both diplomatic and commercial business, and whose political concerns often coincided with those of some European nations (Brotton 103).

In recent years, there has been an emerging body of critical work in the field of literary and cultural studies which urged for an entire reconstruction of conventional ideas regarding the place of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern world politics and English perceptions with respect to this Islamic power.12 While scholarly interest on this subject can indeed be dated back to Samuel C. Chew’s

1937 study The Crescent and the Rose, this neglected topic attracted serious

11 The Levant Company managed the Anglo-Ottoman relations for 244 years, until its dissolution in 1825.

12 This retrospective perspective regarding the place of the Ottoman Empire in early modern European politics was analyzed by a number of critics in the recent scholarship, including Jerry Brotton in Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World (1997), Lisa Jardine in Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (1998), Nabil Matar in Islam and Britain 1558-1685 (1998) and Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (1999), Daniel Vitkus in Turning Turk: English Theatre and the Multicultural Mediterranean (2000), Jonathan Burton in Traffic and Turning: Islam and English Drama 1579-1624 (2005), Matthew Dimmock in New Turkes: Dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in Early Modern England (2005), Gerald MacLean in Re-Orienting the Renaissance: Cultural Exchanges with the East (2005), and Faroqhi Suraiya in The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (2006). 26

critical attention only after the publication of Orientalism in 1978, which prompted reactions from critics undermining Said’s East-West division along the lines of Western dominance as anachronistic and reductive when applied to the early modern period. The most comprehensive argument for this retrospective imposition has been offered by Nabil Matar, who suggests that “because trade with

Islamic countries was essential” and England was a weaker commercial and military force, Orientalism was delayed until the eighteenth century, when the material conditions indeed gave way for Orientalist construction (Islam and

Britain 11, 191). In Islam and Britain 1558-1685 (1998) and Turks, Moors and

Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (1999) Matar documents the extensive

English contact with Muslim peoples on the African and Levantine soil attesting to the interaction, familiarity, communication and cohabitation among the English and Muslims. However, despite this familiarity, Matar argues, “in their discourse about Muslims, Britons produced a representation that did not belong to the actual encounter with the Muslims” and “simplification and stereotyping” remained as the standard through which the English represented Islam (Turks, Moors, and

Englishmen 116).

However, sustained close readings of early modern English texts, both literary and historical, have demonstrated that the images of Muslims represented were more fluid and ambivalent than previously reported. Scholars like Daniel

Vitkus, Jonathan Burton, Lisa Jardine, and Jerry Brotton, among others, emphasize that the contemporary game of colonial and commercial expansion and the dynamic East-West exchange of commodities played a key role in the production of more elastic ideologies of religious difference in perceiving and representing 27

Islam.13 In Turning Turk: English Theatre and the Multicultural Mediterranean

(2000), Vitkus argues that “in the context of diplomatic and commercial relations where pressures of trade, war, and religious difference came together, it is apparent that binary oppositions of Christian to non-Christian or Protestant to

Roman Catholic quickly gave way to more complex configurations,” the most obvious one being the triangular structure between the Roman Catholic, Protestant and the Turk (48). In Traffic and Turning: Islam and English Drama 1579-1624

(2005), Burton similarly suggests that English reactions to Islam in the early modern period did not fit into a simplistic pattern; instead, shifting political dynamics of the globe disrupted old stereotypes and forged new and sundry models to make sense of Islam and Muslim people, ranging “from censorious to the laudatory, from others to brothers” (12).

The intensified commercial and cultural contact with the Ottomans in the

Mediterranean was accompanied by an explosion of all kinds of printed material concerned with the Islamic empire, and the idea of the Turk articulated in these texts indeed “achieved an articulacy and variety” that “would not be superseded” in later periods (Dimmock 6). In fact the Great Turk in Constantinople was one of the most debated issues among the Englishmen of the early modern age. From

1500 to 1640 more than 1600 books about the Ottomans were available to English readers (Matar, “Muslims in Seventeenth Century England” 65). Most of these books were historical accounts or travelogues written by merchants or state

13 In Worldly Goods (1996) Lisa Jardine argues that the exchange of goods played a key role in the relations between the Occident and the Orient. Despite the impassable differences in ideological and religious outlooks between the East and the West, she claims that the traffic in goods – intellectual and material – could consolidate these differences (55). 28

ambassadors in the Levant.14 They were mainly concerned with the origins and the rise of the Ottoman Empire, relating in detail the past exploits of the sultans, while describing minutely the customs and religion of this powerful empire. The image of the Turk produced by early modern texts was mostly that of an immoral barbarian, an inhuman scourge, whose sole purpose was to eradicate the Christian religion. “The Turkish sultan was often figured as a ranting autocrat who slaughtered his siblings upon taking the throne only to luxuriate, in the decadent splendor of the seraglio” (Burton 23). Yet, at the same time, English writers also praised the Turks as paragons of order, piety and strength, and they frequently contrasted the Ottoman unity, discipline and endurance with their own cultural fragmentation and military inadequacy.

One of the earliest and probably the most comprehensive of the English books written about the Ottomans in the early modern age is Richard Knolles’s

The Generall Historie of the Turkes, which was first printed in 1603. A compilation of Byzantine chronicles, Latin sources and other continental texts, the book is well over a thousand folio pages in length and embellished with numerous anecdotes illustrating the ruthlessness and exotic splendor of this Eastern people.

For Knolles, the Turks are “the present terror of the world,” the main cause of the ruins and miseries in the Christian commonwealth. At the same time, he is also fascinated by the achievements of this dangerous and formidable empire:

14 Apart from Richard Knolles’s General Historie of the Turkes (1603), which is mentioned here, examples for historical works may include translated texts such as Paulo Giovo’s Short Treatise on the Turkes Chronicles (1547), The Ottoman of Lazaro Soranzo (1603), as well as English texts like John Foxe’s The Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs (1570) and the anonymous Policie of the Turkish Empire (1597). Also travelogues like Henry Blount’s A Voyage into the Levant (1636), William Lithgow’s A most detectable and trve discovrse of an admired and painefull Peregrination from Scotland, to the most Famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affrica (1623), and the translation of Nicolas de Nicolay’s The naugations, peregrinations and voyages, made into Turkie (1585) were widely circulated in early modern London. 29

So that at this present if you consider the beginning, progress, and perpetual felicity of this the Othoman Empire, there is in this world nothing more admirable and strange; if the greatness and lustre thereof, nothing more magnificent and glorious; if the Power and Strength thereof, nothing more Dreadful and Dangerous: Which wondering at nothing but at the Beauty of it self, and drunk with the pleasant Wine and perpetual felicity, holdeth all the rest of the World in Scorn, thundering out nothing still but Blood and War, with a full persuasion in time to Rule over all, prefixing unto it self no other limits than the uttermost bounds of the Earth, from the rising of the Sun unto going down of the same. (iv)

However, the English attitude towards Islam was not always derogatory or negative. Many Englishmen of the age saw Catholic Spain more dangerous than the Turks. Some historians called the Turks “allies of Reformation” because the

Ottoman campaigns in central Europe helped to divert the military energies and economic resources of the Papal-Habsburg powers who wished to root out the

Lutherans and other heretics (Vaughan, Pattern of Alliances 134). English texts on

Turks also contained narratives concerning beneficial trade and even friendship with them. As evidenced by the observations of Sir Henry Blount, the experience of traveling in Ottoman territories could challenge and modify the traditional ideas expressing hostility and prejudice against the Turks. In his account of travels to the

Levant, Blount writes: “He who beholds these times in their greatest glory could not find a better Scene than Turkey … [The Turks] are the only moderne people, great in action … whose Empire hath so suddenly invaded the world, and fixt itself such firme foundations as no other ever did” (103). In the course of his travels, he discovers that “the Turkish disposition is generous, loving, and honest … far from the rudeness, whereof they are accused” (Blount 107). 30

The Turks were a popular theme also for English stage productions throughout the early modern age. Both major and minor many English dramatists showed fascination with the Ottomans. Louis Wann lists 47 plays that present

Islamic themes or characters written in the period between 1579 and 1642, 31 of them dealing exclusively with Turks or the Turkish history (179). In fact, for

Renaissance playwrights the Turk was an intriguing theme to attract the attention of the audience (Burton 32). The use of exotic props, costuming, make-up and set design made the English stage a perfect medium for fantasizing about the appearance and customs of Turks and mapping the foreign territories of the

Southern and Eastern Mediterranean for London theatergoers who would never actually see these places in their lifetimes (Dagenhardt 15). Popular settings included Tunis, Algiers and Fez on the Barbary Coast of North Africa, or the islands of Malta, Rhodes and Cyprus, where Christians and Ottomans historically battled for colonial control. Characters from various faiths were set against one another in scenes of war, on the high seas, in prison cells, in the public marketplace and in intimate eroticized places.

English stage representations of the Turks were often rehearsals of conventional stereotypes found in the historical and travel texts. In the theatre, the

Islamic world mostly functioned as a negative mirror to European Christian virtue and was frequently associated with corruption, violence and devilish treachery

(Burton 56). Yet again, it is difficult to argue that English drama presented the

Turk as a certain type, or a stock character. While plays like Othello, Soliman and

Perseda, A Christian Turned Turk, and The Renegado feature Turkish characters that are conventionally represented as valiant, proud-spirited, and cruel, many 31

other characters like Orcanes in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Selim Calymath in

The Jew of Malta, Mustapha and Camena in Greville’s Mustapha, or Abdelmelek in Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West appear as exceedingly noble and generous characters represented in favorable light. Particularly in the plays that were produced towards the end of the sixteenth century, the years in which

Elizabeth I was seeking a strategic alliance with the Ottoman Sultan and the

Ottomans were perceived by many as an exemplary imperial power, we do not observe an altogether negative English attitude in representations of the Turks.15

Though they are still proud and powerful, they do not fall in the stereotypical representation of the tyrannous and lecherous infidel. Rather than posing a direct threat on Christendom, their familial disputes and imperial conquests constitute the focus of attention.

Similarly, the representation of the Muslim woman in these early plays lacks the conventional sexual connotations associated with Islamic femininity. The discursive strategy of intertwining Christian-Muslim relations with inter-religious heterosexual love is altogether absent. The Muslim woman is not depicted as an object of desire for European men to overcome or to possess. She is rather presented as a powerful Eastern empress who with prideful attitude and boasting language complements her male counterpart. Though she is articulate and exercise imperial authority to a greater or lesser degree, these attributes do not render her a feminine threat for the patriarchal world order. In fact, at the early stage of Anglo-

15 Examples of early English plays that feature Islamic characters and themes include Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Part One and Part Two (1587-88), George Peele’s Turkish Mahumet and Hiren the Fair Greek (1588) and The Battle of Alcazar (1589), Robert Greene’s Alphonsus, King of Aragon (1587) and Orlando Furioso (1591), Thomas Kyd’s Soliman and Perseda (1592), Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (1594), and the anonymous Selimus (1592) and Sir John Mandeville (1599). 32

Ottoman interaction, it is not possible to see clear distinctions between the picture of Christian womanhood and the image of the Muslim woman. They share similar attributes and functions in the contemporary game of empire-making, which is governed by universal patriarchal rules.

As England’s Mediterranean commerce expanded over the years, the allure of the Muslim world and the challenge it posed to English identity grew more powerful. At the turn of the seventeenth century, we observe that the conventional gendered pattern of representing Christian-Muslim encounters through love relations was revived but also realigned so as to reflect the English concerns and anxieties with respect to the intensified cross-cultural contact with Islam.

Englishmen who went or were taken to the dominions of Islam numbered in thousands in the early modern age. Many of these men converted to Islam either to seek better treatment and eventual freedom as slaves or to pursue the opportunities offered by the Ottoman Empire to Christian renegades (Matar, Turk, Moors, and

Englishmen 15).

The threat of conversion confronted by English merchants and seamen in this period also constituted a complexly imagined theme on the Jacobean stage.

Converted Christians were seen as traitors who preferred the worldly advantages of Islam to spiritual truth. In the English drama the renegade figure became an important cultural vehicle through which the playwrights expressed both the excitement about expanding cross-cultural commerce and anxieties about the unstable English identity which proved to be vulnerable to the undesired effects of this encounter (Matar, “The Renegade” 490). In the plays that focus on the

Mediterranean interaction between Christians and Muslims, the Islamic woman 33

functions as the intimidating and powerful feminine factor of the intimidating and powerful enemy. With her assertive lechery and overt sexuality she is set against the Christian hero as a true test for his religious resolution and virtuous masculinity. In these plays, the sexual desire between a Christian man and a

Muslim woman is enacted to express the threat of conversion. The alluring Islamic temptress, who embodies the wealth and power of Islam, causes the Christian hero to go astray and face eternal damnation by “turning Turk.”

The 1604 peace treaty which ended the fifteen-year Anglo-Spanish war was directly responsible for making North Africa and Barbary the nest of English pirates and renegades (Chew 343). Many English seamen who had been plundering Spanish vessels legitimately in the name of national interests were all left unemployed after this date, and many of them took their chance in pursuing the lucrative employment opportunities offered to them in Muslim provinces of the

Mediterranean. However, despite the apparent economic and social factors, the most frequent explanation proffered by Christian moralists for Islamic apostasy was that Islam was a licentious religion. They criticized Islam for offering sensual pleasures as a reward to the virtuous in the next life and denounced the sexual freedom allowed in this life under Muslim law. Conventional associations made between Islam and promiscuity loaded Islamic conversion with erotic connotations

(Vitkus, Turning Turk 88), and the fact that the condemned sexual codes of Islam were all connected with Islamic femininity charged the image of the Muslim woman with additional significance in Christianity’s imaginative coming to terms with the Ottomans. 34

The accounts of the medieval anti-Islamic tradition which defined the religion of Mahomet as a system based upon fraud, lust and violence were adopted and reinforced with new ideas by early modern theologians as part of the intensified polemical project to defend and promote Christianity against Islam

(Vitkus, Turning Turk 86). The orgiastic paradise that Mahomet offered to his followers was seen as the major reason that Islam tempted so many men, and it was the proof of the contention that Islam was not a spiritual religion. With its beautiful and humble houris, luxurious gardens and rivers of wine, “Mahomet’s

Paradise” was described as a false vision of sexual and sensual delights. The account found in the medieval compilation of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was still the most popular and the most widely used version of Islamic paradise:

… if a man asked them what paradise they mean, they say, to paradise that is a place of delights where men shall find all manner of fruits in all seasons, and rivers running of milk and honey, and of wine and of sweet water; and that they shall have fair houses and noble, every man after his desert, made of precious stones and of gold and of silver; and that every man shall have four score wives all maidens, and he shall have ado every day with them, and yet he shall find them always maidens. (89)

The sensuality of the paradise that Islam preached was seen in relation to the sensuality of worldly Islamic practices. Regulations governing concubinage, marriage, and divorce were misunderstood and reviled by Western Europeans. It was believed that polygamy was unlimited and unregulated, and that a man could have as many wives and concubines as he could maintain (Daniel, Islam and the

West 159). One writer claimed that Muslims were “absorbed in the delights of lust on account of the multiplicity of wives” (Roger Bacon qtd. in Daniel 169).

Undoubtedly, the most prevalent symbol that summed up the Christian notions 35

with respect to Islamic decadence was the sultan’s seraglio or the harem, a notion which entered into English representations of the Muslim world in the sixteenth century. Many Christian writers and travelers who described the Ottoman culture were particularly preoccupied with the seraglio and dwelt voyeuristically in this exotic space of eroticism in their writings. With its connotations for orgiastic sexuality and excessive luxury, this concealed space at the hub of the world’s greatest empire was considered by early modern writers as proof of the corrupted power of the Ottomans (Peirce, The Imperial Harem 5).

The source of Islam’s attraction and its ability to convert Christians was thought to be the wealth of the Ottoman Empire and the sexual freedom it offered to its subjects. The representative elements that characterized the Ottomans as a powerful but degenerate empire could all be embodied in the Muslim woman, since the requirements of Islamic sexual ethics and Mahomet’s Paradise as perceived by the Christians were all linked together and centered on Islamic femininity. Thus, we could argue that Christian polemicist discourse against Islam in the early modern age caused a sharp deterioration in the image of the Muslim woman. The notion of a veiled, hidden lust that masquerades as virtue and chastity became a typical characteristic of the Islamic woman in Western European texts.

For travelers like William Lithgow the fact that Turkish women were “modestly masked” merely indicated that they were “fearful and shame-fast abroad, but lascivious within doors, and pleasing in matters of incontinency” (101). In the dramatic productions of the age this self-contradictory image was presented as the principal danger awaiting the Christian adventurers in the Muslim lands. 36

The representation of the Muslim woman in early modern plays can also be seen from the perspective of England’s own colonial aspirations in parts of the world which were not under Ottoman control. Though England clearly was not an imperial power in this period, colonialism was taken seriously as a national enterprise by both Queen Elizabeth and King James. While the profits that the merchant ships made in the Mediterranean constantly increased, many English seamen travelled to the New World and the East Indies in search of new markets and colonies, and the notions of alterity generated during these voyages with respect to both the non-European peoples and England’s colonial predecessors

(namely, Spain, Portugal, and Holland) had a profound effect on the definitions of

English identity in this period. In the context of English proto-colonialism we are presented with two types of Muslim woman. On the one hand there is the “white”

Muslim woman whose conversion and assimilation is desirable as a mark of

European superiority. On the other hand, there is the “black” Muslim woman who embodies the threat of moral and physical contamination and should be either expelled or destroyed. In plays which combine allusions to colonial metaphors and tropes of conversion the image of the “fair” Muslim woman functions as a discursive means for modeling an ideal European colonialist who is not only resolute in his faith, but also powerful and attractive enough to convert and redeem the colonized subject. Black Muslim women, on the other hand, generally appear in minor roles as lascivious servants whose depiction combines patriarchal fears about dark female sexuality with religious and racial prejudices. Since blackness was traditionally associated with godlessness and sin, religious and bodily 37

difference often come as overlapping categories and black femininity couples the anxieties in regard to both categories with crude misogyny.

These various representations of Islamic femininity should also be seen in comparison with the notions of Christian womanhood in the early modern English society. This period witnessed notable developments with respect to the traditional role of women. Humanism, the Reformation, and new forms of production generated a new set of attitudes towards gender (Aughterson 9). While the notion of the new Protestant family as a key and politicized institution elevated the wife’s position to a level above the merely subordinate, the developing capitalistic economy demanded women to contribute more to household economies and labor force (Breitenberg 25). This period witnessed the reigns of two female Tudor monarchs – Mary and Elizabeth – the second of whom ruled the country successfully for almost half a century. Also women were preaching in congregations, running businesses and producing literature; in other words they were becoming active in many areas which were traditionally reserved for men.

The limited autonomy and independence that Englishwomen gained in the early modern period was a source of resentment and resistance for men, who felt dislodged from their dominant position in the public and private life (Krontiris,

Oppositional Voices 8). In this period many English readers took an interest in what has been called the querelles des femmes, a pamphlet war debating the nature of womanhood. Many male writers aggressively condemned and satirized women who transgressed their culturally prescribed roles, by calling them “furies of hell,” and shrews, or depicting them as caricatures of domineering wives who emasculate their husbands. Also, the substantial effort observed in the period’s 38

conduct literature to legitimize women’s subordination presents evidence of deep patriarchal anxiety.16

Traditionally, patterns of representing non-European/Muslim women had always foregrounded features of negative femininity. As the story of Antony and

Cleopatra has shown, even in ancient times disorderly foreign women unsettled dominant notions about female identity and gender relations. Yet, within the context of the ongoing gender debate in the early modern English society, the portraits of Islamic “furies” in the period’s drama require a special emphasis with their symbolic potential allowing playwrights to reflect on the patriarchal concerns with respect to the rising voices of Englishwomen.

In this study I argue that the image of the Muslim woman on the early modern English stage, as a transgressive female who resists domestication and subordination, is strategically deployed by playwrights to reflect on the contemporary patriarchal anxieties with respect to their own unruly women. As the female member of a culture which was presumably the anti-image of the normative Christian identity, the Muslim woman was a very appropriate figure on

16 The status of women in the period of the Renaissance is a widely researched topic in feminist studies and the answer to the central question whether women indeed had a Renaissance or not varies among the scholars. Some of these scholars, including Joan Kelly-Gadol, who posed this question, speak not of a “rebirth” but of powerlessness and objectification for the Englishwomen of the period. In Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919), Alice Clark argues that the transition from a feudal system to urban capitalism entailed a decline in women’s status as the family industry disappeared and women were constrained with strict patriarchal codes that disallowed them to participate effectively in the new system. In Women and the English Renaissance (1984) Linda Woodbridge suggests that while the new notion of women in the Renaissance was much debated among the English men and women, the purpose of both the attackers and defenders of women was undergirded by an orthodox understanding of the nature of women, thus did “little to advance the argument for the equality of women” (38). Yet these arguments are also challenged by a number of scholars, including Margaret Ferguson, Judith Brown Elaine Beilin, and Tina Krontiris, who draw attention to the real life evidence for women’s achievements in the English economic and cultural life and argue at least for “a partial Renaissance for women” (Krontiris, Women and/in the Renaissance 14). Also scholars like Retha Warnicke and Patricia Crawford examine the inadvertent role of Protestantism in enabling women to attain greater esteem and power, notwithstanding the fact that, as Constance Jordan argues, this power could not be translated into authority to give it ″a public and constitutional character” (4). 39

whom to load what was considered threatening and unnatural by men in the opposite sex. In the drama of the age, this negative image of the Muslim woman is frequently set in opposition to Christian female characters who display an immaculate and virtuous disposition that complies with the authorized notion of femininity. While Muslim women with their supposedly degenerate morality are shown to create a proselytizing effect on Christian heroes, chaste Christian women exemplify resistance to Islam as they “speak truth to patriarchal power” and remain constant against the raging libido of Islamic men (Vitkus, Turning Turk

126).

In addition, despite the emphasis on her overt and dangerous sexuality,

Islamic symbols of absolute female subordination like the veil and the harem are also present in the dramatic portrayals of the Muslim woman in this period. In the period’s drama the restraint of freedom that the Turkish women are subjected to is contrasted with the assumed privileges of the English women. The image of the

Muslim woman enslaved to her husband was used not only to define the incivility of the Islamic culture, but also to remind the Christian women of “the liberty and freedom themselves enjoy[ed]” and to teach them “to love their husbands”

(Biddulph A2).

In consideration of all these historical and theoretical aspects, in the following chapters I analyze the image of the Muslim woman in six early modern plays. Despite the sheer number of dramatic works that thematize Islam and the

Ottomans, those that feature Muslim female characters in prominent roles are relatively scarce. The plays included in this study cover the period that follows the initiation of Anglo-Ottoman relations in 1581 until the last years of James I and, 40

except for The Island Princess analyzed in the final chapter, all of them have

Ottoman settings. I examine the representation of the Muslim woman in early modern English drama under three categories. In the second chapter I focus on the indiscriminate attitude towards Islamic femininity, which I see in relation to the positive political climate that was created by the establishment of Anglo-Ottoman trade relations and the subsequent interval of neutrality towards Islam and the

Turkish empire. Through an analysis of characters like Zabina and Zenocrate in

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Fausta and Iphigena in Greene’s Alphonsus, King of

Aragon, I argue that in these early plays, which do not necessarily focus on constructing a binary opposition between Islam and Christianity, the Muslim woman does not act as a function of Islamic difference but remains within a universally agreed upon patriarchal understanding and fulfills legitimate roles in the contemporary game of empire as powerful empresses acting in defense of their empire and family honor.

In the third and fourth chapters I turn my attention to two “turning Turk” plays written in the first decades of the seventeenth century. In this period the

Christian-Muslim interaction in the Mediterranean intensified and the image of the

Muslim woman became an essential vehicle for articulating the English desire for profit and the anxieties with respect to the rising numbers of Christian apostates in the Ottoman lands. Both Voada in Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk and

Donusa in Massinger’s The Renegado are represented as Turkish enchantresses who, with their allures and sexuality, cause the Christian men go astray and face religious conversion. Voada’s unmanageable and degenerate femininity causes both her own destruction and the Christian hero’s damnation. Donusa, the innately 41

good but misguided Ottoman princess, however, is saved by her love for the

Venetian gentleman Vitelli, who not only resists successfully Islamic temptation but also redeems the Muslim woman.

Finally, in the last two chapters of this study I place the non-colonial image of the Muslim woman against her representations within contexts where the

English imperial projections outweigh the anxieties with regard to Islam, and race

(skin color) is added to religion as an essential denominator of difference. The

Moorish servant Zanthia in Massinger’s The Knight of Malta is a typical example of the black Muslim woman, whose representation is largely informed by prejudices against the increasing number of African slaves in England as well as by the Spanish discourse on the Moors. Marginalized due to the stigma of her color, which marks her as the already colonized subject, the black Muslim woman represents the elements of colonial encryption mixed with fears of racial and religious contamination. On the other hand, Fletcher’s story of the fair and beautiful Quisara in The Island Princess, which takes place in the East Indies, employs the analogies of the possession of land and conquest of women frequently found in proto-colonial narratives and combines them with the motif of religious conversion. By using images, paradigms, and metaphors related to separate contexts interchangeably, the play reveals how various categories of difference can be used as generative of each other in mediating and negotiating concerns associated with the Other.

Chapter 2

Erasing the Cultural and Religious Difference: Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and

Greene’s Alphonsus

While Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (1587-1590) was not the first play that featured Muslim characters on the English stage, since it achieved an enormous success and was frequently imitated in the years that followed its staging, it can be credited for setting the standards for the Turk as a popular and clearly marked figure in the English drama (Adams xv). The play, which features almost exclusively Muslim characters, was written in the context of the

Renaissance humanist straining against the traditional limits of man, as well as the escalating imperialism both in the eastern and in the western parts of the world.

Consequently, Tamburlaine can be understood as an exaltation of human prowess, which in its glorious enterprise defies all boundaries, including those of conventional religion, be it Christian or Islamic. With its notoriously self- fashioning Muslim hero, who transforms himself from a base-born shepherd into a mighty emperor through a transgressive interpretation of political virtu, Marlowe’s drama posits a substantial challenge to conventional Renaissance ethics, 43

interrogating its very roots, and in this sense it clearly fits into Dollimore’s definition of “radical tragedy” (xxi).17

Tamburlaine has always enjoyed great critical attention within early modern studies, and a recurrent argument in the play’s criticism is that Marlowe produces a fantasy of imperial ambition by using Tamburlaine’s achievements as a mirror, a “tragic glass” (1.Prologue), for English mercantile affairs and expansionism. For Stephen Greenblatt, Tamburlaine embodies the “acquisitive energies of English merchants, entrepreneurs, and adventurers” at a time when

European men had embarked on an “extraordinary career of consumption” of “the world’s resources” (199). Emily Bartels, on the other hand, maintains that the play reveals an “imperial self-construction” at work which is continuously read against the East (Spectacles of Strangeness 54). By locating the play within England’s economic interest in the Ottomans, she assigns to Turkish imperialism a crucial role for England’s own and argues that the play’s hero, who is constructed “neither as an insatiable barbarian nor an awe-inspiring hero,” brings together “conflicting voices” about the Orient, while providing a model to teach supremacy to the

English (Bartels 81). With a similar tendency to understand the play’s use of the

Turks as a means to create a distancing medium to discuss issues closer to home,

Simon Shepherd offers a topical reading that contextualizes the play squarely within the Anglo-Spanish conflict over the Netherlands. Drawing a parallel between Leicester, the leader of the anti-Catholic campaign against the

17 In the introduction to his book Radical Tragedy (2003) Dollimore says that he has found “a substantial challenge” in the Elizabethan theatre; “not a vision of political freedom so much as a subversive knowledge of political domination, a knowledge which interrogated prevailing beliefs, submitted them to a kind of intellectual vandalism; radical in the sense of going to their roots and even pulling them up” (xxi). 44

Netherlands, and Tamburlaine, who was historically famous for delivering the

Christians from the Turks, he identifies the Scythian emperor’s interests as English and that of the Turkish emperor Bajazeth as Spanish (Marlowe and the Politics of

Elizabethan Theatre 150).

The contemporary “game” of planning for commercial and imperial expansion undoubtedly informs Marlowe’s drama. The exotic realms and characters that awe and horrify the spectator with their extraordinary wealth and power; the portrait of a mere brigand who aspires to attain transcendental autonomy and leave “an enduring mark” through conquest, violence, and death

(Greenblatt 197); and the envisioning of the world purely in terms of mercantile economies, reducing it to a map to be renamed and redefined, all support the imperialistic design that Tamburlaine’s critics have argued for. Also the actual crowns which are bandied back and forth among characters throughout both parts of the play can be understood as parodying the shifts of domination within this game of empire. However, I believe that understanding Tamburlaine only with respect to English proto-colonialism, taking the image of the Turk merely as a mirror that reflects on imperial desire, understates the pivotal role played by the

Turkish characters in the play and ignores the pervasive awareness of the Ottoman expansionist power in Marlowe’s England. While it is true that Tamburlaine’s aim is to conquer the whole world, his main conflict in both parts of the play is against the Turks. The historical figure of Timur had become legendary in Europe for distracting the Turkish Sultan Bayezid I (1347-1403) away from the siege of

Constantinople by defeating him in the Battle of Ankara (1402). By many

Christians this was regarded as an instance of divine retribution against the 45

Ottoman emperor for his persecution of Christians. Several European monarchs even wrote letters of congratulation to Timur (McJannet 65). Marlowe too places the action in the first play firmly on this legend and in the second part the

Hungarian conflict against the Turks in Varna (1444) is given a central place. As a matter of fact, it would not be wrong to argue that the success of Tamburlaine plays depended to an extent on the English familiarity with the subject matter

(Dimmock 136).

Comparing the play to its historical sources, several critics who focused on

Marlowe’s portrayal of the Turks have seen the events in the plot as a reconstruction of history in a way that reinforces European anti-Islamic prejudices through the employment of a providentialist discourse. In the play’s more recent criticism however, scholars who analyze the play within the context of the emerging Anglo-Ottoman diplomatic and trade relations during the reign of

Elizabeth I and the consequent production of elastic ideologies with respect to the religious difference have argued that Marlowe uses European prejudices against

Islam only as a guise. For example, for Burton the stereotype of the bombastic warlike Turk is only one of the versions of the Turk that Marlowe represents. He argues by activating and de-activating this image, Tamburlaine interrogates

English responses to the Ottoman power to create “a perspective on early modern

England’s need to produce a rhetoric that would justify its controversial commercial alliance with the Turks” (56). Vitkus, on the other hand, suggests that by constructing an increasingly sympathetic audience position towards

Tamburlaine’s Turkish victims, the play transforms the English fears of being conquered by the Ottomans into an identification with them; thus, it “insinuates 46

that the discourses of providentialism, prophecy, and holy war are merely empty rhetoric” (Turning Turk 64). Finally, Linda McJannet analyzes the main Turkish characters in both parts of the play almost entirely in positive terms, arguing that a reading of the play that relies on the assumption that early modern England sustained a static stereotype of barbarous Turk “oversimplifies and distorts” the depiction of the Ottomans (81).

In my reading of Tamburlaine, I want to join this last group of scholars who argue that Marlowe’s representation of Turkish strength does not mirror

English imperial aspirations, but is “representative of actual Turkish strength”

(Burton 54) and that the conventional demonized image of the Turk invoked in the play is merely superficial. In my analysis I want to extend this argument so as to include the depiction of the Muslim female characters in the play and discuss how the short circuit that Marlowe’s drama generates in the conventional discourse on

Islam is projected on the representation of the Muslim woman. None of the scholars above analyze the play’s Muslim female characters from this perspective.

The feminist critics of Tamburlaine, on the other hand, scarcely identify Zenocrate and Zabina specifically as Muslim. Without observing any Christian-Muslim divide, they generally tend to understand these women as exemplifications of the conventional gender discourse of the period, performing their pre-ordained roles as objects of exchange in the play’s imperial design. For example, Charles Brooks argues that “to the men in Tamburlaine beautiful women are treasures to be won” and through honorable and virtuous action women exact “the highest prize possible” in the bidding (3). Shepherd, similarly, sees the women in Tamburlaine not as characters, but as devices to accentuate the male virtue and states that in the 47

play “women are treated as a treasure in a world where men fight and negotiate”

(Marlowe and the Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre 179).

Though the fact that both Zabina and Zenocrate are Muslim has been found irrelevant by scholars, in my analysis of the women in Tamburlaine, I first want to underline the religious identity of these women and see the indifference displayed towards their conventional Islamic attributes as a consequence of the new rhetoric produced with respect to the Turks in general. Throughout the history of European literature, and most stereotypically since the colonial period, the representation of the Muslim woman has always been sexually charged, underlining feminine weaknesses such as passion, assertiveness, lust and wickedness as the essential characteristics of Islamic women, reflecting the moral degeneration of their false religion. Marlowe’s depiction of Muslim female characters in Tamburlaine presents a certain disruption in this respect, because the features which foreground the Muslim woman as the embodiment of negative femininity and differentiate her from the idealized Christian woman are completely absent from the play. On the contrary, both Zenocrate and Zabina are portrayed entirely in a positive light: they are virtuous and honorable Eastern empresses who complement the aggrandized imperial image of their husbands and deserve admiration for their actions. Also, with respect to their function in the game of empire-making, I want to suggest a more active role for these women than the one argued for by feminist critics.

While I acknowledge that the women in Tamburlaine fulfill their conventional feminine roles, I support that they are not altogether passive or voiceless figures who are merely treated as treasures or commodities, but vital players, who, within the imperial context, strive to defend the rules of the game and exercise feminine 48

authority in shaping the world balances, even if the space provided for them is confined.

Accordingly, in the first part of this chapter I want to draw attention to the positive political climate between the Ottoman Empire and England that followed the initiation of Anglo-Ottoman diplomatic and commercial relations in the last years of Elizabeth’s reign. By making references to a series of letters exchanged between the Queen and the Ottoman Sultan, I want to point to the English ability to produce a new rhetoric of Islam which emphasizes the similarities rather than the differences within the context of the newly established strategic alliance between the two countries. Reading the depiction of the Turks in Marlowe’s play in light of this historical context, I will attempt to show that rather than debasing the Turks, Marlowe consistently encourages sympathetic reaction for his Turkish characters, urging the audience to question their culturally inscribed beliefs; and by so doing, he exemplifies the shift in the conventional rhetoric of Islam, which is also reflected in the Queen’s letters. In my analysis of the image of the Muslim women in Tamburlaine in relation to both this rhetorical shift and the role assigned to them in the empire-building, I shall refer, in the latter part of my discussion, to another series of letters exchanged between the Turkish and English courts. A decade after the formal establishment of Anglo-Ottoman relations, between 1593 and 1599, Murad III’s wife Safiye Sultan also corresponded and exchanged gifts with Elizabeth. The powerful sultana image that Safiye reflects in her letters exemplifies how women exercised authority in the Ottoman dynasty. In addition, her clear emphasis on the feminine values that she shared with the Queen of

England points to an understanding which underlines the similarities rather than 49

the differences between the two patriarchal cultures. In this respect, Safiye’s self- representation in these letters provides a valuable historical model to Marlowe’s

Muslim empresses, and in the second part of this chapter, I want to highlight in what ways these women and their role in the imperial design correspond with the characteristics attributable to this model of Ottoman womanhood.

The Ottoman Empire: the infidel or a powerful ally?

Elizabeth I was not the first Christian monarch that openly cooperated with the

Islamic empire of the Ottomans. Following the example of the Venetians who had maintained commercial and military affiliation with the Turks since the fourteenth century, the French established good relations with the Ottoman court at the start of the sixteenth century, and after the grant of commercial capitulations in 1536, they started to dominate the vibrant mercantile economy in the Mediterranean together with the Venetians. Dissolving this Franco-Venetian commercial monopoly was one of the motives that encouraged Elizabeth to establish diplomatic and trade relations with the Ottomans (Chew 150).18 However, the

Queen’s primary purpose in approaching the Ottoman Empire was England’s need for a powerful political and military ally in its long-standing struggle against

Catholic Spain. As I explained in the introduction, in the early modern period,

England was still a minor player on the world map and it “was painfully conscious

18 As Nazan Aksoy argues mercantilism was swiftly expanding in England in this period and the state successfully implemented the policies required to adopt this economic doctrine. There was a crowded merchant class with a large appetite for doing business. English merchants wanted to trade their high-quality and affordable products independently from their French, Dutch and Venetian counterparts. Merchants saw where their interests laid and this allowed them to put aside traditional hostilities against Islam (32-33). 50

of its own imperial belatedness with respect to Spain” (Fuchs, Mimesis and

Empire 7). Contrary to the aggressive Spanish colonization in the New World, when Elizabeth I died in 1604 “England did not yet possess a single colonial inch in the Americas” (Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen 10). Also, if the Spanish had actually attacked as expected, England could not have effectively repulsed them, because the country did not even have a standing army. An alliance with a strong power like the Ottomans against the common enemy Spain suited well the

Queen’s purposes from an economic, political and military perspective19.

The Anglo-Ottoman relations were officially initiated in 1579; however before this year the English had sent a series of diplomatic missions to the

Ottoman court in an attempt to establish a preliminary dialogue. Two English merchants, Edward Osborne and Richard Staper, sent their representatives to the

Ottoman capital in 1575 to obtain permission from the Ottoman Sultan to maintain an English envoy to oversee the operations of English traders in Turkey (Chew

153).20 The Sultan’s permission was granted a year and a half later, and in 1578, the Queen appointed William Harborne as the first English ambassador to the

Sultan. Harborne’s efforts to establish good relations with the officials of the

Ottoman court were effective.21 In September 1579 a Turkish envoy (probably the

19 For a more detailed discussion of the English motives for initiating trade relations with the Ottoman Empire see also Orhan Burian’s “Interest of the English in Turkey” (1952).

20 Before the establishment of official Anglo-Ottoman diplomatic and commercial relations, the English efforts to open to the markets in the Levant were sporadic and infrequent (Chew 151). Only a few English voyages were made to Turkey for trading purposes and in these voyages merchants had to face the hostility of Venice and the high duties imposed at various ports. Turkish goods could reach England, but the trade was not under the English control. A considerable number of Venetian ships plied between Turkey and English Channel Ports in the first half of the sixteenth century. Also, between 1566 and 1581, the profitable trade through Russia into Persia delayed the need to start commercial relations with Constantinople (Chew 151).

21 The early years of the Anglo-Ottoman diplomacy and the accounts of the European residents of Istanbul in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries have been examined by scholars like Palmira Brummet in

first one) arrived in England with a letter to Queen Elizabeth in which the Sultan offered “unrestricted commerce” in his country to Englishmen (Matar, Turks,

Moors, and Englishmen 33). Later, in May 1580, the first commercial capitulations were promulgated between the English monarchy and the Ottoman sultanate. The Turkish market was now open to English merchants. In 1581 the

Levant Company was founded with the Queen’s official approval; and in the year

Tamburlaine I was written (1587), the vessel Hercules made the first of its immensely profitable voyages to the Grand Porte.22

In the context of the initiation of diplomatic and commercial relations between England and the Ottoman Empire, Elizabeth I and Murad III exchanged a series of letters from 1579 to 1581. Richard Hakluyt included these letters in both versions of his Principal Voyages and Navigations of the English Nation (1598-

1600), and so they were known to a large portion of the English reading public.

The most striking characteristic of the correspondence between the Queen and the

Sultan is the rhetorical strategy that is employed by both monarchs in an attempt to downplay the religious differences, while placing emphasis on the similarities in

Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (1994) and Susan Skilliter in William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey: A Documentary Study of the First Anglo-Ottoman Relations (1977) , Also, in a recent collection of essays entitled Early Modern Encounters with the Islamic East: Performing Cultures (2012) authors like Gerald MacLean, Sabina Lucia Müller and Sabine Schülting address to the theatricalization of early modern politics and culture, and discuss the effects of performance and improvisation in the early stages Anglo-Ottoman diplomacy, when the future of political, economic and religious contacts was open.

22 The Ottomans were also pleased with the English alliance as a strategic move against Spain while they were occupied with the Persian conflict in the East (Burton 60). Also, the excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570 by Pope Pius V encouraged Turks to view England as their ally against the Catholic powers and it was particularly instrumental in the development of Anglo-Ottoman relations, as it made it easier to ignore the papal embargo against the Islamic “infidel” for ammunition materials, such as steel, iron, and bell metal, while these materials had become abundant in England after the dismantling of Catholic monasteries and churches (61). The English also sold broadcloth, kerseys, rabbit skins, sugar and amber to the Ottomans. In return, they bought spices, drugs, dyes, indigo and raw silk. The cargo of the Hercules brought in 1587 was more than 70,000 pounds sterling (Burian 211). 52

their political and ideological doctrines (Burton 62). For example, Murad avoids the lengthy Islamic invocations and boastful epithets that he commonly used in his correspondence with other Christian monarchs in his letters to the English Queen and simply calls himself “Murad Shah, son of Selim Shah Khan, he who is granted victory always” (Skilliter, Trade with Turkey 123). Elizabeth, on the other hand, in addition to her official title, presents herself as “the most invincible and most mightie defender of the Christian faith against all kinde of idolatries, of all that live among the Christians, and falselie professe the name of Christ” (Skilliter 69), thus distinguishes herself from Murad’s Catholic foes on the basis of the doctrine of anti-idolatry which is common to both Protestantism and Islam.

In their correspondence both monarchs express their eagerness to admit

English and Turkish traders into each other’s kingdoms. In a letter of 1579 the

Sultan assures Elizabeth that “our Country be always open to such of your subjects, as by way of merchandize shall trade hither: and we will never faile to aide and succor any of them that are or shall be willing to esteem of our friendship, favour, and assistance: but will reckon it some part of our dutie to gratifie them by all good means” (Hakluyt 5: 170). In turn Elizabeth assures him: “we will grant as equall and as free libertie to the subject of your highnesse with us for the use of traffique when they will to come and go and from us and our kingdomes” (5:177).

She affirms the benefit of good relations between the two countries saying that “by mutuall traffique the East may be joined and knit to the West” (2: 192). In another letter the Queen entreats the Sultan to free her subjects who have been “deteined as slaves and captives in [his] Gallies,” and promises that if he helps she will ask:

God (who only above all things, and all men, and is a most severe 53

revenger of all idolatrie, and is iealous of his honor against the false gods of all nations) to adorne your most invincible imperiall highnesse with all the blessings of those gifts, which onely & deservedly are accounted most worthie of asking. (Skilliter, Trade with Turkey 71)

Such promises of spiritual gifts, combined with the Queen’s repeated emphasis on the shared doctrine of anti-idolatry, clearly subvert the crusader rhetoric by pointing to the Catholics as blasphemers instead of the traditional enemy Islam.

This rhetorical strategy, which appropriates Reformation ideas for political interests, not only enables the Queen to remove the obstacle of Christian militancy against Islam but also provides a suitable ideological ground for political interaction.

Over the next two decades that followed this correspondence between the

Queen and the Ottoman Sultan, the English engaged the Turks in extensive diplomatic and trade relations and regularly spoke of military alliance. The French and the Venetians were disturbed by the English presence in the Levant market, because their profitable trade at the Ottoman ports was now endangered by

English commerce (Chew 155). Yet, a more prevalent concern was that England’s arms trade would aid the Turks’ military efforts against Christendom (Burton 61).

The close diplomatic coordination between England and the Ottoman Empire was found scandalous by many Christian monarchs. While similar concerns were also voiced within the English society, pragmatic politicians like Francis Walsingham saw the Turks as tactical allies who would help to “divert the dangerous attempts and designs of [the Spanish] King from these parts of Christendom.” (qtd. in

Vitkus, Turning Turk 102). Advocates of English expansionism like Hakluyt viewed the trade with the Ottomans as an opportunity that would lead “to the 54

inlarging of her Majesties customes, the furthering of navigation, the venting of diverse generall commodities of this Realme, and the inriching of the citie of

London” (Hakluyt 5:168). In 1591, Thomas Nelson was proud that although “Her

Maiestie is a stranger and altogether unknowne vnto the Great Turke,” he offered her “all necessarie things ordered and prepared in his porte” to “aide, assist, and pleasure her maiestie” and “to defend her agaynst anie enemy whatsoever” (Sig.

B. 3r). Contrary to the traditional Christian prejudices against Muslim people as barbarous and corrupt infidels, proto-nationalism and mercantile interests enabled the English to produce a favorable image of an anti-idolatrous Turk with whom they could legitimately enjoy trade relations and join in alliance against the hegemony of Catholic Spain. By turning the crusader’s rhetoric upside down, the

English relativized the achievements of the Turks as examples to be followed and showed them to be worthy and admirable tactical allies, whose religion was of less importance.

Marlowe wrote his Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, in such a political atmosphere, and the portrayal of the Turkish characters in the play seems to reflect this shift in the conventional rhetoric.23 The playwright initially invokes religious difference by presenting a stereotypical image of the Turk through the depiction of

Bajazeth and promises the audience the enactment of the fantasy of his total defeat and humiliation; yet he fulfills this fantasy at the cost of creating “a desiring machine that produces violence and death” (Greenblatt 195). Though Tamburlaine defends the Christian cause, his cruelty, pride and blasphemous defiance of

23 Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine, Part I in his last year at the university (1587). The play was such a success that later in the same year he produced a sequel, Tamburlaine Part II. Though Zabina and Zenocrate are depicted in Part I, in my discussion of the Turks I will focus on both parts of the play. 55

divinity eventually push the audience into an uncomfortable position with respect to the implications of his actions, while simultaneously encouraging sympathy for his Turkish victims (Vitkus, Turning Turk 69). The audience is encouraged to put aside its religious antagonism and respond emotionally to the sufferings of the

Turkish characters, a response which, in turn, may lead to identification with

“these politically and socially incorrect figures” (Bartels, Spectacles of

Strangeness 13).

Though like the historical Timur Marlowe’s Tamburlaine is nominally a

Muslim, his religious identity remains ambiguous throughout the play. He initially appears as a pagan polytheist, who speaks of Jove as the god that keeps him “safe from harm” (1.1.2.181). Later, he converts to a Muslim who swears by Mahomet, but only to turn into a blasphemer of this religion by burning its holy book.

Keeping Tamburlaine’s religious orientation in the background, Marlowe foregrounds his protagonist’s human ambition and Machiavellian pragmatism.

Tamburlaine desires to conquer the entire world; yet he aspires to do this not in the name of some Christian or Muslim god, but to fulfill his personal aspirations. He asserts his personal power as a transcendent force and believes “[t]hat perfect bliss and sole felicity” is “[t]he sweet fruition of an earthly crown” (1.2.7.28-29). From one point of view, the emphasis on Tamburlaine’s human prowess rather than his

Muslim identity renders him an example of the self-knowing and self-actualizing individual that emerged in the Renaissance. Yet when seen in relation to his opposition against the Turks, which is central to both parts of the play, the silencing of Tamburlaine’s religion aligns him strategically with the Christian interests and enables the English audience to position themselves with 56

Tamburlaine against the Turk. Marlowe’s hero announces that as the “Wrath of

God, / The only fear and terror of the world” he “[w]ill first subdue the Turk, and then enlarge / Those Christian captives which [they] keep as slaves” (1.3.3.44-47).

When he speaks of his global aspirations he consistently promotes European mercantile interests, imagining “Christian merchants that with Russian stems /

Plow up huge furrows in the Caspian Sea, / Shall vail to us, as lords of all the lake” (1.1.2.194-196). Thus, in Tamburlaine Muslim-Christian antagonism is an important element in the unfolding of the plot, and the status of Europe vis-à-vis the Turkish strength appears to be a “determining condition for the representation of Tamburlaine” (Burton 72).24

If Marlowe mutes Tamburlaine’s religious difference in order to reinforce his position as the protector of the Christians, he initially presents the Ottoman sultan Bajazeth as a confirmation of the conventional representations of the Turk.

Contrary to the unstable religious identity of Tamburlaine, Bajazeth is firmly established as a Muslim emperor who embodies Islam’s threat to Europe. He invokes and swears by the name of Mahomet. In his opening speech he boastfully reminds his contributory kings and bassoes of their great power. He conceives of himself as the “Dread Lord of Afric, Europe and Asia, / Great king and conqueror of Greacia, / The ocean Terrene, and the coal-black sea, / The high and highest monarch of the world” (1.3.1.23-26). He speaks of his awareness of Tamburlaine’s plans to “'rouse us from our dreadful siege of the famous Grecian Constantinople,”

24 Aksoy interestingly suggests that in depicting Tamburlaine as the protector of Christians against the Turks, Marlowe might be alluding to the legend of Prester John, a Christian patriarch who ruled a lost Christian nation in the East and fought against the Muslims and pagans in the name of Christianity (91-92). 57

but considers the Scythian’s challenge as a mere “bickering” (1.3.1.4, 8). Before the battle he confidently challenges Tamburlaine:

By Mahomet my kinsman’s sepulchre, And by the holy Alcoran, I swear He shall be made a chaste and lustless eunuch And in my sarell tend my concubines. (1.3.3.75-78)

Tamburlaine, in turn, answers him:

By this my sword that conquered Persia, Thy fall shall make me famous through the world. (1.3.3.82-83)

The parallelism between the vaunting rhetoric of Bajazeth and Tamburlaine underline the contrast between the two warriors with respect to their religious identity. While it figures Bajazeth as a Muslim emperor who swears by his prophet and holy book, it distances Tamburlaine from Islam, figuring him as a pagan conqueror who swears by nothing, attributing his coming victory only to the might of his sword.

Several critics of Tamburlaine have argued that Marlowe’s portrayal of the

Ottoman emperor as a pompous and tyrannical man is a negative departure from the play’s acknowledged sources, in an attempt to enhance the figure of

Tamburlaine at the expense of Bajazeth.25 For example, Ellis Fermor feels that

25 The sources that Marlowe possibly referred to for his depiction of the conflict between Timur and Bayazid are extensively investigated by Vivien Thomas and William Tydeman in Christopher Marlowe: The Plays and Their Sources (London: Routledge, 1994). Pedro Mexia’s Silva de varia lecion (1542) (translated into English in 1571), is viewed as one of Marlowe’s chief sources. The version of the story in Mexia’s work does not involve the humiliation of the Ottoman emperor in a specific way. Bayazid’s story also appears in George Whetstone’s The English Myrror (1586). McJannet observes that in his version, Whetstone “is more critical of Timur and more sympathetic to Bayazid” (67). Perondinus’s Magni Tamerlanis Scytharum Imperatoris Vita (1553), which is also considered as a major source, describes the sultan’s sufferings in captivity in detail and might have inspired the scenes in Marlowe’s drama. Yet, like the historians specified above, Perondinus does not mock or express pleasure for Bayazid’s sufferings. William Brown argues that Marlowe’s debasement of Bajazeth is specifically based on John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (1570), for “[a]s Marlowe does later,

Marlowe’s treatment of Bajazeth is governed by his wish to preserve an

“undivided sympathy” for Tamburlaine (40). Similarly, Leslie Spence suggests that by changing the historical courageous Bajazeth into a “vain booster, and an impudent snob,” Marlowe justifies the sultan’s later debasement at the hands of

Tamburlaine as a deserved chastisement by the divinely appointed scourge (614).

However, upon closer inspection, Marlowe’s alleged demeaning of Bajazeth does not completely accord with the reading of the entire play. First, mastery in self- aggrandizing rhetoric – speaking in “high astounding terms” (1.Prologue) – is essential to Marlowe’s heroic drama. Rhetoric of power is in fact a method of measuring power, with which the kings onstage can “prove their infinite forces in words” (Bartels, Spectacles of Strangeness 76). Bajazeth’s confident speeches indicate that he is a far more worthy emperor than the coward and weak-minded

Persian king, Mycetes, who admits his lack of “great and thundering speech”

(1.1.1.3). With his boastful rhetoric Bajazeth shows that he is a fitting opponent for Tamburlaine, both as a warrior and as a leader. In addition, the Turkish emperor’s assertions of his power are not mere blusters, but accurate and true descriptions of his past military deeds. He is indeed in possession of the territories he talks of, and being the world’s most powerful emperor, the flattery shown to him by his contributory kings should be deemed due and appropriate.

Yet, Bajazeth’s rhetoric prior to the battle is not matched with his success in the field. After a bitter and unexpected defeat, he is dragged onstage in an iron cage and dishonored by being fed like a dog and used as a footstool by

Foxe portrays Tamburlaine’s harsh treatment of Bajazeth with complete sympathy and approval” (41). However, as we shall see Foxe’s Christian militancy is not very much in line with the politics of Marlowe’s play. 59

Tamburlaine to mount his throne. Brown argues that Marlowe’s debasement of

Bajazeth appears to be “more radical and all-encompassing” than the accounts found in the period’s historical texts (38). Indeed, by elaborating on the abuse of the Turkish emperor at the hands of Tamburlaine, who acts as the protector of

Christendom, Marlowe’s appears to want to please his audience by eliminating

Christianity’s arch-enemy on the stage. This authorial attitude is further exhibited by Bajazeth’s acknowledgement that Tamburlaine’s victory is in fact a Christian victory, which will be celebrated by “the Christian miscreants” by “[r]inging with joy their superstitious bells / And making bonfires over my overthrow” (1.3.3.236,

237-238).

Nevertheless, Marlowe’s elaboration on Bajazeth’s defeat is calculated so as to call into question Tamburlaine’s perverse savagery rather than merely to provide a sadistic spectacle for the audience. As McJannet has shown Marlowe omits certain details which may justify Tamburlaine’s ill-treatment of Bajazeth

(77).26 The fact that Bajazeth’s raging speeches in captivity prove to be mere wrath does not diminish the Turkish emperor’s stature. His relentless defiance of

Tamburlaine and his determination to free himself through suicide can be perceived of as acts of dignity, rather than “childish frustration of a caricaturized sultan figure” (McJannet 77). Even if the fantasy of a Turkish defeat might have appeared attractive to the audience initially, it would be wrong to assume that the spectators would remain unmoved by the spectacle of the Sultan, expressing in despair his final wish to his wife Zabina:

26 For example, he never mentions the claim that Bajazeth achieved the throne by murdering his brother. In the play such cruel act of killing a family member is attributed to Tamburlaine, when, in Part Two, he murders his own son whom he deems a “coward” and “traitor,” for he prefers peaceful “womanish” pursuits to war. 60

O poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen, Fetch me some water for my burning breast, To cool and comfort me with longer date, That in the shortened sequel of my life, I may pour forth my soul into thine arms With words of love, whose moaning intercourse Hath hitherto been stayed with wrath and hate Of our expressless, banned inflictions. (1.5.1.275-282)

Clearly, this pitiful lamentation does not bespeak of a cruel and lustful tyrant, but of a broken noble man who has suffered at the hands of a ruthless foe. As Burton suggests, Marlowe’s humanization of Bajazeth in this scene “disallows an understanding of Turks as necessarily barbaric” (78). Zabina’s expressed sorrow upon finding her husband’s corpse, which drives her into madness and to her own suicide, as well as the pity that Tamburlaine’s consort, Zenocrate, articulates upon the spectacle of the deaths of the noble couple, both suggest that Bajazeth emerges from Marlowe’s play not as a barbarian who has been justly punished for his sins against the Christians, but as a sympathetic figure whose sufferings invoke pity in the audience, while inviting criticism for his tormentor, the supposed defender of

Christianity.

In Part Two, it becomes even more difficult for the audience to identify with one of the two sides. As at the beginning of Part One, Europe is threatened with conquest and the prospect of “Turkey blades…. glid[ing] through all their throats” (2.1.1.33). However, when the Turkish king Orcanes learns

Tamburlaine’s plans to assault “Natolia,” he signs a peace treaty with the

Christians. Interestingly enough, it is the Christians, not the Muslims who are shown to behave despicably. Though both Orcanes and the Hungarian king

Sigismund swear by their respective gods to keep peace, the Christians betray the 61

alliance on the grounds that an oath made in Christ’s name may be disregarded when it is offered to “such infidels / in whom no faith nor true religion rests”

(2.2.1.33-34). Orcanes, shocked by the Christians’ failure to honor their vow, invokes the Christian deity to prove “a perfect god” and avenge the dishonor to his name. He even encourages his army of Muslim men to call on Christ, reasoning that “[i]f there be Christ, we shall have victory” (2.2.2.63-64).

The quick triumph that the Muslim army gains over Sigismund’s troops oddly confirms the truth of Christian justice. Uncertain of whether “Christ or

Mahomet was on his side,” Orcanes reinforces an association between the

Christian and Muslim deities and resolves: “in my thought shall Christ be honored

/ Not doing Mahomet an injury whose power had share in this victory (2.2.3.33-

35). Once again, the play denies the validity of the dominant trope of the faithless

Turk by implying that the victory granted to Orcanes as an answer to his prayers is an instance of divine intervention. Marlowe here seems to “deliberately complicate the conventional binary oppositions set up between Islam and Christianity”

(Dimmock 151). By presenting the Christians as “traitors” and “villains” who

“care so little for their prophet Christ” (2.2.29-35), he makes it impossible for his audience to identify with them. Instead, he renders Orcanes as a pious and admirable figure who sharply contrasts with the image of the Turk as a murderous conspirator.27

27 Thinking that Christians were accustomed to celebrate not the victories of the Turks, but victories against the Turks, Marlowe’s presentation of Orcanes’s triumph as a just and deserved one is quite provocative, as it pushes the audience to question its understanding of God as a deity who only protects his own chosen people. Rather than the conventional understanding of Christian and Muslim gods as two separate entities, the audience feels compelled to accept Orcanes’s belief in God who is not “circumscriptible / But everywhere fills every continent” and with his power and purity “behold and venge” every “traitor” (2.2.2.50-51,54). 62

The final trap that Marlowe sets for the audience comes in the scene that

Tamburlaine orders the burning of the Koran. As Islamic holy books are tossed into the flames of the bonfire lit on the stage, Tamburlaine challenges the Muslim deity to “[c]ome down thyself and work a miracle” to prove his power (2.5.1.185).

He declares:

In vain I see, men worship Mahomet. My sword hath sent millions of Turks to hell, Slew all his priests, his kinsmen, and his friends, And yet I live untouched by Mahomet. (2.5.1.177-180)

There has been a critical debate among the scholars whether the onset of

Tamburlaine’s mortal illness fifteen lines later should be attributed to Mahomet or natural causes. According to Greenblatt, the effect of this scene “is not to celebrate the transcendent power of Mohammed but to challenge the habit of mind that looks to heaven for rewards and punishments that imagines human evil ‘the scourge of God’” (202). Yet, as Burton observes Tamburlaine’s burning of the

Koran, which is his most anti-Islamic act, comes “when he is at the height of his repellent viciousness” (88). If Mahomet’s intercession is rejected at this point, then the audience will have to accept it as a fact that millions of people die, both innocent and guilty, without any visible intervention by Christ, Mahomet or any other deity (Goldberg 584). The Christian audience would prefer to see the hand of

Mahomet in Tamburlaine’s illness, because otherwise it would feel like blasphemy. By making the audience accept divine providence in the person of

Mahomet, the play gives a clear message of religious relativism and cultural openness. Asking his spectators to suspend their biases and expectations, it shows the possibility of producing a new kind of rhetoric in which God is conceived as 63

universal and all people as subject to the same laws, with no significant attention paid to whether he manifests himself as Christ in one part of the world or as

Mahomet in another (Goldberg 586).

This is precisely the same logic that rationalized Elizabeth’s attempts to initiate commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire. By affirming the unitary and universal nature of God against the “false gods of the nations,” she provided a framework for justifying her controversial alliance with the Turks, which refused to see the Muslim as an infidel and offered profitable and peaceful international relations as an alternative to holy war. Though it would be wrong to argue that

Marlowe’s purpose was to justify a Turkish alliance, by playing on the audience’s conventional responses, the playwright reflects on this alternative created by the

Queen’s policy.

Female Sovereignty and the Game of Empire

In the above section I showed the connections between England’s new political rhetoric with respect to Islam and the image of the Turk in the two Tamburlaine plays. In the following part I want to discuss the implications of this new rhetoric on Marlowe’s representation of the Muslim woman. If fears and prejudices against

Islam are first evoked and then undermined in the portrait of Bajazeth and other

Turkish male characters, the play contains virtually no trace of the literary conventions that underline a cultural difference that discriminates the Islamic women from their idealized Christian sisters. Except for the exotic costumes they wear and their scattered invocations to “sacred Mahommed,” there is indeed very little evidence to identify Zabina or Zenocrate as Muslim. Neither the figure of the 64

wanton princess of the medieval ages, nor the erotic and secluded image of the

Muslim woman that prevailed in the Orientalist discourse is discernible in

Marlowe’s play. The Muslim female characters in Tamburlaine are depicted instead as virtuous and powerful noblewomen, who abide by and uphold the same patriarchal ideals constructed for women in the Christian world. Apparently, when the barrier of religion is removed, the presumed dissimilarities between Christian and Muslim women also evaporate, and what remains is the essential affinity of being a female subject in the game of empire.

I want to analyze the representation of the Muslim female characters in

Tamburlaine with respect to both their departure from conventional attributes and the position assigned to them in the scenario of empire-making presented in the play. While the role given to women in such a scenario, which casts them merely as objects of exchange, is usually a passive one, I argue that the Muslim women in

Tamburlaine are not portrayed as completely voiceless heroines, but as prideful and articulate subjects who actively strive to attain and protect the feminine virtues expected of them in an effort to complement the aggrandized image that their male counterparts project in asserting imperial will. By doing this, they further legitimize their own powerful position as wives and mothers of great emperors, which allows them to exercise a kind of feminine authority in appropriating the world balances without violating patriarchal prerogatives.

In order to establish a historical counterpart to this image of the Muslim woman, as in the first section, I want to refer to a series of letters exchanged between the English and Ottoman courts during the reign of Elizabeth. In the course of the development of Anglo-Ottoman diplomatic relations through 65

correspondence with Murad III, the English Queen also exchanged letters with

Murad’s wife, Safiye, who was one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history. Safiye’s self-representation in these letters provides a model comparable to the Muslim empresses depicted in Tamburlaine, because like Zabina and

Zenocrate, Safiye assumes a complementary position next to the Ottoman Sultan in the imperial image-making, and with a power that emanates from her wifely and motherly role in the Ottoman dynasty, she becomes involved in the politics of the empire in a feminine fashion similar to Marlowe’s Muslim empresses.

Undoubtedly, any argument that suggests a place for women’s agency in empire politics would be a difficult one to sustain. After all, men had been associated with martial prowess, assertiveness, pragmatism and conquest – which are essential to any imperial endeavor – and women with passion, lack of reason, and inconsistency, attributes which cast them into a passive role and made them vulnerable to conquest. In fact, Queen Elizabeth herself had to legitimize her sovereignty as a female monarch in the English proto-colonial period. As a woman, she was considered by many as unfit for kingly rule and thus not qualified to ignite England’s energy for imperial expansion.28 Her status as the “Virgin

28 The successive ascensions of the two daughters of Henry VIII to the English throne created a serious controversy in England about women’s right to exercise sovereign power. Because of their “supposedly innate inferiority” women were “thought to be unfit to take on public roles” and the Reformists’ emphasis on strict preservation of hierarchical order between the sexes was clear (Krontiris, Women and/in the Renaissance 31). Both Mary and Elizabeth were attacked by their opponents. In his ill-timed The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women, which initially targeted Mary but was published in the year Elizabeth was crowned (1558), John Knox characterized a commonwealth ruled by a woman “sitting in judgment or riding from parliament in the midst of men” as a “monstrous regiment” which violated the divine and the natural law. The establishment of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth I was further complicating the issue, because as Archbishop Heath explained to the Parliament in 1559, “her highness, beyinge a woman by birth and nature, is not qualyfied by God’s worde to feed the flock of Chryst” (qtd. in Crawford 36). Several defenses of women’s rule were written in this period by authors like Elyot, Aylmer, and Howard, but none of these defenses attempted a revision of the traditional notion of woman’s social role (Benson 240). Instead, they saw Queen Elizabeth’s case simply as an “exception that did not prove the norm” (Krontiris, Women and/in the Renaissance 33). 66

Queen,” which she manipulated successfully throughout her reign, to an extent, helped her to consolidate her position. Identification of her inviolate female body with the unbreached body of her land, as well as her distinctive role as the motherly protectress of her people served to moderate her abnormal position by rendering her an “extraordinary woman” who represented the will of a greater patriarchal power (Montrose, “Discovery” 8). In addition, the articulation of the

Queen’s political relationship to her masculine subjects through the discourse of courtship enabled her to be identified with the idealized heroines of the

Renaissance love poetry tradition, in whose name conquests were accomplished and authorized.

In more practical situations, such as actual martial spectacles, the Queen resorted to political androgyny that presented her body natural and her body politic as separate entities. At Tilbury where she visited the English troops assembled on the eve of the battle against the Spanish Armada in 1588 Elizabeth is famously quoted as saying:

Let Tyrants fear, I have always so behaved my self, that under God I have placed my chiefest strength, and safeguard in the royal hearts and good will of my subjects…. I know I have the bodie, but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and Stomach of a King, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my Realm, to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I my self will take up arms, I my self will be your General, Judge, and Rewarder of everie one of your virtues in the field. (Reprinted in Wilson 542)

Despite the fact that her position as a female monarch subverted the prerogatives of the Christian patriarchal system, Elizabeth was able to assert a unique power and to act independently by appropriating the symbols of that same system. Using 67

her rhetorical skills, she subtly played with patriarchal codes that constrained her.

She made them the source of her sovereign autonomy, thus providing herself sufficient elbowroom to rule and defend her country in a global masculine competition for imperial domination.

As we shall see, a rare instance in which Elizabeth did not use male guise and enjoyed an overlap of her body natural and body politic as a female sovereign was her correspondence with Safiye, the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III. A decade after the Sultan granted trading privileges to English merchants, Safiye and

Elizabeth exchanged a series of letters and gifts in support of the emerging Anglo-

Ottoman political, economic, and cultural ties. Though, as in England, in the

Ottoman world women traditionally did not exercise political power, in the early modern age the Ottoman Empire was under the sway of a series of dynastic women who, as members of the sultan’s harem, actively engaged in imperial politics and manipulated both the domestic and the international affairs of the state. These harem women possessed this capacity simply by virtue of their feminine roles as mothers of the empire’s reigning or future sultans. Within the

Ottoman dynastic structure, when a concubine in the sultan’s harem gave birth to a male child, she could claim share in the exercise of sovereign authority, as her son was seen as the sultan’s heir (Peirce, The Imperial Harem 17). If her son actually ascended to the throne, the concubine mother was recognized as the valide sultan

(i.e. queen mother), an official position which had significant influence over the administration of the empire. A harem woman in this capacity acted as the political and personal advisor of the Ottoman sultan and represented him as the regent of the empire in negotiations with foreign powers. She supervised the 68

harem and exercised authority not only over other women but also over younger males of the Ottoman royal family. In addition, with vast sources in her access, she engaged in charitable works and royal patronage, thus contributing to social and economic development and maintaining the public image of the dynasty. As

Leslie Peirce puts it, “while supreme authority in the Ottoman sultanate was exercised by a male, that authority in the late sixteenth century emanated from a household that was presided over by the female elder of the dynasty” (The

Imperial Harem 24).

Despite the fact that harem women were excluded from exercising public power and given familial roles within the private sphere, in practice, they could make use of these familial roles and attain the power that they were deprived of by the patriarchal society. In other words, similar to the case of Elizabeth, the sovereign power of these harem women emanated from the very patriarchal codes that they were restricted by, yet unlike Elizabeth they did not need to resort to rhetorical strategies to exercise this power, because they were given the political office to do so. Safiye was one of most effective of these imperial harem women.

As haseki (i.e. the mother of the sultan’s son) she had a great influence during the reign of Murad III, and after her son Mehmed III (1595-1603) ascended the throne, she enjoyed the all-powerful position of valide sultan.

While the letters written by Elizabeth were not available at the time this study was written, Safiye’s three letters, which were published by S.A. Skilliter in

Documents from Islamic Chanceries (1965), sufficiently show how womanliness was exercised by these two powerful women as a means of establishing political alliance. In this respect, their correspondence refers to an unprecedented moment 69

in history in which two royal women actively engage in empire-building in a way to re-appropriate the world’s power balances. These letters are also significant as an instance that brought together an elite Christian woman and an elite Muslim woman in close cultural contact. Though they slightly postdate Marlowe’s drama,

I find these letters relevant to my discussion of the representation of Muslim women in Tamburlaine. Contrary to traditional assumptions of difference between

Christian and Muslim women, these letters, like the play itself, emphasize the similarities between Elizabeth and Safiye, as well as the feminine virtues attributed to them by their respective patriarchal societies. In addition, Safiye’s letters exhibit the significant role played by early modern Ottoman women in imperial politics, and in my discussion I argue that Marlowe assigns a similar role to the two Muslim noblewomen within the imperial framework of Tamburlaine.

Though Safiye became famous in England only after her first letter (dated 1593) was printed in Hakluyt’s 1598-1600 edition of Principal Navigations, her predecessor Hürrem Sultan, or Roxelana (1506-1558) was well-known throughout

Europe, and her influence over Süleyman I (1495-1566) both in private and state matters was legendary.29 With her letters exclusively intended for an English readership, Safiye can be considered as the contemporary and articulate version of

29 The first harem woman that attained direct political influence in history of Ottoman dynasty is Hürrem Sultan and she attained that power as haseki (in 1521 when her first child was born), but never became a valide sultan as she died before Süleyman. Abandoning many of the Ottoman dynastic customs, Süleyman contracted legal marriage with Hürrem and raised her to an extraordinarily privileged status. Peirce writes that the sixteenth century, termed an age of kings, was also an “age of queens – among them Anne Boleyn, Margaret of Navarre, Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medicis, and Mary Queen of Scots. The Ottomans too produced a ‘queen’ in Hürrem Sultan,” who rose to the position of great privilege and influence and whose unprecedented alliance with the Sultan was a “symptom of a more profound change within the dynasty” involving the issues of monarchy, family, and power (The Imperial Harem 58). In 1603 Richard Knolles described Hürrem as “the greatest empresse of the East” (General Historie 759). 70

Hürrem, and with her self-representation as the sultana of the world’s greatest empire she is comparable to the Muslim empresses in Marlowe’s play.

In her letters to Queen Elizabeth Safiye paints the picture of a powerful sovereign woman who clearly has a say over the affairs of the state; yet in asserting her power she assumes a complementary position in the imperial hierarchy, identifying herself strictly according to the prerogatives of the Ottoman patriarchy. For example in her first letter she begins with a standard invocation to

God “the Absolute and the Veilor and the Creator,” and “the Lord Muhammad… the seal of the prophets” (Skilliter, “Three Letters” 130). Then she includes an elaborate praise of Sultan Murad III, in which she aggrandizes him as a “Marslike sovereign,” who reigns over “the seven climes” and “the four corners (of the earth)” (Skilliter 131). Her intention to impress her addressee is clear when she describes the extent of the Sultan’s realms which reached from “the regions of the

Rum and Ajam and Hungary” to “the lands of the Tartars and Wallachians [and

Russians of the Turks and Arabs and Moldavia, of the dominions of] Karamanies and Abyssinia and the Qipchaq steppes, of the Eastern climes and of Jawazir and

Shirwan, of the western Climes and of Algeria and Qairawan” to “the lands of

Hind and Sind and Baghdad, of the Franks and Croatians and Belgrade” (Skilliter

131). As I noted earlier, Murad avoided using long Islamic invocations and pompous epithets in his letters to Elizabeth. With her boastful rhetoric, Safiye apparently amends this lack. By asserting the Sultan’s power over his realms and exalting him as the man “who has Alexander’s place” (Skilliter 133), she promotes his image as the Great Turk. It is also through this image that Safiye achieves self- empowerment. By listing with pride the territories that are under the control of the 71

Ottoman Sultan, she in fact asserts her own sovereignty over those territories, yet not in the capacity of the wife of the Sultan, but as “the mother of Sultan Murad

Khan’s son, his Highness Mehemmed Khan,” as it was this title that granted her political authority.

After asserting the greatness of the Ottoman Empire and establishing her own role in its power structure, Safiye greets the English Queen by using epithets that stress their shared qualities of womanliness and sovereignty. She addresses

Elizabeth as “the support of Christian womanhood… who follow the Messiah, bearer of marks of pomp and majesty, trailing the skirts of glory and power”

(Skilliter, “Three Letters” 131-132). Instead of causing gender confusion by referring to Elizabeth’s role as “prince,” she describes her as the one “who is obeyed of the princes” and invokes her feminine qualities by calling her “cradle of chastity and continence, ruler of the realm of England, crowned lady and woman of Mary’s way” (Skilliter 132). Clearly, in Safiye’s letter, femininity is not understood as a hindrance for women to act in the political sphere; on the contrary, it is consciously foregrounded in line with patriarchal prerogatives as a means to attain political power and to provide for both monarchs a common ground to exercise this power. It must also be noted that Safiye, a former Christian, praises

Christianity in her address to Elizabeth. Her genuine attitude in exalting Christ and the Virgin Mary is linked to the fact that Christianity is acknowledged as a legitimate religion in Islam. Yet, this attitude can also be seen as a continuation of the strategy observed in the earlier correspondence between Murad and Elizabeth, underlining the similarity between Islam and Protestantism. Here, however, the emphasis is placed not on shared religious doctrines, but on the shared feminine 72

virtues like chastity, virginity, and the sacredness of motherhood. By accentuating the patriarchal notions that are common to both Islam and Christianity, Safiye renders herself and Elizabeth not as women of two distinct and supposedly clashing civilizations, but as women who belong to a single collective patriarchal system.

One can easily infer from this correspondence that Safiye actually acted as an advocate in furthering the English cause to establish firm commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire. We understand that in her letter the Queen has requested Safiye’s support in the matter of English capitulations, and in response to this request Safiye promises to “endeavour for [Elizabeth’s] aims” and “to repeatedly mention Her Highness’s gentility and praise at the footdust of His

Majesty” (Skilliter, “Three Letters” 132). In another letter dated 1599 the influence of Safiye’s authority in the Ottoman Empire is perceived more clearly.

Because she now has become the valide sultan, she does not need to assume a humble disposition before the sultan, but can instruct him directly like any mother.

She prays the Queen “not suffer grief in this respect!” and assures her: “[w]e do not cease from admonishing our son, His Majesty the Padishah, and from telling him: ‘Do act according to the treaty!’” (Skilliter 139)

In the course of their correspondence the two female monarchs also exchanged many gifts that brought them in closer mutual recognition. The gifts included jewelry, richly worked costumes, and pieces of fine fabrics. In addition,

Elizabeth sent a portrait of herself and an English coach. In both courts these royal presents were welcomed with excitement. It is well-known that Elizabeth fancied wearing Oriental costumes in court (Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen 34), 73

and Safiye liked travelling with her English coach, though it was found scandalous by the Ottoman public (Skilliter, “Three Letters” 151). Evidence of this female solidarity and strong amity between them is the fact that Safiye also requested from Elizabeth some rare English cosmetics, and alluded directly to the sex of the

English Queen. The letter which was sent through her kira (Jewish agent) starts with the assurance that “on account of Your Majesty’s being a woman I can, without any embarrassment, employ you with this notice” (Skilliter 143). In short, despite the fact that the political sphere in which they negotiated was exclusively reserved for men, these two royal women perfectly managed to establish political and economic bonds between their countries through purely feminine modes of interaction.30 Contrary to the cultural gap that presumably existed between them, the two women seem to have encountered virtually no religious or cultural obstacles in their negotiation. As elite women of Christian and Muslim patriarchies they empowered themselves employing the same feminine values and ideals, leaving the visible differences between them merely at the level of appearances. Also, we should not let go unnoticed the effect of this correspondence on the history of imperialism. The powerful valide sultan’s support for Elizabeth ensured that the English merchants and diplomats were favored by the Sultan, and it was through the good relations established in this period that the English were able to open up to the East, where they invested most

30 In her analysis of the correspondence between Elizabeth and Safiye, Andrea similarly concludes that the letters and gifts exchanged between the two sovereign women may be seen “to short-circuit the patriarchal symbolic system that casts women as objects and men as agents of exchange” (28). Though both women were vilified by male detractors, they could assert authority over their patriarchal societies and establish cross- cultural ties. 74

of their imperial energy in the coming centuries to become the world’s greatest colonial power.31

Tamburlaine’s Women

The exercise of femininity as a source of authority in re-shaping the world’s power balances, as well as the Ottoman empress image that Safiye reflects in her letters are both traceable in Marlowe’s depiction of the Muslim female characters in

Tamburlaine. Particularly the representation of Bajazeth’s wife Zabina (who probably was the first Ottoman woman on the English stage), presents significant similarities with Safiye’s self-representation as a powerful female monarch who complements a great emperor with her actions and attitudes. Like Safiye, Zabina is a self-confident woman who takes pride in being the companion of a man whose sovereignty is unchallenged throughout the world. Though, unlike Safiye, Zabina cannot achieve any political gain for her country (as she is on the losing side of the imperial competition), her outspokenness in support of Bajazeth and her vigorous opposition to Tamburlaine during the captivity of her husband imparts power to her as Bajazeth’s life partner, protector and royal agent.

Zabina’s counterpart in the imperial design of the play is of course

Tamburlaine’s consort Zenocrate. In asserting a power similar to Bajazeth,

Tamburlaine seems to be aware that having a supportive companion like the

31 Quoting from John Parker, in Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (1999) Nabil Matar says that the Levant interaction served as the artery through which “Englishmen ultimately went to the East Indies” (4). In the dedication to Sir Robert Cecil in the second volume of Navigations (1599), Hakluyt describes how the English have traveled “into the Levant within the Streight of Gibraltar, & from thense over land to the South and Southeast parts of the world.” 75

Ottoman empress is essential in constructing his imperial image. When Zenocrate falls into his hands as a part of the loot of an ambush, he believes Jove has sent him this “Sultan’s daughter” (1.1.2.186) as a sign that he is destined for fame.

Convinced that she may be fittingly contrasted with Zabina, Tamburlaine gives

Zenocrate no choice, but to accept his “lordly love” (1.3.2.49) and live with him, either “willingly” (1.1.2.254) or by force. Being young and inexperienced,

Zenocrate shows a weaker empress profile than Zabina. In any case,

Tamburlaine’s masculine dominance does not allow her to attain much autonomy.

Yet, both women are given essentially similar roles. They come second only to their husbands in the imperial hierarchy. Aware of their royal power, they actively defend the rules of the political game and get involved in building the new global balances by virtue of their complementary position as wives to great emperors.

The political roles of Zabina and Zenocrate are most visible in the scene where the two women engage in a battle of words while their male counterparts confront each other in actual combat off-stage. Before exiting the stage, both

Bajazeth and Tamburlaine leave their crowns with their wives as a token of the representative power they confer on them. As they put the symbols of sovereignty on their wives’ heads, they refer to their respective female roles. Bajazeth praises

Zabina as the “mother of three braver boys / Than Hercules” “[w]ho, when they come unto their father’s age, / Will batter turrets with manly fists” (1.3.3.103-104,

110-111). Like Safiye, Zabina’s status as the mother of the prospective sultans appears to be more essential than her wifely status in attaining the official capacity to sit on the “royal chair of state” and wear the “imperial crown” (1.3.3.112-113).

On the other hand, Tamburlaine praises Zenocrate for her beauty, and his language 76

suggests the courtly nature of the young love that flourished between them. He addresses Zenocrate as “the loveliest maid alive / Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone, / The only paragon of Tamburlaine” (1.3.3.117-119) and asks her to “stir not … as if thou wert the empress of the world” (1.3.3.125-126). Thus, just as Tamburlaine presents a challenge for Bajazeth, threatening to deprive him of his title as the greatest emperor, Zenocrate is a challenge for Zabina, for if

Tamburlaine becomes victorious, then Zenocrate, not Zabina will be the greatest empress in the world. So, as the sounds of the off-stage battle of men are heard, the two women start a catfight, slandering one another, oddly enough, to prove their worthiness.

Identifying herself as “the empress of the mighty Turk” (1.3.3.167), first

Zabina chides Zenocrate calling her a “base concubine” (1.3.3.166) and laughs at the idea that she could be replaced by her. To this, the latter retorts that she is not a concubine but the betrothed wife of the “great and mighty Tamburlaine”

(1.3.3.170) and assures Zabina that she will “repent these lavish words”

(1.3.3.172) when Tamburlaine becomes victorious and she and Bajazeth “plead for mercy at his kingly feet / And sue to me to be your advocates” (1.3.3.174-175).

Drawing also their maids into the argument, the two women exercise the bitterness of the shrew to the letter by blustering and uttering threats at each other. Zabina promises that she will make this “shameless girl … laundress to her waiting maid”

(1.3.3.176-177). In turn Zenocrate swears that she will punish Zabina’s

“sauciness” by employing her “to dress common soldiers’ meat and drink”

(1.3.3.184-185). While this behavior clearly contrasts with the virtuous and self- composed disposition that both women exhibit throughout the play, it does not 77

necessarily contradict their representative roles in sustaining the violent imperial competition between their husbands. While wearing crowns on their heads as symbols of their sovereign authority, Zenocrate and Zabina assert superiority against one another by playing the shrew, acting in a stereotypically feminine way to assert oppositional power.32 Thus, in a sense, Marlowe’s Eastern empresses, like

Safiye and Elizabeth, use womanliness as a means of negotiation in dealing with imperial politics. Yet here, the parties are not allies who try to establish good relations between their countries, but enemies who try to debase each other in a bitter struggle for imperial domination.

Even under the most challenging conditions both Zabina and Zenocrate actively support the honor of their husbands and show motherly protection towards them. In particular, Zabina’s fervent opposition to Tamburlaine when Bajazeth falls captive in his hands, as well as her unfailing effort to prolong her husband’s life in spite of her own suffering are quite remarkable. When Bajazeth outrageously curses Tamburlaine from his cage, Zabina actively and passionately joins him, shocking the others present in the scene with her fervent protests and insults. When Bajazeth falls into despair, she persuades him that he must eat to survive and encourages him to “live in spite of them, looking some happy power will pity and enlarge us” (1.4.4.102-103). Finally, when she finds the dead body of

Bajazeth with his “skull all riven in twain, his brains dashed out” (1.5.1.306) she is driven to madness with grief. In her distraction and pain, Zabina bewails her condition thus:

32 The image of women bickering at each other was a conventional one, constructed by men (sometimes by women writers too), who thought that petty quarreling was an innately feminine way of setting differences. (See Krontiris, Oppositional Voices 88). 78

O Bajazeth, my husband and my lord, O Bajazeth, O Turk, O emperor – give him his liquor? Not I. Bring milk and fire, and my blood I bring him again; tear me in pieces, give me the sword with a ball of wildfire upon it. Down with him, down with him! Go to my child. Away, away, away! Ah, save the infant, save him, save him! I, even, I, speak to her. The sun was down. Streamers white, red, black, here, here, here. Fling the meat in his face. Tamburlaine, Tamburlaine! Let the soldiers be buried. Hell, death, Tamburlaine, hell! Make ready my coach, my chair, my jewels. I come, I come, I come! (1.5.1.308-317)

Zabina’s confused language and disordered images of desperation indicate the gravity of the horrors and atrocities that she suffered at the hands of Tamburlaine.

She suggests that she has witnessed bloody sieges, feared for the life of her child, and had to humble herself by appealing to her rival Zenocrate. The effect created by this traumatic recollection highlights the perverse cruelty of Tamburlaine, while intensifying the pity aroused for Bajazeth and Zabina. Finally, with her subsequent suicide proving her loyalty to the Turkish sultan, Zabina really puts the spectators into an uncomfortable position, even though they have been on Tamburlaine’s side so far.

The deaths of Zabina and Bajazeth also mark the moment when

Zenocrate’s loyalty to Tamburlaine is threatened most. Following hard upon the ravage of her hometown Damascus and the ruthless slaughter of the city’s virgin emissaries, the “bloody spectacle” (1.5.1.338) of Bajazeth and Zabina leads to

Zenocrate’s major outburst against the actions of her “conquering love”

(1.5.1.441) and she accuses Tamburlaine as “the cause of this” (1.5.1.334).

Regretting the vanity and cruelty she displayed towards Zabina, Zenocrate expresses genuine sorrow as she movingly laments the noble couple: 79

Blush, heaven, that gave them honour at their birth And let them die a death so barbarous! Those that are proud of fickle empery And place their chiefest good in earthly pomp, Behold the Turk and his great empress! (1.5.1.249-253)

Yet, neither Zenocrate’s repentance nor her awareness of the vanity of the earthly glory shakes her devotion to Tamburlaine. Even if she doubts her lover’s wisdom, she remains on his side, turning to heavens to seek a pardon for his ruthlessness. In addition by articulating her own anxieties, Zenocrate “creates a buffer” between the audience and Tamburlaine (Burton 79). Though she acknowledges the cruelty of Tamburlaine’s atrocities, with her unshakeable loyalty to him she allows for a kind of tolerance for his actions.

Tamburlaine’s unexpected show of mercy which comes exactly at this point also helps to mitigate the audience’s estrangement. Though Tamburlaine overcomes Zenocrate’s father, the Sultan of Egypt who organized an attack to save his daughter, he violates the military rules and allows Zenocrate to set her father free, praising her as the one “that hath calmed the fury of my sword” (1.5.1.436).

He further restores the honor of Bajazeth and Zabina by promising to bury them in proper stately procession. While it is not possible to argue that Zenocrate has any direct authority over Tamburlaine’s masculine virtu, the Scythian’s ardent love for her can be said to have a transforming effect on him. In fact, Zenocrate is the only character in the entire play that makes Tamburlaine see his unlawful actions and feel the urge to correct them. Though Tamburlaine is a man who takes pride in his military vigor, the power of Zenocrate’s love leads him to face inner struggle.

After ordering the destruction of Damascus together with all of its citizens, he 80

cannot hide the “doubtful battle” in his thoughts and admit that the sorrows of

Zenocrate:

…lay more siege unto my soul Than all my army to Damascus’ walls; And neither Persian’s sovereign nor the Turk Troubles my senses wit conceit of foil So much by much as doth Zenocrate. (1.5.1.155-159)

Except for a brief note of the subsidiary mother of Timur’s two sons, historical sources do not mention a woman who was the object of the great Scythian’s affections. Ιn Marlowe’s play however, we are presented with Zenocrate, whose love has a force on Tamburlaine “almost equal to his great histrionic passion for military power” (Spence 618). Zenocrate is a character that inspires gentler emotions in Tamburlaine whose original qualities are wrath, cruelty, and military ambition, and her image is essential in constructing Tamburlaine as a more complex and admirable figure than the savage conqueror that he otherwise would be.

Thus, Tamburlaine’s Muslim empresses are given a significant role in the masculine game of empire in a similar fashion to the Ottoman Sultana Safiye.

They act as complementary figures to their husbands and are allowed to participate in the actual empire-making by virtue of their status as mothers and wives. Rather than remaining completely passive and voiceless, they actively support the imperial honor of their husbands and represent the crown when their men are absent. Despite their gender constraints, as loyal companions to great warriors, they defend and enforce the rules of the game. They are vigorous in showing defiance to the enemies of the empire, and when their men fall victim they are able to evoke empathy from the audience. Like their historical counterparts Safiye and 81

Elizabeth, they identify and position themselves strictly according to the patriarchal codes and exercise political authority through womanliness with a power that emanates from these codes.

In addition, similar to Safiye’s self-representation in her letters, the patriarchal codes exalted and abided by these women present no particular variation from the codes of Christian patriarchy. Contrary to the traditional assumptions of difference between Islam and Christianity which are superficially enacted through the opposition between Tamburlaine and the Turks, Marlowe does not depict any prejudice with respect to Islamic women. Familiar Renaissance conventions of the noble maiden in distress, the loyal wife, the good mother, the decorous queen all find expression in Tamburlaine, but there is no trace of the transgressive Islamic femininity that needs to be transformed in line with Christian patriarchal prerogatives that prevailed in the European discourse. Most significantly, the erotic element that is often highlighted in Western representations of the Islamic culture and is central to the other plays included in this study is completely absent in Tamburlaine. On the contrary, chastity and feminine honor are continuously emphasized, even fetishized in the play. Though

Zenocrate seems to violate the traditional standards of virtuous femininity as she easily yields to Tamburlaine proving herself inconstant to her betrothed husband, the Prince of Arabia, her romantic appeal would have appeared appropriate to

Marlowe’s audience. While Zenocrate initially refuses Tamburlaine’s approaches, with his “working words” which sound to Zenocrate “much sweeter than the muses’ song” (1.3.2.49-50) and with his “princely” treatment of her which “is far from villainy or servitude” (1.3.2.38-39), Tamburlaine is able to win the young 82

maiden’s heart, and soon we see Zenocrate is ready to “live and die with

Tamburlaine” (1.3.2.23). Though Zenocrate does not doubt that her love for

Tamburlaine is virtuous, she regrets that her deeds have made her “infamous through the world” (1.5.1.390) as she changed her love from Arabia to

Tamburlaine. “She does not regret the change, but only the reputation it has gained her” (Brooks 4). In addition, the fact that her chastity has been guarded works to

Tamburlaine’s profit as it allows Zenocrate’s father to embrace him as an honorable man, who is worthy of taking his daughter’s hand in marriage. Thus, like in Christian discourses, feminine chastity is emphasized as an important patriarchal code within the play’s Islamic setting and is given material specificity, finding its proper place in the imperial project (Shepherd, Marlowe and the

Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre 183).

The little tragedy of the Turkish captain’s wife Olympia is yet another instance that demonstrates the constancy and familial loyalty of the play’s Islamic women. When her husband dies of war wounds in the failed resistance against the

Scythian army led by Theridamas and Techelles, Olympia first kills her son out of desperation in order to spare him from the enemy’s cruelties. While she prepares to commit suicide, she is captured by Theridamas, who falls in love with her and appeals to her with the promise to make her his queen. Though his suit seems to be honorable, the grieving Olympia cannot accept any romantic advances, because she is so faithful to her dead husband that she fears a second marriage will dishonor her (Brooks 4). When Theridamas threatens her with rape, Olympia becomes clearly victimized, but with her strong will she refuses to yield and precludes him to achieve his end by tricking him to stab her on the throat where 83

she put some ointment which supposedly would not allow any weapon to cut the flesh. This heroic act of self-annihilation in the face of conquest by the enemy renders Olympia a praiseworthy figure of sympathy and a symbol of wifely and maternal devotion. In later plays, where the plot is strictly structured on Christian-

Muslim oppositions such behavior is attributed only to Christian female characters who bravely resist the lustful appeals of Muslim rulers. Clearly, the representation of the Muslim woman in Marlowe’s play goes contrary to the traditional European assumptions about wanton and wicked Islamic femininity. In this respect

Tamburlaine can be denoted as an interesting disruption in the history of the representation of Islamic women, where older myths went latent for a while until they were modified in accordance with the new dynamics of the actual Turkish-

English contact in the Mediterranean and were reintroduced to the English discourse on Islam.

The Likes of Tamburlaine’s Women: The Amazonian Dimension

In the years that followed the great success achieved by Marlowe’s drama in

London theaters, a number of plays were written that featured exotic Eastern settings and conquering, boastful heroes in the mold of Tamburlaine. Probably one of the most sensational of these plays is Alphonsus, King of Aragon, which was written by Robert Greene in early 1588, only a few months after the first part of

Tamburlaine was performed by the Admiral’s Men. In this slavish imitation of

Marlowe’s play, Greene presents us another mighty conqueror like Tamburlaine, who rises from lowly circumstances to become the monarch of the world.

Alphonsus’s ranting rhetoric, his character, his conquests, and his marriage to 84

beautiful Iphigena at the climax of his success, all recall Marlowe’s hero. The main conflict of the plot is the military encounter between Alphonsus and the

Turkish king Amurack, who provides aid to Belinus in his opposition to

Alphonsus. Like Bajazeth, Amurack falls captive in his enemy’s hands, but his daughter’s marriage to Alphonsus brings peace between the Turks and the

Aragonese. Despite these resemblances, scholars generally agree that in its intellectual content Alphonsus is at the same time a “deliberate answer” to the humanistic philosophy of the Marlovian drama (Ribner 166). Greene reverses or omits many of the potentially unsettling features of the play he imitates, such as the ambiguous attitude towards the notion of monarchy and Islam. In his play, there is no apparent religious conflict between the Turks and the Aragonese, as all characters operate within the same religious framework, which is a free play of mythological personages and heterogeneous elements from various belief systems.33 Yet from the very beginning we know whose side we are supposed to be on. Alphonsus, the favorite of deities, is the representative of a Christian king who executes the will of gods (Ribner 167). Amurack, on the other hand, is the model of a tyrant, who, despite his orthodox stance in the beginning, defies the gods, and, like Tamburlaine, is destroyed because of his blasphemy (Ribner 167).

In Alphonsus, which presents fictitious events involving the Ottomans within an atmosphere of romance and mythology, Greene depicts the Turkish women as Amazon warriors. Fausta, the wife of Sultan Amurack, is pictured as the

33 The Turkish king Amurack swears by Mohammed, but the Muslim prophet is presented here as a god who talks through a brazen head. The prologue and the connecting choruses are spoken by Venus, who both in the beginning and at the end of the play holds conversation with the Muses. Also Medea, who counsels Amurack’s wife throughout the play, is characterized as a “wise” prophetess who speaks the truth. 85

Queen of the Amazons who leads an army of women – “all her maydens in array”

(III.iii.54) – to help her husband in his battle against Alphonsus. Also, her daughter Iphigena is portrayed as a female warrior who, in defense of her captive father, challenges Alphonsus to a duel. Greene’s choice of identifying the Turkish women with the Amazons is indeed an interesting one, as these female warriors have a very distinctive place in early modern English literature. From Shakespeare and Spenser to Sidney, Heywood and Beaumont and Fletcher, many English writers of the period either invoke the Amazon heroines of the classical literature or feature their own fictional Amazon figures. Understandably, in a period when

England was ruled by a female monarch and women’s liberties had become a debatable issue among the English people, images of these vigorous female warriors who scorn domesticity and survive without male governance had a more significant function than being picturesque ornaments in a play or a romance.

Though they were often praised as “models of female magnanimity and courage”

(Wright 442), at the same time, with their inversionary claims with respect to political authority, marriage practices and inheritance rules, the Amazons also reflected the period’s collective patriarchal anxiety against female power.

The Turkish Amazons in Greene’s Alphonsus, however, are depicted exclusively in favorable light. Within the context of the play’s effort to set the

East-West division more clearly than Tamburlaine, the depiction of the Turkish women as Amazons might appear as an attempt to render them more exotic and alien figures than Marlowe’s Eastern empresses. Yet, their virtuous disposition and honorable deeds disallow us to see these women as a threat to patriarchy. I see

Greene’s positive attitude towards the Turkish women as another similarity 86

between Alphonsus and Tamburlaine and argue that like Zabina and Zenocrate,

Fausta and Iphigena are presented as powerful female agents of the empire, who are actively involved in the play’s scheme for empire-building; yet this time their sovereign authority emanates not only from their feminine virtues but also from their warlike qualities as Amazons.

Amazons and warrior women proliferated in sixteenth century English literature. Apart from the frequent allusions to the mythical Amazon queens portrayed in the works of classical authors like Ovid and Plutarch, English writers also created their own Amazon heroines based on these ancient models. Two of the Amazon queens of the classical literature, namely Hippolyta and Penthesilea, received extraordinary attention in the Elizabethan period. Hippolyta appears in the the myth of Hercules, whose sixth labor was to obtain an Amazonian girdle.

When Hercules and Theseus entered their realm Hippolyta and her sister engaged them in single combat. Some versions say she was abducted by Theseus, while others claim she defeated the hero but fell in love with him and made him her husband. Hippolyta is featured also in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s

Dream. In this play, she is already married to Theseus and is portrayed as a “tamed and contented bride” (Wright 437), whose subversive Amazonian features have been neutralized in line with the period’s patriarchal prerogatives.

The other popular Amazon queen praised by many English writers was

Penthesilea, who sacrificed herself for the defense of Troy. According to the tradition, in a single day of fighting this Amazon almost vanquished the Greeks, but in the end she was struck down by Achilles, who fell in love with her beautiful corpse and mourned for her. As the defender of the Trojans, the supposed 87

ancestors of the English, and with her martial courage and heroic virtue,

Penthesilea was also Elizabethans’ most favored image for their Queen, whose position as a female sovereign and the commander of the armed forces approximated her in numerous ways to an Amazonian type (Wright 433).34

These chaste and military minded females who were applauded for their patriotic valor were not the only type of Amazons represented in early modern

English literature. The Amazon figure was “inherently double” (Jackson 103) and the subversive implications of a vigorous female displaying masculine spirit and even subjugating men did not go unnoticed by the Elizabethans. Within the context of the ongoing controversy over women, the ancient Amazons and warrior queens were praised as exemplary women who had excelled their sex by attaining desirable qualities of men. Yet, for the period’s writers the Amazon also functioned as a figure to express the English patriarchy’s concerns about powerful women. The Amazonian rule was described as “monstrous” by opponents of female sovereignty like John Knox and the Amazon image itself was associated with disobedience in women and aggressive female lust.

The most notable example for this type of Amazon peculiar to the early modern age is Radigund in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. This beautiful warrior queen, who is renowned for her military prowess, rules a city where men serve merely as slaves and are humiliated by being forced to wear women’s clothes and do women’s work. Moreover, by exploiting her political power, Radigund takes

34 Despite the fact that the most favored image of Elizabeth was that of the Virgin Queen, created through the carefully manipulated imagery of the now extant cult of the Virgin Mary, the English Queen was frequently compared to a warrior/Amazon queen; yet, these references were restricted to the Armada conflict.

sexual advantage of these male slaves. Interestingly, this Amazonian tyranny is defeated by another warlike woman, Britomart, who comes to rescue her lover,

Artegall, from his demeaning imprisonment. The fierce battle between the two women for the male hero in women’s garments creates a horrific “gender chaos” for a moment (Shepherd, Amazons 5), but the patriarchal norm is restored when

Britomart marries Artegal after saving him by beheading the Amazon. While in this encounter both women are shown to be free of traditional feminine weaknesses, they do not serve the same system of moral values. Contrary to

Radigund’s licentious liberty and ruthlessness against men, Britomart represents chastity in the poem and functions as the defender of patriarchy. In early modern representations women who exhibit male qualities were approved of and appreciated only when these serve the patriarchal cause, as the consequences of men’s loss of domination over women were considered to be terrifying (Montrose,

“Discovery” 18).

While in a dissertation that focuses on gender and cultural difference it is tempting to interpret Greene’s Turkish Amazons as examples of Radigund-like women and to conjoin the feminine threat they pose to patriarchal norms with the cultural threat posed by the Ottoman Empire, I argue that both Fausta and her daughter Iphigena are depicted as the virtuous Amazonian heroines of the classical age. While their identification with the Amazons, combined with Medea’s magic, clearly helps illustrate the pagan character of the Ottoman society, these warrior women lack the negative qualities exemplified by Radigund’s anti-culture.

Earlier in the play we witness an estrangement between Fausta and the

Turkish sultan, in which the queen reacts by threatening to oppose her husband as 89

the head of her army. When she is banished because of her rebellious act, the furious queen retreats to the forest to prepare her revenge on Amurack and “with help of all Amazones” to “make him soon repent his foolishness” (III.iii.50, 51).

While by disputing with her husband Fausta gives the impression that she is an unruly, disobedient wife, we should note that by so doing her intention is to

“maintain the right” (III.ii.173) against the possibility of “a heinous deed”

(III.iii.67) like her daughter marrying the Turks’ enemy Alphonsus, as Amurack prophesied in his magical sleep. Later, when told by Medea that Alphonsus is fated to be “the ruler of a mighty monarchy” (III.iii.61) and the husband of

Iphigena, Fausta agrees to execute the will of the Destinies; by giving her consent for her daughter’s marriage she not only saves Amurack from captivity but also eliminates the threat that Alphonsus poses to her country. In the absence of her imprisoned husband Fausta acts as the commander of the army and encourages the retreating Turkish kings to return to the battlefield. She comforts Iphigena who laments her captive father with eloquent rhetoric:

It is not words can cure and ease this wound, But warlike swords; not tears, but sturdy spears. High Amurack is prisoner to our foes: What then? Think you that our Amazones, Join’d with the forces of the Turkish troop, Are not sufficient for to set him free? Yes, daughter, yes, I mean not for sleep, Until he is free, or we him company keep. March on, my mates. (V.i.35-43)

Fighting on horseback at the head of her Amazon fighters and the Ottoman soldiers, the wife of the Great Turk, is clearly not an unbridled wife, but a “mighty empress” who exhibits competence in both war and politics. 90

Furthermore, licentiousness, a negative Amazonian quality, is missing from Greene’s depiction of the Turkish Amazons. Iphigena, who is also a warrior like her mother, is a beautiful and virtuous maiden, who strongly refuses to marry the man that imprisoned her father, because such a marriage would stain the family honor. To avenge Amurack’s defeat, she challenges Alphonsus in the field of battle with a drawn sword, like the glorious Amazon queens of the classical tradition. Yet, Alphonsus declines to fight her, not out of cowardice or because he is too proud to fight a woman: “[b]ut love, sweet mouse, hath so benum’d my wit /

That though I would, I must refrain from it” (V.ii.19-20).

Echoing Tamburlaine’s wooing of Zenocrate, Alphonsus promises

Iphigena that she will become the “monarch of the world” (V.ii.32) if she marries him. When she does not succumb to his blandishments, he takes Iphigena as his prisoner and threatens to make her his “concubine” (V.ii.52), a threat which horrifies the Turkish princess.

Iphigena’s chastity is also emphasized by Carinus, Alphonsus’s father who returns from exile at this point and intervenes to correct his son’s wrong-doing. He explains that Iphigena’s earlier opposition to Alphonsus is in fact the proof of her virtue, which he compares to a “castle” that cannot be won in the first assault. “As for my part,” he continues,

I should account that maid, A wanton whench, unconstant, lewd and light, That yields the field before she venture fight. (V.iii.180-182)

Clearly, Iphigena is not one of these “lewd” women but a virtuous maiden who does not hesitate to fight in order to protect the honor of her family and country, 91

and her warlike qualities, in fact, make her a “fitter” spouse for a conqueror than any one of the “court fair ladies in God Cupid’s tent” (V.iii.187). Greene presents the Turkish Amazons as powerful and brave women whose virtuous actions are worthy of admiration. Because of their warrior qualities, they easily fit the play’s masculine imperial framework and complement it, rather than presenting a challenge to it.

Fausta and Iphigena in many respects are similar to Zabina and Zenocrate in the Tamburlaine plays. While Iphigena can be considered as a warlike version of the beautiful and virtuous Zenocrate, Fausta is portrayed as a powerful Ottoman empress like Zabina. As the representative of the crown, Fausta vigorously defends and supports the interests of the empire; and she does this not through mere words like Zabina and Zenocrate, but through the use of actual swords and bows. It can even be argued that because of her extraordinary Amazonian attributes, Fausta shares almost an equal footing with Amurack in exercising political authority. The fact that Fausta has already given her consent appears to be the most significant reason why Amurack gives up his relentless opposition to his daughter’s marriage to Alphonsus: “Fausta is content / Then Amurack will not be discontent” (V.iii.270).

It is difficult to suggest historical counterparts to Greene’s Turkish

Amazons in the sense that I offered the Ottoman Sultana Safiye as a source of inspiration for Marlowe’s Zabina and Zenocrate. However, references made to

Eastern female warriors in the travel narratives of the medieval and early modern periods indicate that the connection established between the Turkish women and the Amazons might not be altogether an invention (Artemel 135). In his travels to 92

Persia, for example, Bertrandon de la Brocquiere records that he met an armed woman on horseback, accompanying “six or eight Turcomans” in the plains near

Hama in Syria. The woman was wearing a “tarquais” like men, and when he inquired about her, he was told that:

… the women of this nation are brave, and in time of war fight like men. It was added, and this seemed to me very extraordinary that there are about thirty thousand women who thus bear the tarquais, and under the domination of a lord, named Turcadiroly, who resides among the mountains of Armenia, on the frontiers of Persia. (312)

Greene’s model might also come from more recent sources like Antony

Jenkinson’s account of Süleyman I’s entry to Aleppo in 1553, which includes a description of the women in his train. Though not fully armed like the Turcomans, these women still wore “men’s garments,” “had upon their hads caps of

Goldsmith’s worke,” and “bore little bowes in their hands” as part of the official pageantry (Hakluyt 5: 106).

Süheyla Artemel interestingly suggests that Greene could also be familiar with the folklore of the pre-Islamic Turkish society and the value attached to martial skills in women of the Turkish nomadic tradition through mythic narratives like The Book of Dede Korkut, which was put to writing in the early fifteenth century (136). While it may seem a little speculative to assume that Greene had access to such authentic sources, the stories of this ancient epic -- which feature noble Turkish women commanding their group of female fighters and reflect customs which require men to fight with their prospective wives -- indeed bear resemblances to the depictions of Fausta and Iphigena in the play. 93

In Alphonsus, Greene continues Marlowe’s positive attitude towards

Muslim women by presenting them as powerful and active female agents of the empire, similar to Zabina and Zenocrate in Tamburlaine. Another common characteristic of the Muslim women in the two plays is the emphasis put on their chastity and the material significance attached to it within the imperial project.

Like Tamburlaine’s noble passion for Zenocrate, Alphonsus’s feelings for

Iphigena are “good and honest” (V.iii.204). Also, what renders Iphigena a suitable wife for Alphonsus, and in turn, secures the peace between the Turks and the

Aragonese, is her castle-like virtue.

In addition, the mythological framework that Greene applies enables him to avoid the introduction of any religious conflict in this love relationship.

Alphonsus and the Turks are not enemies in terms of religion and obviously, no one needs to convert. Yet, only a decade after Greene’s composition of Alphonsus, both the element of lust and the theme of religious conversion became the typical features of the Christian-Muslim relationships depicted in dramatic representations. In the following chapters, I relate this interesting shift to the intensified human and cultural contact which accompanied the rapidly increasing

Mediterranean trade in the early seventeenth century. In the Jacobean plays that feature Ottoman settings and characters sexual lust is almost synonymous with lust for profit, and this analogy entails a radical degeneration in the image of the

Muslim woman who now embodies the most significant danger posed to Christian men venturing in Eastern territories.

Chapter 3

The Muslim Woman and A Christian Turned Turk:

Islamic Apostasy and the Gender Paradigm on the Jacobean Stage

The ascendancy of James I to the English throne in 1603 indicates a significant shift in the English politics towards the Ottoman Empire. Contrary to Elizabeth who forged an economic and military alliance with Sultan Murad III, James’s reign suggests an apparent resistance to Anglo-Ottoman relations. The Queen’s affiliation with the Ottomans had focused on a doctrinal similarity between

Protestantism and Islam, which identified Catholic Spain as the mutual enemy.

However, as soon as James became King of England, he expressed open hostility towards the Ottoman Empire, and reversing the most underlying foreign strategy of his predecessor, he entered into a peace treaty with Spain, ending the war between the two countries that had continued for almost twenty years. James adopted a lenient policy towards the Catholic countries and attempted to minimize the political and diplomatic ties with the Ottomans. As he told to his ambassador,

Thomas Roe, in 1621, he wanted the Levant trade to be “the first and only foundation of that correspondency which our crown hath hitherto with that state”

(qtd. in Baumer “England, the Turk, and the Common Corpse of Christendom”

36). While England had never been at war with the Ottomans during the reign of

Elizabeth, in 1620, James organized an Anglo-Spanish attack on Algiers to deliver 95

the Christians who were captives in the hands of Barbary corsairs. After it was thwarted by bad weather, James organized a second attack in 1621, which was subsequently suppressed by the Ottoman forces.

In fact, James had begun to promote religious reconciliation among

Christian nations as early as 1589, while he was King of Scotland. By initiating a secret alliance between the moderates of the Roman Catholic and Protestant camps, he set out on a course to achieve the ideal of what Thomas More had called

“the common corpse of Christendom.”1 One of the supposed benefits of such unification would be to enable a crusade against the Islamic empire of the Turks that was pushing back the borders of Europe. In an epic poem he composed in

1585 to celebrate the Christian victory in Lepanto, James described the conflict as the one “[b]etwixt the baptiz’d race, / And the circumcised Turband Turks,” giving the poem, as Matar argues, “a religious polarization between the Christian commonwealth and Islam by suggesting an essential distinction between circumcision and baptism” (Islam in Britain 138). In The Peace-maker (1618), which is often characterized as James’s political manifesto, the English King openly made a call to Christian countries to support and help one another in order to unite in “one mutual Christendom” (Bb) that would win an ultimate victory over Islam.

1 In “The Church of England and the Common Corps of Christendom” Franklin L. Baumer argues that with this phrase Thomas More meant “the European Community – a community which possessed a common religion and culture cutting across national and local differences, a community which constituted a cultural unit as opposed to the heathen world beyond.” He notes that clearly More had in mind “the medieval Corpus Christianum or Republica Christiana, a body whose unity was effected by visible as well as institutional as well as cultural ties” (2).

Even if one may claim that it is an oversimplifying tendency to trace a parallel relationship between the image of the Turk and the course of Anglo-

Ottoman relations over the short historical period covered by this study, James’s personal animosity against the Turks, which in effect was England’s official ideology, combined with the intensified contact with Muslims in the

Mediterranean, certainly influenced the English attitude and the tropes through which they represented Islam. Within the two decades that follow the ascendancy of James I to the throne, a sharp deterioration occurs in the image of the Turk in

English dramatic works. Like Tamburlaine and Alphonsus, the plays written towards the end of the sixteenth century treat the Turks as cruel, but admirable warlike figures, whose conflicts generally arise from issues of territorial conquest or questions of royal succession. These early plays, which are examples of heroic romance, rarely recognize the ambiguities and complexities of Anglo-Islamic relations (Burton 33). An ideological opposition in terms of religion is not clearly emphasized, and differences merely mark the Turks as exotic figures. However, around the turn of the century, as English political and commercial concerns in relation to the Muslim world increased, Islam and Turkishness came to function as a negative mirror to European Christian virtue. In popular culture, as well as in the public theatre, new stereotypes for Muslim people emerged, and these representations frequently associated the Islamic world with violence and devilish treachery, and imagined Islamic people as embodiments of evil.2

2 In the English colloquial, epithets, “Turk” and “Turkish,” along with derivatives such as “turken,” “turkery,” “turkess,” “turcic,” and “turkism,” were used to denote negative and non-Christian characteristics and were freely employed it to describe any kind of betrayal against Christianity or subversion of the Christian virtue (Burian 225). For example, in Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moorish commander expresses his rage against his

The rapprochement between England and Spain in this period further affected the English outlook on Islamic people. As I explain further in Chapter 5, the Spanish experience of the Reconquista, as well as the mechanisms of Othering and discrimination implemented against the country’s assimilated Moorish population provided readily available attitudes for England in perceiving Islam.

English dramatic representations of Muslims in the first decades of the seventeenth century are mostly tragedies and tragicomedies that were adapted from their

Spanish precedents; thus, they were derived from a culture which not only was closer to but also was shaped by an obsessive prejudice against Islamic people.

The dramatic tension in these plays arises from ideological conflicts between

Muslim and Christian characters, and their central concern is always the moral threat posed by Islam to the Christian identity. Combined with a wider circulation of books and travelers’ narratives about the Islamic world, these representations remodeled the image of the Muslim people in the English view. In the imagination of seventeenth century Englishmen, Muslims were no longer trade partners or powerful political allies, but the faithless enemy. Whether represented as a dark skinned Moor, or a robed and turbaned Turk, their external appearance always indicated their spiritual darkness or barbaric ignorance (Vitkus, Three Turk Plays

15). They were rendered as the eternal adversary of Christian Europe, and only through a united Christianity could they be defeated.

A fascinating shift in paradigm can be observed also in the period’s representations of the Muslim woman. Instead of the genuine indiscriminate

quarreling soldiers saying “Are we turn’d turks and to ourselves do that / Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?” (2.3.170-171). 98

attitude that prevailed in the preceding decades, the Muslim woman on the

Jacobean stage is clearly distinguished with her religious and civilizational differences. Love relationships between characters of opposing religions play a large part in the dramatic representations of the period, and the Muslim woman’s role in such dramatizations is the one of a wicked seductress, who inflicts

Christian men with her immorality and ensnares them into the false religion. From the seventeenth century onwards, the presence of the Muslim woman in English dramatic texts is almost exclusively sexually charged. Both excessiveness and repression are featured in her portrayals. Though she is hidden behind the veil, this

Islamic symbol merely conceals her lust and innate falsehood. The harem, as a locus of extreme sensuality and enclosure that characterizes the representation of the Muslim woman even today, enters into the English imagination in this period.

Despite these external indicators of oppression, the Islamic female is always imagined as an innately transgressive woman who requires masculine control. Yet, she resists domestication; in fact, she submits to no man’s authority. For this reason, she is subversive of the norms and regulations that govern the patriarchal society.

In the remaining part of this study, I will focus on this new image of the

Muslim woman on the seventeenth century English stage. Tracing the emergence of this representation to the expansion of English contact with Muslim people in various parts of the world, I offer close readings of several Jacobean plays that feature Islamic characters, themes, and settings, alongside with non-dramatic sources like travelers’ narratives. I want to analyze these plays both within the context of England’s socio-political and ideological stance vis-à-vis the Ottoman 99

world, and against the contemporary developments in the discourse on women in the English society, because I believe that, when seen in relation to the period’s gender crisis, the transgressive Islamic femininity depicted in these plays becomes more meaningful. In the entailing chapters, my main argument is that in the first decades of the seventeenth century the Muslim woman conveys a double Othering in English dramatic representations. She is not only condemned as a member of a rival religion, but also distanced as a representative of the dangerous female sex.

Focusing on the attributes and strategic functions of various Muslim female figures in opposing to Islam in the imaginative world of the stage, I want to point to the significance of the image of the Muslim woman in constructing the religious, gender, and commercial identities of the nascent English nation at a time when the imperial struggle around the globe was escalating.

“A Nation of Pirates”

England and the Mediterranean during the Reign of James I

Despite James’s peace-seeking policies towards the Catholic nations, the conditions in and around the Mediterranean in the early seventeenth century proved that the King’s ideal of a pan-Christian alliance against the common enemy

Islam was a difficult one to realize. The competition among the European nations for eastern trade had intensified in this period. In pursuit of profit, Christian monarchs were frequently shifting sides, and in order to ensure safe passage for their vessels through the Mediterranean, they were compelled to sign trade agreements and mutual defense pacts with Muslim leaders. Moreover, in this early age of mercantilism piracy was a common practice among all European nations 100

(Vitkus, Three Turk Plays 4). Irrespective of their shared religion, crews of

Christian corsairs from ports of England, Spain, Italy, and Holland were indiscriminately preying on one another in the Mediterranean and the North

Atlantic for their rich cargoes (Vitkus 4). Piracy, of course, had existed during the reign of Elizabeth I too. It is well-known that the Queen issued letters of marque to authorize the attacks of her naval captains against Spanish vessels and rewarded them with honors for their services to the state. Moreover, the line between royally legitimized privateering and illegal piracy was often a thin one. Though Elizabeth implicitly sanctioned the privateering of her subjects, as long as the English crown profited from the acquired spoils, piracy did not constitute a serious concern for her. However, as soon as James ascended to the English throne, the state’s toleration of piracy ended. Even before entering into peace with Spain, the King made illegal all forms of privateering by a proclamation in 1603; and later in 1605, all British subjects found serving aboard foreign privateers were unhesitatingly treated as pirates (Senior 87 - 88).

While one of the expected outcomes of the Treaty of London (1604) was to end the attacks on Spanish shipping and, in turn, to cause a reduction in English piratical operations, ironically enough, the conditions that followed from this peace treaty resulted in the spectacular rise of English piracy in the seventeenth century. After nearly two decades of continuous war with Spain, great numbers of

English seamen were left unemployed. According to Senior, the total number of

Englishmen working as sailors by 1603 was around 50.000 (11). These men, who had previously prospered on Spanish plunder, had few skills to sustain a living on land, and the legitimate jobs they could find on royal ships were badly paid, or the 101

working conditions were toilsome. Outbursts of famine, plague, and economic depression that marked the period added to this, the unlawful pirate life was a very attractive and profitable alternative for many English seamen who were given the opportunity (Vitkus, Turning Turk 149). In the first years of James’s reign the number of English pirates in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic increased dramatically. The King’s own estimate of pirate strength, made in 1608, was that there were no fewer than 500 pirate ships in the ocean (Senior 11). In fact, English piracy had become such a problem that the Venetian governor of Zante, Maffio

Michiel, said of the English “there is not a sailor of that nation, but is a pirate”

(qtd. in Senior 83).

Worse still, many of these English pirates were formally converting to

Islam and joining the Muslim corsair community in order to enjoy the freedom and protection of the Barbary principalities of the North African coast (Vitkus, Three

Turk Plays 4). After the royal sanctions brought against piracy, English pirates needed new bases outside England to dock and safely sell their loot. North African rulers, whose navies were in need of acquiring maritime technology, were willing to harbor English as well as other Christian pirates, on the condition that they shared the profit. This cooperation between the North African Muslims and

European pirates in the seventeenth century produced one of the unique periods in the history of Mediterranean piracy (Matar, Turks Moors and Englishmen 58).

Thousands of Christian pirates flourished under Muslim support, and many of them turned Turk in order to assure the local rulers of their loyalty or to pursue the social and financial opportunities provided to Christian renegades in Muslim 102

dominions.3 The Ottoman social system treated these renegades favorably and allowed them to important administrative and military ranks.4 In addition, Islam proved to be very successful in showing the flexibility and dynamism needed to accommodate convert communities from various backgrounds (Bulliet 6). In cities such as Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers piracy and conversion introduced “an unprecedented element of internationalism” (Matar in Vitkus, Piracy 5). In addition, the Muslim rulers’ policy of religious toleration allowed Christians,

Muslims, and Jews to live peacefully as members of a single society, and this policy radically differed from that of England where people were oppressed and persecuted for their religious beliefs.5

3 The phrase “turn Turk” refers to the literal conversion to Islam and it appeared in the English language in the late sixteenth century concurrently with the increasing numbers of English renegades in the Mediterranean (Burton 16). Here the “Turk” represents any Muslim, not necessarily an Ottoman subject, who lived either within or outside the territories of the Ottoman Empire. Earlier, in medieval Europe, the “Saracen” was the generic term to refer to Muslims. During the Crusades this term represented the opponents of the Christian reconquest. With the ascendance of the Ottomans in the sixteenth century “Saracen” was slowly replaced by the term “Turk.” However it is interesting to note that the Ottomans traditionally never called themselves Turks, as their empire was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious entity which was not organized around any particular national identity. However, Christian authors apparently disregarded this heterogeneity and, reduced the Ottoman to Turk and Turk into Muslim.

4 As opposed to European monarchies the Ottomans did not have hereditary nobility. In fact “to be born non- Muslim and non-Turkish was an essential qualification for entrance into the dominant elite” (İnalcık 103). It was impossible for Arabs, Berbers, or Moors to enter this ruling elite, but Christians were not barred from doing so and many rose to positions of considerable power in the regencies of North Africa (Senior 94). For example Sampson Denball, an English renegade, took the name of Ali Reis and became admiral of Tunisia’s galleon fleet in 1610. Though not an Englishman, probably the most notable of these renegades was Giovanni Dionigi Galen, a former Italian pirate who was known as Uluj Ali or Occhiali. Born the son of a poor fisherman in Calabria, Southern Italy, Giovanni was captured by Turkish corsairs in 1536, when he was still an adolescent. After a few years of working as a galley slave, he converted to Islam, took the name of Ali, and joined the corsairs. As an able sailor and a bold corsair, Ali swiftly rose in the ranks. In 1568 he was appointed as the Beylerbey of Algiers by Selim II. In the Battle of Lepanto (1571) where the Ottoman fleet was defeated by joint European forces, Ali was the only Ottoman captain who received a certain degree of success. He outmaneuvered the Ottomans’ infamous enemy Andrea Doria, captured the flagship of the Maltese Knights, and when the defeat became obvious, he managed to arrive in Constantinople with 87 vessels which he gathered up along his way. For his achievements in this battle, he was given the honorary title of Kılıç (“Sword”) and appointed as the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy. In Chapter XXXIX of Don Quixote de la Mancha Cervantes mentions his name as Uchali and briefly describes his ascension to the regency of Algiers.

5 Laurent d’Arrieux, a French traveler who visited Tunis in the late sixteenth century observed: “Tunis is a country of liberty. Religion bothers nobody there; one prays to God when one wants to, one fasts when one cannot do otherwise, one drinks wine when one has money, one gets drunk when one drinks too much” (qtd. in Senior 95). 103

In fact, the conversion of Englishmen to Islam can also be seen in relation to the more domestic and prevalent destabilization of religious identity within the

English society. The early modern period in England was an era of ideological discomfort between various religious factions, and the notion of apostasy was already firmly-established in the English consciousness. When Elizabeth I was crowned Queen in 1558 and England officially reverted to Protestantism, the country had gone through a national conversion for the third time in less than thirty years. The state’s insistence on religious uniformity and external compliance resulted in the oppression of Catholics. The counter-Reformation missionary efforts, such as the Society of Jesus, which focused on regaining Protestant believers, as well as the conflicts among various sects within Protestantism, created “a religious climate which was marked by intrusion, surveillance, and controversy” (Vitkus, Turning Turk 110). All this stood in sharp contrast with the relative ease and openness of the life in Muslim communities. The Islamic

Mediterranean provided the English pirates with the opportunity to escape from the religious discontent that afflicted their homeland. In religious polemics the renegadism of Englishmen in Muslim territories and conversions within the domain of Christianity were perceived and condemned in similar ways. Changing religion was often likened to spiritual whoredom, and like converts within

Christianity, those who turned Turk were accused of embracing the enemy’s religion for the desire of profit and the appeal of worldly rewards (Matar, “The

Renegade” 490).

Conversions to Islam were of course seen as more shocking and heinous.

After all, by becoming renegades and fighting under the Ottoman flag, these 104

Englishmen were lending their weight to the adversary in the religious struggle that dated back to the Crusades (Senior 98). Christian church fathers at home continuously vilified the Islamic faith and denounced renegades as villains whose betrayal would “cause Christendom to collapse from within” (Matar, “The

Renegade” 500). On the other hand, travelers to the Muslim territories observed that the renegades, though they willfully had renounced their God and monarch, did not suffer any divine retribution, but happily prospered as Muslims. In

London, the accounts of the wealth and luxurious lives of these fascinating traitors raised criticism as well as curiosity in the public. In fact, the renegade figure had become so well-developed in the popular imagination of Jacobean England that many playwrights recognized the dramatic potential of this character and examined him in their plays.

At the turn of the century a new dramatic genre emerged, which thematized

Islam and dealt with the dangerous exploits of Christian pirates, renegades and adventurous merchants in the Islamic territories in various parts of the world. A

Christian Turned Turk, analyzed in this chapter, and the three plays covered in the remaining of this study belong to this type of theatrical representation which Jean

Howard calls “adventure plays” (“Gender on the Periphery” 344). Since they are almost exclusively set in the Mediterranean and feature the threat of Islamic conversion as the principal source of dramatic tension, they are also identified as

“turning Turk plays,” “Turkish” or “Mediterranean” plays by various scholars.

Typically, protagonists in these dramatic works are attractive, but “dangerously unstable” male overreachers, who generally come from a lower social class. They are characterized by a “bellicose, insubordinate, and extravagant” masculinity, and 105

as they venture through ‘real’ geographies of the Mediterranean, they engage with local Muslims in various encounters, which end up with their actual or threatened conversion (Howard 349). In the face of the danger directed to his Christian soul, the hero may remain resolute in his faith, resist, and escape, but if he yields and turns Turk, his destruction is sealed.

“Furies of Hell”

The Muslim Woman and the Gender Discourse in Early Modern England

Where does the Muslim woman stand within this whole picture? In depicting the relationships as well as the oppositions between Christians and Muslims, rather than featuring actual military confrontations, these plays follow a clear gendered pattern in which the Muslim woman plays a central role. Despite the apparent demonization of Turkish male characters, the threat of conversion posed to the

Christian hero does not come from these dangerous and powerful men, but from

Muslim women who are depicted as unruly temptresses (Burton 127). While the hero is able to exhibit resilience against the treacherous and sometimes forceful attempts of Turkish men, his encounters with Muslim women, which are invariably sexual liaisons, often result in his moral and religious corruption that in turn leads to his potential conversion. In these plays, Muslim women are regularly set on by their male counterparts to entrap and convert the Christian heroes; however, more often than not they are motivated by their own lustful and wicked designs. While they are mostly depicted as desirable women, this desirability is always coded as dangerous. Despite the fact that sexual desire for a woman is generally thought to mark a man’s masculinity, in these plays, the Christian hero’s 106

love for the Muslim woman is shown to entail the enslavement of his higher reason by his bodily appetites and thus bring the subjection of the superior sex to the inferior one. In other words, by representing the threat of Islamic apostasy through interfaith relationships between Christian men and Muslim women, “these plays enlist tropes of Edenic temptation” and portray the Muslim woman as “a prototypical Eve figure,” who is solely responsible for the hero’s abandonment of the Christian God and his subsequent damnation (Burton 127).

On the other hand, descriptions of Muslim women by English travelers to

Islamic domains in the early modern age give us quite a different impression than the one I explained above. Contrary to Muslim temptresses that we frequently come across in dramatic works, Muslim women in travel writings are mostly depicted as decent and obedient figures who abide by the rules of a male- dominated authoritarian society. Enclosed within the domestic sphere of their houses, they are separated from both the political and religious affairs of the social life. With familial submission and respect towards their husbands, they merely fulfill their wifely duties; and interestingly they seem to be happy in doing this.

For example, George Sandys, the first English traveler to focus on the women in

Ottoman lands, writes: “[a]ll that is required at their hands is to content their husbands, to nurse their owne children, and to live peaceably” (67). While the onstage Muslim women are portrayed as bold seductresses who initiate sexual contact with Christian men, contemporary travel writers such as Edward

Grimstone informs us that Turkish women “never come into place where men assembled together” (949). As in dramatic representations, Muslim women in travel accounts are frequently described as beautiful and elegant; however, 107

because of religious piety, real-life Muslim women never expose “their beauties unto any, but unto their fathers and husbands” (Sandys 69). In addition, they are very “modest in their garments” (Grimstone 948). In fact their dresses “are commonly so well fitted and made, as a man cannot behold anything more modest and comely” (Grimstone 948).

While even the accuracy of these travel accounts is disputable, the clear discrepancy between the historical and dramatic representations of the Muslim woman indicates that English playwrights of the seventeenth century created an imaginary Muslim female figure in their works. Since they never had the chance to meet a real-life Turkish woman, they appropriated what they read in these accounts and restructured the Muslim women material in a way to put it to a functional use in line with their discursive strategies against Islam and Islamic apostasy. In this restructuring they necessarily articulated the ideas of womanhood that existed in their own society. In fact, next to the threat of Islam, in these plays, there is a conscious preoccupation with Christian patriarchal notions of gender roles and hierarchies, which corresponds with a hot contemporary debate on women that prevailed in the English society. Throughout the Elizabethan and

Jacobean periods, definitions of womanhood and the position of women underwent significant transformations, and I believe a closer look at these transformations and their implications on the established structures of the patriarchal society will provide us with a more expanded and clearer context to assess the role of the Muslim woman in early modern English drama.

The historian D.E. Underdown characterizes the sixty years before

England’s Civil War as manifesting a “crisis of order” at all levels of the country’s 108

economic, political and social fabric (116). Despite the stability and the sense of national identity brought by the reign of Elizabeth I, this was also a period of deep social and economic depression during which the majority of the English population suffered. As old forms of domestic production were replaced by proto- industrial modes of production, new attitudes with respect to the accumulation of capital and work were introduced (Clark 6). The population was rapidly growing in the urban areas, and because of the rising inflation and poor harvests, poverty and crime had significantly increased. In response to generalized concerns about social unrest, the two crucial intellectual and religious movements of the period,

Humanism and the Reformation, advocated the radical restructuring of moral and public life (Aughterson 9). These movements placed a special focus on the family as a unit where individuals would be shaped according to certain codes, and the role of the English woman within this new concept of the family was an important one.

First, humanists like Thomas More thought that they could create an enlightened governing class which would be committed to social and religious reform by educating young men through classical instruction. As the perfect companion of this new type of learned man, they called for a new notion of woman who would also be given humanist education, and, next to her motherly and wifely service, could be the lifelong partner of her husband and the educator of the children (Krontiris, Oppositional Voices 12). In order to realize this theory, they implemented a program of study for young women at an experimental level, and the positive results they achieved led them to come up with some 109

revolutionary ideas that saw men and women as equals and the contemporary women’s subordinate position merely as a product of custom.

Though these theories failed to become inspirational in the coming years, the humanist ideal of the nuclear family was later taken up by the Reformists who started a more substantial movement. In fact, the family had a highly politicized role in the Protestant social program, because for the Reformists, submission to authority started in the family, and the obedience owed to the father served as an analogy for the obedience owed to God and to the monarch (Warnicke 151). Yet, emergent industrialism forced more and more men to work outside the home, and despite the husband’s assumed absolute authority, the woman gained a more elevated position in the family. Though she was restricted within the household as before, her responsibilities increased, and she had a significant function as provider, educator, and moral counselor for the family members (Clark 5).

Moreover, Protestantism advocated equality between men and women in the eyes of God. While this common standing did not entail equality on political and social grounds, it surely enabled women to assert independence on spiritual grounds

(Krontiris, Oppositional Voices 10). The dissident sects within Protestantism freed many women from religious obedience to their husbands and priests. The growing popularity of public preaching and lecturing created “a kind of a democratic atmosphere,” which allowed women to adopt new roles for themselves

(Aughterson 9). Women participated in such lectures in large numbers, and many of them aspired to pastoral and teaching positions, as well as organized congregations in defiance of male authority (Krontiris, Oppositional Voices 11). 110

In fact, despite their clearly defined boundaries of domesticity, many other

Englishwomen ventured out of their homes in this period to engage in visible social and economic functions. Particularly in the textile trade, the demand for women to contribute to the labor force had increased. In various classes of business, women worked together with their husbands, sharing their daily responsibilities; and when they were widowed, they generally retained the direction of the venture (Clark 10). Women also contributed to the male dominated world of intellectual and literary production. Many male authors had female literary patrons, and both the first work of fiction and the first tragedy written by an Englishwoman were produced in this period.6 Most importantly, the forty-five year reign of Elizabeth I showed that women could rule, though they were not expected to exercise authority over men. Apparently, several

Englishwomen of the early modern age had started to act as autonomous figures and to defend their rights for greater liberties, and this was not only contradicting with, but also threatening the established prerogatives of the patriarchal society.

Mark Breitenberg argues that like in any social system that is built upon unequal distribution of power and authority, anxiety is an inevitable product of the patriarchal society; because the masculine identity, which is infused with dictated male privileges, at the same time incorporates varying degrees of anxiety about the preservation of those privileges (1). Indeed, Englishwomen’s transgression of their culturally prescribed roles and their intrusion into the social and economic domain caused serious reactions in this period. Men who felt that they were being

6 On the literary accomplishments of women in this period see Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance (1987) by Elaine Beilin and Oppositional Voices (1992) by Tina Krontiris. 111

dislodged from their dominant place responded to these assertive women by imposing on them legal restrictions, reducing their wages and guilds, and by undermining their prospects in commercial and cultural life. Furthermore, both in church services that the entire English population was obliged to attend on

Sundays and through the many conduct books that were produced in this period women were continuously reminded of their inferior nature that required guidance and were commanded to submit to their male superiors. Medieval formulations that saw women as either wicked creatures in the image of Eve, or female saints descending from Virgin Mary were appropriated and reintroduced with a clearer emphasis. Idealized ‘good’ women were represented in contexts of chastity, obedience and silence. They were pictured as tender-hearted, home-keeping, and motherly matrons, who obeyed their husbands, cared for their children, and spent their time in private devotion (Crawford 39). On the other hand, women who did not confirm to the established gender hierarchies, but instead subverted them, were continuously scorned and condemned through misogynistic portrayals. These

‘bad’ women were likened to “furies of hell,” whose “whole delight and pleasure is to scold, to brawl, to chide and to be out of quite with their husbands” (Thomas

Adams, qtd. in Aughterson 29). Men were warned to maintain constant vigilance over such audacious and bold wives, because they might easily use their feminine wiles and usurp the mastery within the family (Warnicke 84). Clearly, early modern Englishmen were very reluctant to grant any freedom or independence to women. Rather than rethinking the social structures in line with the humanist theories that had flourished at the beginning of the period, their concerns about 112

losing the control of women steered them to a much more conservative stance toward the autonomy of female identity.

Matar argues that the English writers’ anxious urge to legitimize female subordination also led them to look for supporting examples for their theories outside their Euro-centric Christian world, and the Islam of the Ottoman Empire, which was militarily and culturally a more advanced civilization, caught their attention (“The Representation of Muslim Women” 50). As Englishmen travelled to the Islamic lands, they saw that the subjugation of women among the Muslims differed widely from the libertinism which they feared among Englishwomen (51).

The detailed and favorable descriptions invoked in the travelogues that I mentioned earlier, which characterized the Muslim women as restrained and obedient figures, were partly motivated by the fact that these writers wanted the women of the English society to be treated similarly. For example, praising the clear hierarchical relationship between men and women in Turkish families,

Grimstone in his The Estates and Empires (1615) writes that the Turkish husband

“doth ever retaine the same severitie and gravitie towards his wife, who likewise failes not to beare her selfe veile respectively and humble on his behalf” (949).

Apparently, Muslim men had found a way to circumvent women’s wiles that threatened the husband’s authority, and as William Biddulph noted in 1609, if women in England were treated as if they were among the Turks, they would surely be “more dutifull and faithfull to their husbands” (86).

If the image of the Muslim woman in early modern English travelogues functions as a ‘hoped-for model’ for Christian women at home, then her on-stage representations would definitely serve as an anti-model. Contrary to the chastity, 113

reticence, and submissiveness that the English travelers saw in Muslim women and associated with ‘good’ womanhood, Islamic female characters in seventeenth century English drama clearly conform to the definition of the ‘bad woman,’ the

“fury,” who was continuously condemned and satirized in the gender discourse of early modern England. In fact, in the drama of the period, characteristics of the good woman are generally attributed to Christian female characters. Set in opposition to Muslim women, they exhibit an immaculate and virtuous disposition that complies with the authorized notion of femininity, while their Islamic counterparts embody all that is unfeminine and unnatural. Even so, these assertive

Muslim female figures of seventeenth century English drama somehow always defend the Christian patriarchal privilege. If their subversiveness cannot be managed and contained within patriarchal parameters, they are simply destroyed on the stage, as a logical consequence of their wicked actions. More frequently, however, they are seen as potential converts to Christianity. After learning about the Christian religion from their lovers, they turn apostate themselves, putting aside their disruptive femininity in order to be reborn as chaste and obedient

Christian women. Clearly, the female Muslim figure was a very versatile dramatic material for English playwrights, because her image provided them with an appropriate ground to reflect on their anxieties in relation to both the Islamic empire abroad and the Christian women at home. By collecting these two seemingly divergent threats in the representation of the Muslim woman, they successfully effaced the disturbing aspects of each for Englishmen (Burton 108).

114

“I’ll fit you with an Eve, sir, a temptress"

As in the case of the Muslim woman, the discrepancies between the traveler accounts and the dramatic representations in the seventeenth century give important clues with respect to the psychology that prevailed in Jacobean England against Islam and the Islamic culture. Richard Daborne’s 1612 play A Christian

Turned Turk, which, as the title suggests, dramatizes the story of a renegade pirate who abandoned Christianity, is another instance that illustrates this psychology.

John Ward, the protagonist of the play, was a real-life figure, and the additions and alterations that the playwright made on the biographical accounts of this English renegade impart a didactic purpose by rearranging the course of events in Ward’s life in a way as to comply with the dictates of Christian patriarchy.

The adventures and accomplishments of Captain Ward were known to the

English society, and hence to Daborne, through two pamphlets, both printed in

1609: Andrew Barker’s True and Certain Report of the Beginning, Proceedings,

Overthrows, and now present Estate of Captain Ward and Dansiker, the two late famous Pirates and the anonymous News from the Sea, Of Two Notorious Pirates,

Ward and Dansiker. In both of these texts, Ward is presented as an interesting figure, whose spectacular ascent from humble origins to power renders him a notable man, despite his status as apostate. Ward was born around 1553 in

Faversham, Kent and spent his early years working in the fisheries. In 1603, he found employment as a common seaman in the Royal navy, and within only two years he became a wealthy freebooter in the Mediterranean, in command of a strong vessel with thirty two guns and a crew of one hundred (Vitkus, Turning

Turk 146). In 1606, Ward reached an agreement with the Ottoman commander of 115

the janissaries in Tunis, Cara Osman (Crosman in the play) to use Tunis as the base for his piratical operations. Then, in 1609, he converted to Islam, changed his name to Issouf Reis, and settled in Tunis (Senior 90).

Ward seems to have become well-integrated into the life in Tunis, as despite several offers, he showed no sign of yearning for his home in England.

Barker’s pamphlet reports that Ward “lives there in Tunis in a most princely and magnificent state. His apparel both curious and costly, his diet sumptuous, and his followers seriously observing his will” (16). William Lithgow, who visited Ward in Tunis, describes the renegade’s house as “a fair palace beautified with rich marble and alabaster stones,” and he claims that Ward kept a personal guard of

“some fifteen circumcised English renegades” (207). Apparently, Ward and Cara

Osman enjoyed a good working relationship and the pirate was very much favored by the Turkish ruler, as the two called each other “brother” (Senior 90).

In both Barker’s text and News from the Sea, Ward is represented as a notorious renegade, a covetous thief, who is condemned for his monstrous crimes against God and the English King. For example, according to Barker, upon obtaining the right from Cara Osman to sell his booty in Tunis, Ward “vowed he would forever after become a foe to all Christians, be a persecutor to their trafficke, and an impoverisher of their wealth” (B4v). News from the Sea reviles the renegade’s onshore behavior, where he and his crew are “pampering and fatting themselves with the poison of their souls” (B3r). However, the overall tone against Ward and his exploits in these accounts is not a totally negative one. In these pamphlets, like in several popular ballads of the age, Ward is also praised for his bravery, and his victories over foreign ships are celebrated. For example, 116

Barker admits that Ward was “the most undauntedst man of fight,” and “if his actions were honest as his valor is honorable, his deeds might be dignified in the

Chronicles with the worthiest” (14). Such remarks convey a positive image for the renegade pirate, and as Vitkus observes, they turn him into an “admirable villain” who exemplifies the success and autonomy of a willing masculinity that “dared to move beyond the boundaries drawn by the religious and social system” (Vitkus,

Turning Turk 147).

In accordance with these accounts, in A Christian Turned Turk, Daborne introduces his protagonist as a greedy and sinful man, flirting with his own doom.

In fact, in the early scenes of the play Ward’s main activity is to capture a French merchant ship together with its crew, who came aboard for gambling, and then to sell both the loot and the captives in Tunis, causing an old French man to die of grief when he saw his sons being sent to slavery. Yet, Daborne also endows Ward with a certain degree of introspectiveness. For example, when the merchant

Ferdinand makes an attempt to persuade Ward to the immorality of his actions, the pirate’s response to his counsels is deeply philosophical, something we would not expect from this “bloody-thirsty monster.” He says “the fate of man is fixed /

Unmoveable as the pole” (3.32-33), and further adds:

We have no will to act – Or not to act – more than those orbs we see And planetary bodies, which in their offices Observe the will of fate. The difference is: They are confined; we are not. They are stars fixed, We wandering. (3.40-45)

As Howard argues, such vaulting language that Ward uses several times in the play raises him to “a larger-than-life status” (“Gender on the Periphery” 355) and 117

renders the pirate the epitome of the legend, supporting his image as an “admirable villain” in the English public eye (Vitkus, Three Turk Plays 26).

Yet, Daborne’s version diverges from the biographical accounts of Ward in two important respects. The most notable difference is the fact that although

Daborne kills his protagonist on stage, the historical Ward was alive and well in

Tunis at the time the play was written. The second divergence, which is no less interesting, comes at the centerpiece of the plot: the pirate’s decision to convert to

Islam. In fact, before becoming a renegade, the historical Ward had applied twice for a formal pardon in 1607 (first to the English King, then to the grand duke of

Florence). However, unable to obtain an amnesty in his desired terms, he resumed his piratical operations. 1609, the year that Ward converted to Islam coincides with a series of Christian corsair attacks against the Algerian fleet in Tunis. While the pamphlets do not specify any particular reason for Ward’s conversion, according to Burton, the most probable explanation for the pirate’s decision to become Muslim was to assure Cara Osman of his allegiance following these attacks (131). Daborne includes in the playscript a Christian raid on the ships in the Tunisian port, yet he presents us with an altogether different reason for Ward’s apostasy. Daborne’s Ward turns Turk because of his temptation by the beautiful, but evil Muslim female character, Voada. Thus, the play conjoins the Christian hero’s apostasy to his desire for an unruly Turkish woman, which creates a gendered context to reflect on both the threat of Islamic conversion, and the contemporary patriarchal anxieties with respect to subversive women.

There are two Muslim women in the play, and they are both sisters to

Crosman: Voada, Ward’s temptress, and Agar, wife to a former Jew called 118

Benwash, who buys Christian pirates’ booties in Tunis. Both of these women are portrayed as dangerous sensualists, and with their lustful motives they are shown as the main source of all the male problems depicted in the play. They enter the stage together with the Jewish servant Rabshake, caught in a comical conversation about the newly-arrived pirates in Tunis, and their lewd language and attitude immediately expose them as indecent women. When Agar expresses her attraction to pirate Gallop, Voada despises him for his weird looks “as if his father and mother had got him in fear” and prefers the Dutch captain Dansiker (6.7).

Approving Voada’s choice as “a reasonable handsome man of Christian” (6.8),

Rabshake starts listing the differences between the appearances of men from various religions. He explains that the “gouty legs and fiery nose” that the Turk and the Jew have “express their heart-burning,” “[w]hereas the Puritan is a man of upright calf and clean nostril” (6.11-13). Mocking Rabshake, Voada suggests that he should turn Christian to swell his calf “upward mightily” (6.15), yet he refuses to join the Christian society because of the three qualities they have:

First they suffer their wives to be their masters. Secondly, they make men thieves for want of maintenance and then hang them up for stealing. Lastly, they are mad four times a year, and those they call term-times, and then they are so purged by their physicians (which they name lawyers), some of’em are never their own men after it. (6.20-24)

While the scene is intended to point to the depravity of the Turkish women, with

Rabshake’s joke, it simultaneously serves as a critique of the Christian society, in which women’s mastery over men is regarded as the most significant drawback, outweighing economic and political disadvantages. Rabshake’s remarks are clearly 119

in line with the misogynistic disposition of many writers who participated in the ongoing women’s debate in Daborne’s England. In fact, this misogyny is extended when the Jewish servant adds that the Christians are so uncharitable people that if

“an innocent” man happens to live among them, first men “will feed upon no other meat” (6.29, 30) and then their wives “will be sucking at the bones” (6.34). While men are also criticized for their greediness, this bawdy satire shows their wives’ actions as more heinous than theirs, because even if men think they are cunning when they feed on the innocent, women prove to be much craftier, as they cuckold their husbands with what they have preyed on.

These misogynistic assumptions with respect to women’s sexuality find a more overt expression in the depiction of the Muslim female characters.

Throughout the play both Agar and Voada are exclusively associated with depraved morality, in fact, they are often called “whores,” and their basic function in the Tunisian pirate community is to entertain the Christian pirates coming ashore. For example, referring to his wife, who walks around the room invitingly gazing at Gallop during the closure of a deal, Benwash explains to the confused sailors: “[y]ou see gallants, we are not Italianates to lock our women up: we set them free, and give open entertainment” (6.61-62). Gallop concludes that Benwash must be keeping a “bawdy house,” and says in his aside: “I like his wife well, I could find in my heart to cast away half a ducat on her” (6.63-64). In fact,

Benwash is a very jealous husband who has turned Muslim only to keep “his bed free from these Mahometan dogs” (6.76), and as he explains to Rabshake he

“man[s] his wife thus”: 120

For commodity: thou seest rich shopkeepers set their wives at sale to draw in custom utter their ware, yet keep that gem untouched – all for profit, man. (6.83-85)

Though Benwash seems to use his wife’s sexuality as a business trick to close better deals and foolishly thinks that she is a “constant” woman who merely plays a role to help her husband (6.435), Agar proves to be a far more promiscuous woman than he assumes, because she in fact lasciviously pursues Gallop. By the time Benwash leaves the stage, she with Gallop, and Voada with Dansiker already

“have bartered wares” (6.162). Even if Agar hesitates for a moment fearing her husband’s “watchful jealousy” (6.191), Voada brings her back to her feminine senses when she encourages her saying:

Now by my sex I am ashamed of you. Were the Jew mine, I would have no other pander. Be ruled by me, It’s he shall hire the captain to thy love And his own horning. What cannot we persuade? Man was asleep when woman’s brain was made. (6.192-96)

While this passage clearly renders Voada a more dangerous woman than Agar as the provoker of her sister’s wrongful actions, it at the same time summarizes the play’s plain misogyny in a quite striking way, articulating a dark pessimism on the part of men that perceives women as sinful creatures posing a constant threat to them. Indeed, after Voada’s advice Agar practically puts Benwash in the position of her own panderer. She convinces him to “make trial with the ladder of ropes” that will allow Gallop to climb to her chamber at night when Benwash is missing and find out that she is not the “light” woman that he took her for (6.160, 370).

She even makes Benwash tell this plan to Gallop himself, to which the amazed pirate responds in his aside: “thou black-eyed negro! Never did a woman make 121

such a shift to dub her husband, though many thou dost know have made most bare ones” (10.18-20). When seen in parallel to the Christian wives in Rabshake’s earlier joke, Muslim women obviously use similar double-crossing tactics in cuckolding their husbands, a use which, in the play’s terms, reveals their shared wicked nature; yet, being unprecedented, Agar’s example shows that because of her false religion and, in this case, her dark complexion, the Muslim woman embodies this wickedness all the more easily.

On the other hand, Benwash’s giving “open entertainment” to his wife in front of the pirate captains with an aim to get better profit suggests that using the sexuality of women in the play is considered to be a part of the Turkish men’s strategy to lure Christian men to their downfall. This agrees with the travel accounts of the period, where sexual enticement is offered as one of the most common explanations for Englishmen’s Islamic apostasy, followed by financial rewards and social advancement. Since polygamy and concubinage were allowed in Muslim cultures, Islam was thought to be a lecherous religion that “looseth the bridle to the flesh” (Africanus 381). European writers described Muslims as

“extremely inclined to all sorts of lascivious luxury” (Lithgow 102). The private lives of wealthy Muslims were claimed to be full of hidden sins and sensual indulgence, and much of the Christian renegadism was thought to have stemmed from this sexual libertinism associated with the Islamic society (Vitkus, “Othello”

157).

Islamic people were restrained by their religion from forced conversions.

George Sandys attests to this when he says that Muslims draw renegades by offering them money, clothes, and freedom from tax and tributes, but they 122

“compel no man” (56).7 In fact, in some cases Christian men were also offered

Muslim wives to convert. For example, Thomas Dallam, an English organ maker who travelled to Constantinople in 1599 to present an organ to Murad III from

Elizabeth I, tells us in his journal that after a series of comical misunderstandings which expose the absurdity of his fears and prejudices against the Turks, he eventually established such good relations with the Turkish men in his company that they wanted him to stay among them, and in order to persuade him they offered “all the content that I could desire,” including the promise of two wives, either concubines from the Sultan’s harem, “or else two virgins of the best I could choose my self, in city or countrie” (73). Another Englishman, Richard Hasleton, who fell into the hands of a Berber group, Abesse, while he was running away from the Spanish Inquisition in Algiers in 1587, recounts the story of his captivity and states that he was also offered a rich reward to turn “Moor.” Hastleton reports that the king promised him money and office, as well as a house, and:

lastly he offered to give me a wife freely, which they esteemed the greatest matter, for all buy their wives at a great price… But when he perceived all he said was in vain, he sent the queen and her gentlewomen to talk with me. When she came, she very courteously entreated me to turn and serve the king and to consider well what a large offer the king had made, saying that I was much unlike to come to any like preferment in my country. And many times she would show me her gentlewomen and ask me if none of them could please me, but I told her I had a wife in my own country, to whom I had vowed my faith before God and the world, which vow, I said, I would never break while we both lived. Then she said she could but marvel when she should be whom I esteemed so much as to refuse such offers of preferment for her sake, being now where I must remain in captivity and slavery all the days of my life. But when she could prevail no way with me, when she had uttered these foresaid speeches, and many others which were frivolous to rehearse, she left me. Yet by

7 A well-known Koranic phrase says: “Let there be no compulsion in the religion” (Al Baqarah, 2:256). 123

her means I had more liberty than before. (Reprinted in Vitkus, Piracy 90-91)

While these examples confirm that Muslim women were indeed used to create a proselytizing effect on prospective apostates, we should also note that these accounts are clearly exaggerated in such a way as to romanticize the narrators’ heroic resistance against Islam; and because of their scarcity they fall short of explaining the large outflow of Christian converts, as they overlook the real motives for apostasy. R.W. Bulliet explains that in cases of conversion “the religion that is losing members must rationalize what is occurring in a manner that will strengthen the faith of the steadfast members of the community” (6). Indeed, none of the English accounts of the period admits the possibility that the fugitive

Englishmen who converted to Islam may have yielded to arguments of religious nature, or to have considered conversion as an opportunity to break with class restrictions, or other social codes that they were confined to. Given the working conditions in seventeenth century England, conversion was understandable; it appealed to many destitute seamen as a relief from their impoverished and brutalized status. Englishmen at home were quick to find corruption and lechery in the Islamic world, which made it easier to ignore the likelihood of existence of flaws or social inequalities in their own society. They chose to perceive and represent the incidents of voluntary apostasy as acts of rebellion committed by greedy and lustful Christian men who betrayed the true religion for the lure of

Islam.

In depicting the Muslim men’s attempts to persuade Ward to convert to

Islam, Daborne applies a similar scheme as the one seen in these European 124

accounts. Before they meet Ward in his house in Tunis, Crosman and Benwash lay out their plot:

CROSMAN: All that art can by ambition, lust or flattery do, Assure your selfe this brain shall work him to.

BENSWASH: Nay, if the flesh take hold of him, he’s past redemption He is a half Turk already, it’s as good as done. Woman is hell, out; in we never return. (6.440-44)

While Crosman’s plan to approach Ward combines ambition, lust and flattery,

Benwash, whose conversion to Islam came for purely sexual reasons, knows that desire for women is a more powerful motive for apostasy. Nevertheless, he later joins Crosman and the Governor of Tunis in their efforts to lure Ward first with flatteries, then with promises of profit and advancement. Benwash implies that if

Ward forsakes the Christian faith, he can even become the admiral of the Ottoman sultan. He suggests that he must be “more wise… / Than with religion to confine

[his] hopes” (7.25-26). Confirming Benwash, the Governor, who is himself a

Christian turned Turk, adds that the rewards of conversion are endless:

He’s too well read in Poesie to be tied In the slaves fetters of religion. What difference in me as I am a Turk, And was a Christian? life, liberty, Wealth, honour, they are common unto all? If any odds be, ‘tis on Mahomets side, His servitors thrive best I am sure. (7.27-33)

The Governor suggests that religion is only bondage for Ward, depriving him of the liberty, wealth, and honor that he can find in Islam, whose empire is stronger than Christendom. He further insists that men “have two ends, safety and profit,” 125

which they “must make their actions turn to.” (7.47, 50). The Governor offers both to Ward, as long as the latter is willing to show his trust by turning Turk (7.55-57).

Like so many Christian sailors at the start of the seventeenth century, the historical Ward would have doubtlessly concurred with these arguments. Though portrayed as an ambitious man and an opportunist in pursuit of economic gains,

Daborne’s Ward surprisingly remains cautious and resists these blandishments, recognizing them as “the hooke your golden baite doth cover” (7.34). Contrary to what we would expect from his reputation as a notorious pirate, Ward does not allow us to think that his Christian soul has been threatened by apostasy. He cuts off further argument, saying:

What’s mine of prowess, or art shall rest by you To be disposed of; but to abjure My name – and the belief my ancestors Left to my being! I do not love so well The earth that bore me, to lessen my contempt And hatred to her, by so much advantage, So oblique act as this should give to her. (7.73-79)

Apparently, the influence of Muslim men is not powerful enough to draw Ward to conversion. Seeing that “[t]his gudgeon will not bite” (7.62), the Turkish men adopt a different strategy and include Voada in their scheme. Crosman immediately orders Benwash to “[w]ork in my sister” (7.80). After all, he knows

“[w]hat devils dare not move / Men to accomplish, women work them to” (7.85-

88). Indeed, though Ward has been resolute in his faith and successful in evading the allurements of the Turks, the moment that he sees Voada who enters the stage upon Crosman’s cue, he suddenly changes and says:

Here comes an argument that would persuade A God turn mortal, untill I saw her face, 126

I never knew what men term beauty was: Besides whose fair, she hath a mind so chaste A man may sooner melt the Alps, then her. (7.90-94)

This unexpected break in Ward’s resistance emphasizes the overwhelming influence of the Turkish woman’s charms on the Christian hero. While Ward considers Crosman’s arguments “spent” and “in vain” (7.162, 163), in Voada’s presence he accepts his defeat:

If ever beast did feel the power of love, Or beauty make a conquest of poor man, I am thy captive, by heaven, by my religion. (7.108-111)

Voada performs her part to the letter. She tells him that she cannot give trust to the protests of a man “whose religion / Speaks [her] an infidel” (7.122). If Ward wants to “enjoy” (7.125) her, he should be of her religion. Thus, although he recognizes that it means to “forever sell [his] liberty” (7.135), when Voada offers “[t]urn Turk

– I am yours” (7.127), Ward agrees to “take the orders instantly” (7.170).

Despite the wealth and power he has been offered, Ward’s desire for a

Muslim woman is shown as the most crucial factor that induces the Christian hero to forsake his faith. Though Ward mistakenly conjuncts her fairness to her

“chaste” mind (7.93), as we have already seen, Voada is in fact a transgressive woman, whose rampant sexuality violates any definition that the Christian patriarchal discourse would have for chastity. Indeed, as she leaves the stage to order the preparations for Ward’s conversion, she reveals in an aside to the audience her mercenary intentions: “howe’er thou sink, thy wealth shall bear me high” (7.176). Voada is obviously a part of the Turkish men’s strategy to convert

Ward, yet her selfish motives prove that in reality she exceeds any man’s 127

authority. While with her sexuality she represents the lures of Islam that threaten the Christian man’s soul, she simultaneously denotes a more generic danger that the womankind was thought to impose in patriarchal societies throughout history.

Draped with prejudices against Islam, the character of Voada is the ultimate representation of the pervasive misogyny that is manifested at many points throughout the play. Being a woman, she is supposedly already the preferred instrument of Satan, and being Muslim, she has even more reason to perform his work against the Christian man.

The only character that Voada is unable to influence with her feminine wile is the beautiful slave boy that she pursues relentlessly throughout the play. In the end this slave boy turns out to be Alizia, the French gentleman, Lemot’s, sister, who disguises as a page to protect herself from the lustful pirates. No homo- eroticism is intended in this relationship on the part of the author; rather, Daborne devises Alizia as a counterpart to the depraved morality of the Turkish woman.

However, as Burton suggests, the fact that Voada is in love with a woman, at the same time, renders her “unfit as an object of desire” (134). Contrary to Voada’s wicked and lustful image, Alizia constitutes an example of feminine virtue and chastity that conforms to the standards of Christian patriarchy. Nevertheless, despite her sincere efforts to save her betrothed, Raymond, from captivity, even

Alizia cannot escape the play’s misogyny. When mistakenly shot by Voada in the dark passageways of the Tunisian castle, Raymond thinks he is deceived by Alizia, finding the immediate reason in the “falsehood” of this “cruel woman,” who must have “turned prostitute” (15.27-29). However, the Christian maiden proves her constancy even at the cost of her own life and stabs herself to die alongside her 128

lover. Yet, before ending up with this tragic death, Alizia fulfils her role in the play as the mouthpiece for Christian piety. Prior to the conversion rite, when

Voada is momentarily absent, she appears on the stage to warn Ward about his impending and irrevocable fall:

Upon my knees, I do conjure you sir: Sell not your soul for such a vanity As that which you term “beauty,” eye-pleasing idol! Should you with the renouncing of your God, Taking the abhorred name of Turk upon you, Purchase a little shameful being here, your case Might be compared to his, who adjudged to death By his head’s loss, should crave (stead of one stroke) To die a lingering torment on the rack. Even such would be your life, whose guilt each hour Would strike your conscious soul with terrors. (7.205-15)

As Matar points out, these lines spoken by Alizia are reminiscent of the scene in

Doctor Faustus with the good and evil angels, where Marlowe’s protagonist is offered one final chance to save his soul before his ultimate doom (Islam in

Britain 54). Like Faustus, for a moment Ward seems moved by Alizia’s pleas, recognizes his fault and repents for his decision. Yet, upon the Muslim woman’s return to the stage, the pirate once again becomes a fool and agrees to undergo conversion. While the scene confirms Voada’s power over the Christian man for a second time, it simultaneously shows that Ward is in fact given an opportunity to repent. However, just like Faustus, who willfully rejects the help of the good angel and sells his soul to the devil, Ward rejects the Christian maiden’s pleas and sells his to the Turk (Matar 55). This allusion to Faustus magnifies the evil of Ward, and by equating the role of the devil with that of the Turk, it reveals the prevalent 129

attitude among Englishmen that saw the Muslim as the new embodiment of the anti-Christ (Matar 55).

Ward’s conversion is illustrated in an extended dumb show in the eighth scene.8 Neither in Barker’s text, nor in the News from the Sea is there an account of this ceremony. Daborne probably wanted to intensify the horrifying effect of

Ward’s deed by incorporating this scene and adopted it from writers like Richard

Knolles and George Sandys who vividly described the conversion ritual in their writings.9 As we learn from one of the captains, by the end of the ceremony Ward was “Turk[ed] to the circumcision” (9.2). In fact, as the consummate mark of

Christian apostasy, circumcision is frequently brought up in “turning Turk” plays as well as in numerous anti-Islamic treatises of the period. For these writers, circumcision underlines the sexual significance of the change of faith. They often associate it with emasculation and sometimes even conflate it with castration.

This emasculating effect of circumcision is emphasized also in Daborne’s play. The first time he sees Ward after the conversion ceremony Rabshake taunts

8 In Daborne’s play the dumb show is described thus: Enter two bearing half-moons, one with a Mahomet’s head following. After them, the Mufti, or chief priest, two meaner priests bearing his train. The Mufti seated, a confused noise of music, with a show. Enter two Turks, one bearing a turban with a half-moon in it, the other a robe, a sword: a third with a globe in one hand, an arrow in the other. Two knights follow. After them, Ward on an ass, in his Christian habit, bare-headed. The two knights, with low reverence, ascend, whisper the Mufti in the ear, draw their swords, and pull him off the ass. He [is] laid on his belly, the tables (by two inferior priests) offered him, he lifts his hand up, subscribes, is brought to his seat by the Mufti, who puts on his turban and robe, girds his sword, then swears him on the Mahomet’s head, ungirts his sword, offers him a cup of wine by the hands of a Christian. He spurns at him and throws away the cup, is mounted on the ass, who is richly clad, and with a shout they exit.

9 In 1610 George Sandys wrote a detailed account of the converts he saw in the Adha feast: We saw a sort of Christians, some of them halle earth already, crooked with age, & trembling with palsies; who by the throwing away of their bonnets, and lifting vp of their forefingers, did proffer themselves to become Mahometans. A sight full of horror and trouble, to see those desperate wretches that had professed Christ al their life, and had suffered no doubt for his sake much contumely and oppression: now almost dying, to forsake their Redeemer. (56) According to Matar the reason that travelers graphically described the conversion rite, underlining its “spiritual heinousness and physical goriness” is the fact that these writers “realized that both the theater audiences in London as well as the general reading public derived perverse pleasure from the account” (“The Renegade” 493). 130

the renegade saying: “Poor fellow, how he looks since Mahomet had the handling of him! He hath had a sore night at ‘Who’s that knocks at the backdoor?’ Cry you mercy, I thought you were an Italian captain” (13.52-55). The Jewish servant’s joke infers that rather than consummating his marriage with Voada, Ward has been a passive participant in male homosexual practice (which Englishmen often called the “Italian” style) because the painful circumcision he underwent rendered the pirate incapable of his male functions. While Rabshake’s intention here is only to make light of Ward’s conversion, the implied loss of the pirate’s masculine capability creates a meaningful contrast with the repeated emphasis made on his unruly and fierce manliness; and when seen within the misogynistic context of the play, the fact that this emasculation comes as a result of Ward’s subjugation to a woman’s will is particularly telling.

Daborne punishes Ward with the most tragic end possible. After the conversion ritual he can never get the attention that he was promised. On the contrary, when Voada learns Ward’s ship was destroyed in the fire and the pirate has lost all of his property, she scorns and despises him as “false runagate”

(13.27). Then, she continues to pursue her lust for the disguised Alizia, offering her money and help in escaping if she sleeps with her for one night. Finally, when

Ward is seized and imprisoned upon Voada’s false accusations, he becomes, as

Burton notes, a “sympathetic figure of tragedy” (136). Despite the fact that the renegade’s doom is sealed, he has been transformed back into Christianity. He curses the “all seed” of the Ottomans and blemishes their name as “the only scorn

… to all nations” (16.304). Right before stabbing himself on the stage, he calls the

Christian princes to reunite in order to take their revenge and find a path back to 131

Jerusalem. Making his case an example for the consequences of apostasy, he expresses his last wish:

May I be the last of my country That trust unto your treacheries, seducing treacheries. All you that live by theft and piracies, That sell your lives and souls to purchase graves, That die to hell, and live far worse than slaves. Let dying Ward tell you that heaven is just, And that despair attends on blood and lust. (16.315-321)

While Islam is contained by Ward’s final repentance and warnings to English pirates, which are clearly drawn from the contemporary assumptions against renegadism, as Matar points out, this is “a wishful thinking on the part of

Daborne,” because the ending of the play is purely fictional (“The Renegade”

499). According to the pamphlets, Ward lived in prosperity in Tunis until his seventies. He married a renegade woman, Jessimina from Palermo (despite being married to another woman in England, to whom he sent money from time to time) and continued taking hand in the capture of ships as late as 1622 (Senior 93).

Ward seems to have spent his advanced years happily, too. When the Scottish traveler William Lithgow saw him again in 1616, he found the old pirate working on a method of incubating eggs in camel dung (Senior 94). Apparently, in

Daborne’s imagination there was not much room for accuracy. He needed to demonstrate Christianity’s victory against Islam, and it did not matter whether he distorted the facts or offered inaccurate descriptions. However, probably because of this very reason, Daborne’s play could not achieve sensational success. Ward was a publicly known figure, and English theatergoers seem not to have much appreciated the way the playwright spoiled the pirate’s “admirable” image. 132

Captain John Ward was the most famous of the English renegades whose extraordinary career found much echo in his home society; yet, he was not an exception. Many other English seamen, like Sampson Denball or Peter Eston, became renegade pirates and worked as powerful admirals in the Ottoman navy.

Though not an English corsair, one of Ward’s contemporaries is also featured in

Daborne’s play. Simon Dansiker, who was generally identified as a Dutchman, was one of the most effective pirates in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic region, and his name was frequently associated with Ward. However, unlike the

English pirate, Dansiker actually received a pardon from Henry IV of France in

1609, and went into French service as a privateer where he continued to attack

English and Spanish vessels.

In Daborne’s play, Dansiker is employed as a foil to the renegade hero.

While Ward is drawn to apostasy after falling in love with Voada, Dansiker acts in the opposite direction, repents of piracy, and is subsequently pardoned by the

French king. As Vitkus observes, the dumb shows that enact Ward’s conversion in

Tunis are set in “symmetric contrast” with the dumb shows that portray Dansiker’s pardoning in Marseilles (Turning Turk 143). However, despite his hero’s repentance, Daborne does not allow the Dutch pirate to enjoy neither spiritual ease, nor a happy ending. Before leaving Tunis, Dansiker attempts a final attack on the pirate ships in the Tunisian port as an endeavour to “redeem our honor”

(5.13); yet upon being caught by the Muslims, he commits suicide like Ward, reminding “all pirates, robbers / To think how heavy [God’s] revenging hand /

Will sit upon them” (16. 233-35). Therefore, the text once again makes it clear that for treacherous Christians, there is a more powerful force, that of God, whose 133

justice shall be served, notwithstanding the fact that God’s treatment in the play differs significantly from the experiences of these men in real life.

Daborne portrays Ward as being capable of resisting the attempts of the

Muslim men to make him apostate, and his only weakness comes as a result of his desire for an enticing Turkish woman. The play’s emphasis on Voada’s power over Ward is significant, as it places full responsibility for the pirate’s conversion to an unruly Muslim temptress, and in doing so, as Burton points out, the play rewrites apostasy in “the pattern of Adam’s loss of Paradise,” with Voada as “the principal Eve figure” (136). In the following chapter, I analyze a more popular play than that of Daborne’s, which offers a happy-ending version of this tragic story. While the threat that Islam poses to the Christian hero is discussed in a similar gendered pattern like in Daborne’s play, this time forgiveness is shown to be possible, and Christianity wins over Islam without the need for divine intervention, but with the power of virtuous Christians to redeem not only the renegade, but also the Muslim woman.

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Chapter 4

Redeeming the Islamic Eve inside the Palace of the Ottomans:

Philip Massinger’s The Renegado

The strategy that the playwrights of sixteenth and seventeenth century England adopt in their works against the rising numbers of renegade pirates in the

Mediterranean Sea and North Africa is twofold. First, they present a real or a fictitious renegade that forsakes his faith for the allures and wealth of Islam. Then, they either describe the renegade’s horrid end that followed his apostasy or show the apostate undergoing a spiritual challenge which results in his return to

Christianity. Contrary to the travel accounts that attest to the prosperous lives that the Christian converts enjoyed in the Ottoman lands, the renegade featured in the drama of the period is either punished or converted back to Christianity. Both cases suggest that Islam is a weak religion, which is unable to retain its converts, and Christianity triumphs against Muslims, either through the intervention of the

Christian God or by the apostate’s recovery to the Christian side (Matar, “The

Renegade” 491).

In Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk, we witness the tragic end of

Captain Ward, who, though a fierce pirate, resists conversion but eventually fails to overcome Islamic temptation because of his love for a Muslim woman. In this chapter I want to analyze Philip Massinger’s The Renegado, another early modern 135

English dramatization of the threat of religious apostasy, which employs a diametrically opposite strategy and presents a story not about the punishment, but the recovery of the renegade. In containing the threat of Islam, Massinger, like

Daborne, places a Christian man’s love for a Muslim woman at the centre of the plot. But whereas Daborne’s Christian protagonist betrays his faith for love,

Massinger’s hero both preserves his faith and succeeds in changing his Muslim beloved into a Christian bride.

Based on Spanish and English sources, Massinger’s The Renegado, or the

Gentleman of Venice was written more than a decade after Daborne’s play.1 It was first performed at the Phoenix playhouse in 1624 and remained popular with

English audiences until the Restoration. Though the play is named after the renegade Antonio Grimaldi who, like Ward, “turn’d Pirat” (IV.i.16) and converted to Islam, the main action revolves around the romantic relationship between the

Venetian gentleman, Vitelli, and the Ottoman princess, Donusa. Vitelli has come to Tunis in a merchant’s disguise to rescue his abducted sister from enslavement in the viceregal palace. However, he is distracted from this objective when he meets the beautiful Turkish princess and submits to her amorous will. Thanks to the timely warnings of his mentor, a Jesuit priest named Francisco, the Christian hero regrets his sexual liaison with Donusa, and despite the temporary conversion threat he encounters, he not only resists Islam, but also converts Donusa to Christianity.

1 According to Michael Neill, for his plot Massinger was largely dependent on several works by Cervantes, all of which were drawn from the Spanish writer’s own experience as a prisoner in Algiers. The best known of these works is “The Captive’s Tale” from Don Quixote, which was first published in English in 1612. The others are “The Liberall Lover” from Novelas ejemplares (1613), and Los Banos de Argel, which appeared in a collection of eight comedias in 1615. For the Ottoman background of the play Massinger seems to have further consulted a number of English sources, including Knolles’s The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603) and George Sandy’s A Relation of a Journey begun Anno Domini 1610 (1615) (The Renegado 54-58). 136

According to Jack D’Amico The Renegado dramatizes a direct confrontation between the Christian perspective and the sophisticated and tempting Islamic civilization, in which the imaginative re-creation of the Muslim society should be seen as “a true test” of European values (120). He argues that

Massinger builds the dramatic tension from the complex problems arising from the meeting of two different cultures and presents “sensual temptation and the threat of violence” as “the twin Islamic dangers that are confronted with varying degrees of success by the Christians” (D’Amico 120). Concentrating on the threat of conversion depicted in the play, both Matar and Burton show how the discrepancies between the historical accounts of real-life renegades and the representation of the renegade on the early modern stage can be used to understand diverse English anxieties, both domestic and foreign. For Matar, the renegade of early modern English literature is another type of the Faustian atheist who represents “the internal evil that would bring about the collapse of Christendom”

(“The Renegade” 492). While in A Christian Turned Turk Daborne shows the consequences of apostasy by punishing the renegade pirate with “a violent and fully deserved death,” as Marlowe does in Doctor Faustus, Massinger in The

Renegado demonstrates that despite his villainy, the apostate can be forgiven if he repents of his sin and renounces Islam (Matar 494). Burton, on the other hand, concentrates on the gendered pattern that the play employs to manage the threat of

Islamic apostasy. He argues that Massinger “carefully interlaces patriarchy with

Christianity” and, by proffering a fantasy of an Islamic woman who willingly submits to the Christian man, he not only shows the power of Christianity against 137

Islam, but also represents Christian masculinity as “steadfast enough even to redeem an Eve” (Burton 138).

In my analysis I intend to point to the significance of these critical approaches with respect to the representation of the Muslim woman in the play.

The Renegado recuperates the feeble state of Christianity in the face of the imperial threat of the Ottomans by rewriting the Islamic apostasy in the form of

Christian resistance and recovery. Since this rewriting is enacted through an interfaith desire between a Muslim woman and a Christian man, as in Daborne’s A

Christian Turned Turk, Islamic femininity becomes an important dynamic of the pattern through which Christian masculinity comes to terms with Islam. With her overtly sexualized image and transgressive feminine qualities, Donusa, like

Voada, is another Islamic Eve figure, who embodies the overwhelming lures of

Islam and represents the most significant danger that the Christian hero needs to overcome in his encounters in the Ottoman lands. However, in Massinger’s play the Islamic femininity is used to affect positively the Christian cause, because the

Muslim woman’s apostasy which comes as a result of her love for the Venetian hero not only becomes the proof of Christian victory, but also upholds and validates the superiority of Christian patriarchy.

Furthermore, in The Renegado the effort of containing Islam is expanded so as to include the intellectual and social aspects of this civilization. The play offers an imaginative voyage into the world of Islam and represents its values and customs from a Western perspective, in order to recreate a vision which completely inverts the values of the Christian West (D’Amico 120). Social norms and gender prerogatives are central to Massinger’s comparison of the two cultures; 138

consequently, the image of the Muslim woman once again becomes the focal point of the play. Unlike Daborne’s sexually permissive women, who are literally pandered by their brothers and husbands to seduce Christians, the Islamic woman represented by Massinger is veiled and oppressed. Though these attributes are shown merely to increase her promiscuity rather than subjugate her, Massinger presents the Muslim woman as a victim of unjust Islamic rules. Combined with references to the practices of polygamy and concubinage, her image serves as proof of the essential incivility of Islam, while providing a negative example when compared to the status of women in English society. In addition, The Renegado offers one of the earliest representations of the harem on the English stage. Several of the play’s major scenes take place in the setting of the Ottoman seraglio, which, in accord with the period’s travel accounts, is depicted as a site of excessive sensuality and absolute power. Also, Massinger’s play offers us an opportunity to reflect on the existence of abducted Christian women in early modern Islamic harems through the figure of Paulina, Vitelli’s sister, who is kept as a potential concubine in the viceregal palace. Though the harem is a concept which is generally associated with Muslim women, Christian concubines in the Ottoman imperial court and the extraordinary power they attained within the dynasty form an interesting yet neglected aspect within the context of religious apostasy.

Accordingly, in the first part of this chapter I want to continue the analysis of the representation of the Muslim woman within the context of Mediterranean piracy and renegadism and offer a comparative reading of the gendered pattern of representing the threat of Islamic apostasy depicted in Massinger’s The Renegado and Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk. In the second part, I want to concentrate 139

on the representation of the Islamic culture in the play as a mirror image of

Christian patriarchy and discuss how the assumed inferiority of women in the

Ottoman society helps explore the intricate gender issues that the English patriarchy had to face in this period. In this section I intend to put forth my argument through a discussion of the representation of the harem in the early modern age and, by pointing to the discrepancies between the vision produced by

English writers and real-life harem women, I will underline the significance of the harem myth elaborated in this period with respect to the patriarchal inscription of both Muslim and Christian women.

Recovery of the Apostate

Despite James’s persistent efforts to crack down on piracy, by the turn of the seventeenth century, the English already had a reputation as the fiercest pirates in the Mediterranean Sea (Potter 125). Complaints that reached the court about

English freebooters like Ward were particularly disturbing for the King (Vitkus,

Three Turk Plays 30). Royal proclamations were issued, and many pirates and renegades were captured and executed in public in various parts of England, but neither piracy nor apostasy showed signs of diminishing; actually, the condition was rather the reverse. In 1600 the lawyer R. Carr lamented that “so many of our men [abjure] all Christian rites, becomes [sic] affectors of that impious

Mahumetane sect, whilst on the other part we finde none or very few of those repayring vnto us” (qtd. in Matar, “The Renegade” 500). Contemporaries perceived the extent of Christian apostasy as astonishing. In 1614, William 140

Davies, a barber-surgeon who had visited Tunis, claimed that Turkey and Barbary contained more renegades than native Turks (qtd. in Potter 129).

Obviously, Christianity was not attractive enough to rival Islam in its worldly advantages, and apostasy did not seem to demand much from those who converted. Moreover, spending all their lives in the Muslim territories was not the only option for these renegades. While many of these Englishmen converted to

Islam and settled in Muslim lands, others actually came to Barbary with a view of making their fortunes. They simply “worked” there, and after making enough money they returned home (Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen 63). In order to cause a reduction in the number of pirates, the King was also willing to compromise his unrelenting attitude. In 1612 English pirates were offered amnesty and were told that if they surrendered and promised to cease their criminal actions, they would be allowed to keep the wealth that they had obtained from plunder. A number of renegades and pirates benefited from such opportunities and returned to their homeland. In addition, hundreds of indulgences issued by church parishes in this period indicate that there were also many slaves and captives who had converted to Islam in North Africa but were ransomed and brought back to

England.2

Thus, alongside the intensifying problem of Christian apostasy, the renegades who returned to England and needed to be incorporated back into the

2 Numerous religious indulgences that survive from the first quarter of the seventeenth century are available on EEBO. One indulgence from 1624, for example, petitions church parishes to promote the cause of “Fifteen hundred loving subjects, English men, remaining in miserable servitude and subjection in Algiers, Tunis, Sally, and Tituane … who are forced and compelled by intolerable and unsufferable punishments and torments to deny their savoir and turn to the Mahumetan religion.” (London, 1624) [STC 8729].

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society constituted another concern for the English government in the years around the earliest performance of The Renegado. In order to accept apostates back to the religious community special ceremonies were devised, in which returned renegades performed a public reclamation of their faith (Burton 99). Apart from the lengthy sermons on recovery from apostasy offered by English clergymen like

William Gouge, in 1637 an official “Form of Penance and Reconciliation of a

Renegado or Apostate for the Christian Religion to Turkism” was commissioned by Archbishop William Laud.3 In this ritual the recovery of an apostate was described as a process that involved seven formal steps performed over a course of several weeks.4 According to Burton, the ritualistic emphasis put on such ceremonies made it possible to conceptualize the reconversion of the apostate and functioned as an outward supplement to counter the Islamic ceremonies of circumcision by metaphorically “uncircumcizing” the apostate (150).

The Renegado illustrates the redemption and reconciliation of the renegade with the Christian religion through the portrayal of Grimaldi. In accordance with representations of loathsome renegades described in historical and travel accounts, at the beginning of the play, Grimaldi is an unruly apostate, who is hateful of

Christianity. Drunk, riotous, and in pursuit of prostitutes, he has come ashore only

“to wallow in / All sensual pleasures” (I.iii.52-53). From the priest Francisco we

3 William Gauge, “A Recovery from Apostacy” (London, 1638). Another example would be the sermons preached by Edward Kellet and Henry Byam, both in 1627. These sermons were published together under the title “A Returne from Argier” (London, 1628).

4 As Burton details: Following a formal excommunication and submission of contrition, the penitent, dressed in white sheet, carrying a white wand, and begging for the prayers of the congregation, appeared on the church porch for Sunday services. On the following two Sundays, he was admitted to positions increasingly close to the minister, and made to participate in prayers, indicating his slow but steady re-incorporation (150). 142

also learn that Grimaldi once committed an act of sacrilege in the Church of St.

Mark and snatched from a priest the Eucharist during the Mass and “[d]ash’d it upon the pavement” (IV.i.31-32). However, as events unfold in the play, and with

Francisco’s spiritual support, Grimaldi is gradually recovered to Christianity again. While there is not any ritualistic procedure involved as in the historical reconversion ceremonies, Grimaldi passes through symbolic stages in the process of his rehabilitation (Vitkus, Turning Turk 160). First, his guilty conscience brings on a deep despair, which makes him believe that he deserves damnation. Then, he submits to the spiritual guidance of Francisco and pledges to perform “zealous undertakings” (IV.i.88). Francisco’s intercession validates the renegade’s forgiveness and redemption, and Grimaldi’s reconversion is ensured by his decision to devote his life to the relief of captive Christians. As a successful surviving hero of the Christian faith, he finally betrays his Muslim masters and enables the Christians to run away from Tunis on his ship.

The renegade Grimaldi’s repentance and recovery from apostasy is conjoined with Islamic temptation and the threat of apostasy encountered by the young hero Vitelli. In the play’s subplot we are shown the step-by-step reconciliation of a renegade, while in the main action we are presented with a

Christian man’s gradual approximation to Islamic conversion. The play’s course towards apostasy is, in fact, made plain from the very opening scene, where Vitelli and his servant Gazet are caught in a comical conversation about religious conversion. Enthusiastic about selling the wares that they brought from Venice,

Gazet declares that in order to serve his “master’s profit” better, he will counterfeit the faith of whatever country he is in (I.i.16). Vitelli is concerned about his 143

servant’s loose religious morality and sarcastically asks: “And what in Tunis, /

Will you turn Turk here?” (I.i.38-39). While Gazet is not opposed to conversions within Christianity (from Catholic to Protestant, for instance), he refrains from converting to Islam for fear of losing “[a] collop of that part my Doll enjoined me”

(I.i.41). Since it is accompanied by circumcision, Islamic conversion expresses a greater alterity for Gazet than conversions among Christians, and he makes light of the possibility that he would ever turn Turk. Before long, however, Gazet risks castration, when he learns that a eunuch can “sleep” with the Ottoman princess and foolishly longs for such a position, mistaking the nature of “[a] precious stone or two” (III.iv.53) he has to lose.

Massinger effectively uses the exotic, tempting, yet dangerous pirate community of Tunis as the setting of his plot, which combines adventure, romance and religious apostasy. Most of the scenes in the play take place in the palace of

Asambeg, the lustful and tyrannous Turkish viceroy. However, Massinger chooses to set two specific scenes in the marketplace of Tunis: the above scene where

Gazet jokes about religious conversion and the scene where Vitelli gains the attention of the Ottoman princess Donusa and is seduced by her. This marketplace is where many pirates and renegades are accepted with their booties and Christian merchants are allowed to sell their wares openly and publicly. Within this sphere of commerce and exchange, Gazet’s willingness to impersonate the apostate wherever he goes to do business emphasizes the close links between the desire for profit and other lusts that it may lead to (Vitkus, Turning Turk 158). The fact that

Vitelli meets Donusa in the marketplace is also significant in this respect. In the third scene Donusa, disguised as a common woman, visits Vitelli’s stall. When she 144

suddenly unveils her face before the Christian man, her beauty immediately seizes

Vitelli with “wonder” (I.iii.141). Then, the princess intentionally breaks some of the glass items in the display to compound the Christian’s amazement and bids him to “bring his bill / Tomorrow to the palace and enquire / For one Donusa … there he shall receive / Full satisfaction” (I.iii.156-60). Vitelli cannot be sure whether the fact that the princess has shown her face “argues love or speaks / Her deadly hatred,” but he runs “the hazard” and visits the Turkish palace the next day, starting the events that lead him to face apostasy. As Gazet’s joke indicates, for

Christians, religious identities are already blurred, and for those who are not resolute in their faith, the marketplace may easily become a site of temptation. In this context, the Tunisian marketplace draws an analogy between the exchangeable nature of commodity, desire, and religion and emphasizes the allied dangers of lust and apostasy that the Christians may face in their encounters with Islam (Vitkus,

Turning Turk 158).

Before meeting Donusa at the marketplace, Vitelli actually has been warned about the temptations in Tunis by the priest Francisco, who has told him that the “Turkish dames” are:

(Like English mastiffs that increase in their fierceness By being chained up), from the restraint of freedom, If lust once fire their blood from a fair object, Will run a course the fiends themselves would shake at To enjoy their wanton ends. (I.iii.9-13)

Francisco’s description, which emphasizes both oppression and excessive sexuality, is typical of the period’s attitude toward Turkish women. On the one hand, Muslim women are characterized by lack of freedom, which is symbolized 145

by the veil that they are obliged to wear in public spaces. On the other hand, women hidden behind the veil are far from accepting this subordination; on the contrary, they conceal their lack of inner restraint. Their female assertiveness is heightened as a result of masculine oppression, and because of their fierceness, they present a significant danger that may cause any man to go astray. Yet, in The

Renegado Vitelli denies the risk of entangling with “base desires” (I.iii.20). He asserts that he would not be interested in such “pleasure, though all Europe’s queens / Kneeled at my feet and courted me,” and he expresses particular immunity when there is a “difference of faith” (I.iii.15-16, 17).

However, as even the first meeting of Vitelli and Donusa in the marketplace has made explicit, the allure of Islam is much more overwhelming than the young Venetian could ever expect. When the scene is moved to Donusa’s private chambers, the seduction becomes more evident and the naïve Christian man becomes even more confused. Appearing before Vitelli “[l]ike Cynthia in full glory,” (II.i.14) the Ottoman princess immediately bewitches the Christian and sets out once more to seduce him with her “heavenly vision” (II.iv.6) surrounded by the gold and jewels heaped up for the Christian’s pleasure. Though the princess makes her passionate intentions plain, Vitelli remains oblivious throughout this comical scene; in fact, he appears to be altogether “dumb and slow-witted” in

Donusa’s presence (Burton 148). Even when the princess offers him “the tender of

[herself]” (II.iv.102), the Christian man is unable to comprehend what is expected of him. Mocking the young Venetian’s naivety, the eunuch Carazie remarks:

“Would I were furnish’d / With his artillery, and if I stood / Gaping as he does, hang me” (II.iv.11-13). Only when she kisses him and leads him to her 146

bedchamber, Vitelli understands what the Muslim princess is up to. Yet, the conflict between his rebellious flesh and his “better part” is only momentary. He follows Donusa, declaring “virtue is but a word” (II.iv.136).

Despite his former resolute stance against any sexual dalliance in Tunis, in the face of Donusa’s seductions Vitelli abandons virtue almost in the blink of an eye and falls into the trap which his mentor Francisco has warned him about. He surrenders to the allures of a Turkish court lady, who pursues the Christian relentlessly to achieve her end. Awed by Donusa’s beauty, power, and wealth,

Vitelli easily forgets himself and his purpose of coming to Tunis, which is to rescue his sister. The contrast between Vitelli’s prior resolution and his inevitable surrender to Donusa’s allurements is significant in emphasizing the extent of the power of Islamic temptation. Many European men who converted to Islam in this period were accused of having succumbed to the worldly advantages of the

Islamic world, and Massinger’s portrayal of Donusa as a rich and exceedingly beautiful woman indicates how overwhelming these advantages could be. Vitelli’s yielding to Donusa does not necessarily imply that he is ready to turn Muslim immediately, but as Bindu Malieckal argues, the scene is “symbolic of many

Christians’ surrender to the lure of Islam” (“Wanton Irreligious Madness” 32), and it clearly marks the first step toward apostasy that is represented by Grimaldi in the play (Burton 148).

Thus, in Massinger’s The Renegado, as in Daborne’s A Christian Turned

Turk, “religious conversion is offered as erotic temptation” and the Islamic threat is managed through an interreligious desire in which the Muslim woman is presented as the embodiment of the sensual pleasures and material awards 147

associated with the Islamic world. The play conflates apostasy with amorous capitulation and depicts the Muslim woman as a dangerous temptress whose promiscuity draws the unwitting and disoriented Christian man toward sin. Like

Voada, Donusa is the representation of Islam in feminized form, and because of her aristocratic status and extensive wealth, Massinger’s Ottoman princess symbolizes the lure of Islam more effectively than Daborne’s temptress. Donusa functions as the ultimate metaphor of the life that Islam promises to many

European men in return for their Christian soul, and her effect is so powerful that as Vitelli puts it, even “[a] hermit in a desert trenched with prayers / Could not resist” (II.iv.112-113).

Furthermore, while Daborne’s temptress is portrayed as an inherently evil woman who brings about the tragic end of the Christian man with her wicked intentions, Massinger’s alluring princess is essentially a good and chaste woman who is misguided by the false religion of Islam. Though she is presented as an unruly temptress who is controlled by lust and emotions, Donusa is a virgin prior to her union with Vitelli and describes herself as involuntarily “transformed” after meeting him. She compares the desire that overtakes her to an unwelcome force of an “imperious god of love” that “triumphs” over her “freedom” (II.i.39-40). Thus, unlike many Renaissance representations that portray women as either virgins or whores, the character of Donusa constitutes a blend of the dangerous seductress and the virtuous woman; and because of this dual quality, Donusa fulfils a different function than Voada within the gendered pattern of the representation of

Islamic conversion. Her redeemability allows the Christian man to express a will to challenge the Islamic masculinity. In this respect, the transforming effect that 148

Vitelli creates on the Turkish princess serves as a valorization of Christian masculinity.

Donusa’s attitude toward her Turkish suitor, Mustapha, completely changes after the sexual liaison with Vitelli. Though earlier in the play the princess welcomes the Basha’s courtly advances, once she falls in love with the Christian man, she proudly despises him and mocks him, comparing his “grim aspect or toadpool-like complexion” to “a bugbear to fright children” (III.i.50, 60). While

Mustapha finds in this sudden change the typical fickleness of women, from a

Christian perspective, the princess’s rejection of the Muslim man validates the attractiveness of Christian masculinity. At the same time, it indicates that even if she has not converted to Christianity yet, Donusa has already started to think and see like a Westerner, at least at the somatic level. The princess’s innate potential allows Vitelli to cause a spiritual transformation in Donusa, as she voluntarily accepts Christianity in the end, abandoning all her supposedly degenerate Islamic qualities. Thus, even though she is initially presented as the ultimate Islamic danger set before the Christian man, because of her convertibility, Donusa eventually comes to serve the Christian cause, as she enables Vitelli to gain mastery against Islamic men by winning her body and to prove the falsehood of

Islam by winning her soul.

These characteristics approximate Donusa to a stock figure from the romance tradition, which F. M. Warren calls the “enamored Muslim princess”

(344). Indeed, the virtuous Saracen maiden who, after falling in love with her father’s Frankish war captive, betrays her country, converts, and escapes to Europe with her Christian lover, appears repeatedly in the medieval chansons and 149

romances.5 Stimulated by the experiences of the Crusades and the Reconquista, these poems glorify the Christian enterprise by depicting the conquest of a beautiful woman from the enemy side. Apart from The Renegado, several other early modern plays, including The Knight of Malta and The Island Princess analyzed in the following chapters, readily use this convert-marry-defect theme in dramatizing Christian-Islamic confrontations. While the central element in early modern plots – which is the conversion threat encountered by the Christian hero – is altogether absent from medieval representations, by overcoming Islam through the depiction of Muslim women as voluntary apostates, these plays apply the same strategy which functions as the Christian masculinity’s master plan in the power struggle against Islam throughout the middle ages.

In Massinger’s The Renegado the Christian hero encounters the threat of conversion when he revisits the Ottoman palace to renounce Donusa’s affections and is captured by Turks. Brought back to his Christian senses through Francisco’s prompt intervention, in this second meeting, Vitelli successfully denies the allures of the Turkish princess. At first, he refuses to even look at Donusa, fearing that he will be unable to resist her temptation because of that “humane frailty I tooke from my mother” (III.v.12). So he perceives himself as a victim, first of the weak traits he supposedly inherited from his mother and then a prototypical Eve, whose lust is a “poison I received into my entrails / From the alluring cup of your enticements”

(III.v.46-47). Yet, the Christian hero welcomes the trial of the princess’s repeated

5 This stock figure was first invented by the Anglo-Norman cleric Orderic Vital in the story of the Frankish crusader Bohemond’s Eastern imprisonment in his Historia Ecclesiastica (1130-1135). Sir Bevis of Hampton (1300), a popular romance circulated in medieval England also features a Saracen princess who converts for the love of a Christian knight. In the Romance of Sowdone of Babylon and of Ferumras his Sone who conquerede Rome (early 1400s), the Sultan’s daughter converts, marries the Christian knight and defects to his land (Warren 348). 150

attempts to seduce him, confident that “holy thoughts and resolutions arm me

(III.v.38). The scene offers a rewriting of Vitelli’s previous bodily transgression as a triumph of piety and spiritual resolution. Finally, by returning Donusa’s gifts as in a symbolic ritual, the Christian man definitively rejects the Ottoman princess, and therefore also rejects Islam (Burton 151).

However, as the two lovers are discovered by Turkish men, we realize that there is yet another test awaiting the Christian man to prove the strength of his faith. Asambeg immediately throws both Donusa and Vitelli into prison and inflicts torture on the Christian in order to force him to turn Turk as a penance for his transgression. Yet, Vitelli courageously endures the cruelty of Muslims and with the “invincible fortitude” that he demonstrates in his sufferings, he even wins the admiration of Asambeg (IV.ii.46-47). Still, by the sultan’s decree it is determined that both Donusa and Vitelli must be punished with death unless she,

by any reasons, arguments and persuasion, can win and prevail with the said Christian offending with her, to later his religion, and marry her, that then the winning of a soul to the Mahometan sect, shall acquit her from all shame, disgrace and punishment whatsoever. (IV.ii.151-155)

Thus, the stage once again is set for a confrontation between Donusa and Vitelli.

As the Muslim princess seeks the conversion of her Christian lover, the dialogue between the two develops into a theological discussion, in which Islam is exposed as the false religion while Christianity is affirmed as the true revelation of God

(Matar, “The Renegade” 497). In the role of a female proselytizer, Donusa first attempts to exploit the sexual freedom built into the laws of “Mahomet.” She 151

offers Vitelli an easy passage to “certain hapinesse” (IV.iii.66) and service to

Islam, which she describes as a less demanding mistress:

Forsake a severe, nay imperious mistresse, Whose service does exact perpetuall cares, Watchings, and troubles, and give entertainment To one that courts you, whose least favours are Variety, and choyce of all delights Mankind is capable of. (IV.iii.79-84)

Then, Donusa compares the worldly power and unity of Islam to the petty, factious disputes of Christendom, hoping the truth of her evidence will force Vitelli to confess that “the Deity you worship / Wants care, or power to help you”

(IV.iii.101-102). Yet, with his Christian virtue now restored, the Turkish princess’s charms and arguments have no power over the young Venetian.

Scorning her offers as blasphemies tutored by the Devil, he repeats the traditional accusations against her “juggling prophet” (IV.iii.115) and determines:

I will not foul my mouth to speak the sorceries Of your seducer, his base birth, his whoredoms, His strange impostures; nor deliver how He taught a pigeon to feed in his ear, Then made his credulous followers believe, It was an angel that instructed him In the framing of his Alcoran. (IV.iii.125-131)

Donusa’s spiritual transformation happens at this exact moment. Seeing Vitelli fervently expressing his disgust with Islam and refusing to renounce his faith, she suddenly recognizes that “there’s something tells me I err in my opinion” (IV.iii.

139). Though she was supposed to convince Vitelli to convert to Islam, moved by the Christian hero’s steadfastness, Donusa abandons her own faith, declaring “thus

I spit on Mahomet” (IV.iii.158). As Vitelli baptizes her in their improvised 152

wedding ceremony, Donusa feels “the films of error / Ta’en from [her] soul’s eyes” (V.iii.123-125). She declares that even if she will be executed, she has been freed “from the cruellest of prisons, / Blind ignorance and misbelief” (V.iii.131-

132). By wholeheartedly rejecting Islam in the presence of Asambeg and other

Turks, Donusa does not merely convert to Christianity, she actually embraces

Christian martyrdom, an action which, in effect, renders Vitelli’s defeat of Islam

“an overthrow / That will outshine all victories” (IV.iii.149-150).

Thus, like Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk, Massinger’s The Renegado counters the threat of Islamic apostasy through a re-enactment of the Edenic temptation, while reconfiguring this pattern so as to restore the reversed gender dynamics in the Ward-Voada relationship, in tune with Christian patriarchal prerogatives. Though Vitelli is initially tempted by Donusa’s exotic charms and social status to submit to her will, unlike Daborne’s Ward who repeatedly gives into desire and brings about a tragic end, Massinger’s hero repents and with his ability to resist Islam, he wins a definitive Christian victory and effects a happy ending. Though The Renegado is essentially a play about the threat of Islamic conversion, since this threat is overcome by the voluntary apostasy of the Muslim woman, which entails containment of her transgressive Islamic femininity, the play simultaneously turns into “an occasion to buttress the established gender hierarchies” (Burton 138). At the beginning of the play Donusa is portrayed as an unruly seductress who conforms to Francisco’s description of veiled but lustful

Turkish dames. At the same time, Donusa’s aristocratic status allows her to escape the usual restrictions on Muslim women. She commands every man around her, she is served every luxury, and, obviously, she can indulge her every whim. 153

However, after her baptism, these undesirable qualities of Donusa are erased at once and she is transformed into a chaste woman, whose “outward beauties” now truly reflect her “mind’s pureness” (IV.iii.146, 147). Reborn as a submissive wife,

Donusa assures Vitelli: “I dare not doubt you; as your humble shadow; / Lead me where you please, I follow” (V.iii.85-86). Thus, successfully overcoming the

Islamic vice of lust by converting a Turkish Eve into an obedient Christian bride,

Vitelli not only shows the superiority of Christianity over Islam, but also proves man’s dominance over woman.

Behind the Harem Walls

Like A Christian Turned Turk, The Renegado conjoins the anxieties against the foreign threat of Islam with patriarchal concerns with respect to transgressive women. However, Massinger’s preoccupation with gender hierarchies is not restricted to merely correcting the Edenic temptation pattern observed in

Daborne’s tragedy. The playwright presents the Islamic society as a negative mirror for Christian patriarchy and by making use of the inferior image of the

Muslim woman as a discursive medium, he consciously participates in the contemporary debate in England about the proper place and role of women.

Certain scenes featured in the play have interesting openings in regard to the question of women’s liberties, where Massinger uses Islam to satirize and critique the supposedly audacious position of women in the English society. In fact, the assumed Islamic hostility against women in the play is employed as a strategy that subtly forecloses any criticism that can be raised against the Christian patriarchy in its treatment of women. 154

Massinger embodies the idealized Christian womanhood in Vitelli’s sister

Paulina. This abducted Christian virgin, who is imprisoned by the viceroy of

Tunis, heroically defends her chastity against the repeated attempts of the lecherous Muslim ruler. The playwright draws a distinction between Donusa and

Paulina based on their sexual morality, and in order to construct this opposition in a common setting, he makes use of one of the most controversial sites associated with Islamic women in European discourses, the harem. Though it is not as vivid an image in The Renegado as it is in the representations of Muslim women after the eighteenth century, the harem constitutes the physical mise en scene in

Massinger’s play. While Vitelli gives in to Donusa’s lures in one of the innermost chambers of the harem, in another, Paulina is held captive by the Muslim viceroy, facing the threat of becoming his concubine. In the following section, through a discussion of the representation of the harem in the early modern age, I want to elaborate on the play’s allusions to this Islamic site and various other customs that specifically expose the women of the Muslim society as victims of masculine cruelty and show how the vision that these tropes create with respect to the

Muslim woman is employed to address to the issues related to Englishwomen.

The harem, or seraglio, enters into western imagination in the sixteenth century, and the production of texts treating this theme is noticeably fertile in this period.6 In these texts the descriptions of this mysterious and presumably erotic place, hidden at the sultan’s court, indicate a European fascination with the secrets of the envied Islamic empire. According to Vitkus, the representation of the harem

6 The term seraglio is first used in 1581 by Barnaby Rich in Farewell to Military Profession, while the first recorded use of the word harem occurs in 1634 in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels (OED). 155

in the early modern period is “a writing of power,” which reflects typical anxieties about a foreign imperial threat (Turning Turk 115). Writers of the period represent the harem as a proverbial site for concealed sensuality and excessive power. They peep into the seraglio with an intruder’s gaze and discover the moral degeneration of the Ottoman’s despotic strength in the seductive and corrupting features associated with this topos.

A good example for English texts that dwell voyeuristically into the seraglio can be found in the accounts of Thomas Dallam, an organ maker who travelled to Istanbul in 1599 to present an organ as a gift from Elizabeth to Sultan

Mehmed III.7 During the tour of “the Grand Sinyors privie Chamberes” (Dallam

74), his Turkish escort provides the English visitor with an opportunity to look at the court of the women’s harem. Through a thick grate barred with iron, Dallam observes “thirtie of the Grand Sinyor’s Concobines that weare playing with a bale.” He praises their beauty and describes the women’s fine linen clothing, noting he could “desarne the skin of their thies” which showed their sheer pants and their “naked” legs. He concludes that he was “verrie lothe” to leave his gazing, for that “sighte did please me wondrous well” (Dallam 75). Yet, after telling his interpreter what he saw, Dallam is advised not to “speake of it, whereby any Turke myght hear of it; for if it weare knowne to som Turks, it would [be] present deathe to him that showed me them” (Dallam 75).

Dallam’s narrative offers a male fantasy through the gaze of a prurient spectator who desires to know the secrets of the interior. He intrudes through the

7 Dallam installed the organ in the harem section of Topkapı Palace, thus he was actually one of the very few Christian men who actually entered the Ottoman harem (Mayes 214). 156

forbidden walls of the harem and provides a physical description of the beautiful imperial concubines, whose sexual allure is apparently increased because of the prohibition that surrounds the place they inhabit. Though their beauty is tantalizing, the sultan’s women are not allowed to be seen by a stranger’s eyes.

Anyone who sneaks around the harem would immediately be killed by the merciless Turk. Merely by secretly gazing at the harem women, Dallam is already committing an act of transgression, and by explaining what he sees with minute details, he makes the reader an accomplice to his dangerous but obviously pleasing eroticized experience.

In Massinger’s The Renegado, the harem is the setting where Vitelli and

Donusa have sexual intercourse and are subsequently caught by the Turks. As such, it offers an attractive site for the staging of the threat of conversion, and its depiction offers quite a similar picture to that presented in Dallam’s account.

Vitelli penetrates of the outer layers of the palace to reach Donusa’s quarters, “a forbidden place / Where Christian yet ne’er trode” (II.iv.32-33). By giving

Donusa’s privileged name, Vitelli safely passes through the doors guarded by janissaries and arrives at “some private room the sunbeams never enter”

(II.iv.130). As Vitelli gradually discovers the innermost riches of the palace, the audience is offered a vision of the forbidden seraglio and is allowed to witness a scene of wealth, sensual pleasure, and danger. By indulging in exotic and erotic experiences with a veiled Islamic beauty in the Ottoman seraglio, Vitelli actually fulfills the fantasy that Dallam inspires in his readers. At the same time, as in

Dallam’s account, in The Renegado the harem is presented as a deadly place, for 157

Vitelli immediately faces the threat of conversion and death when Muslim men discover his presence there.

The vision of the harem, which is charged with eroticism and framed with danger for the intruder, as depicted in both Dallam’s and Massinger’s representations, inaugurates the stereotypical image of the sultan’s court which becomes “the obligatory topos” presented in almost all of the European travel and literary writings on the Orient from this period onwards (Grosrichard 125).

Regarding to the image of the Muslim woman, in particular, this voyeuristic vision introduced by early modern writers marks a critical turning point. Though the view of the harem as a locus of sensual pleasures comes largely as a response to the

Ottoman imperial threat, by exposing the Muslim woman as the object of desire of an explicit masculine fantasy, this vision over-eroticizes her already sexualized image. Simultaneously, it designates the harem as the Muslim woman’s natural habitat, where she is gradually degraded, reduced, and marginalized as an inferior being.

At the centre of early modern representations of the harem, there is always an Islamic ruler, who conforms to the stereotype of the wrathful, lustful despot who exercises absolute power over his subjects (Vitkus, Turning Turk 115). All harem women belong to this one man, who rules solely by will and appetite and commits acts of cruelty in the name of the supposedly false religion. In The

Renegado, Asambeg, the viceroy of Tunis, falls into this stereotypical depiction.

He is a grim and merciless man, whose “fiery looks” (II.v.73) spread horror over his subjects. Though Donusa is not one of Asambeg’s harem women (as she is the niece of the Ottoman sultan), the viceroy has a captive Christian maiden, Vitelli’s 158

sister Paulina, who was abducted and given to him for “the fatting of his seraglio”

(II.v.16). The Turkish ruler “madly dote[s]” (II.v.119) on his beautiful prisoner and he desires to violate her chastity. Driven by jealousy, he locks her in a dark room in the palace, keeping her isolated from all human society.

At the beginning of The Renegado, when Vitelli learns that the “fair

Christian virgin” sold to the Turkish viceroy is Paulina, he laments his sister’s plight by imagining her “[m]ewed up in his seraglio and in danger / Not alone to lose her honor, but her soul” (I.i.129-30). He fears that Asambeg is trying to force her to give up her chastity and her Christian faith:

While he, by force or flattery, compels her To yield her fair name up to his foul lust And after, turn apostata, to the faith That she was bred in. (I.i.136-39)

Vitelli’s fears about Paulina’s imprisonment in the Ottoman palace reveal the

Christian maiden’s vulnerable position as a potential concubine for the Muslim viceroy. If Paulina surrenders to Asambeg’s sexual advances and becomes his woman, she will also turn an “apostata,” a female renegade, and will never be redeemable. However, contrary to her brother’s assumptions, Paulina proves to be completely invincible in the face of the Muslim man’s lechery and seems perfectly capable of defending her virtue. While Paulina is protected from the viceroy’s lust with the sacred relic that the priest Francisco gave to her, the Christian maiden’s resolved attitude shows that she is actually thoroughly immune to Asambeg’s sexual advances. While the viceroy wishes to wed Paulina, the latter despises his flatteries, “spit[s] at ’em, and scorne[s] ’em (II.v.125). Assured of her “innocent virtue,” she boldly defies his “tortures” and “barbarous cruelty” (II.v.126, 128). 159

Though typically a ruthless man, Asambeg feels incapacitated in the face of the unrelenting resolution of his fair captive. Overcome by his passion, he feels unable to punish the Christian woman’s express hostility. Thus, despite her imprisonment,

Paulina defeats her Muslim captor with her virginal power and devotion to her faith, and contrary to her brother who succumbs to Donusa’s temptation, she effectively resists Islam.

Paulina’s heroic defense of her chastity, which puts the Turkish viceroy in shame and agony, proves to be another Christian victory featured in the play; yet, at the same time, it reveals that the threat of conversion has different implications for the Christian woman and the Christian man. Vitelli’s submission to sexual temptation is shown to be recoverable, as the hero is easily saved by faith alone, despite his sexual union with the Ottoman princess. However, the situation for

Paulina seems to be far less flexible. Her bodily chastity needs to remain uncompromised; because once it is invaded by the Muslim man, the Christian woman’s identity will be completely and irrevocably undone. Within this understanding, a man’s spiritual faithfulness is independent of his body, whereas a woman’s spiritual constancy is seen as indivisible from the integrity of her body and must be supplemented by her physical chastity. Moreover, a woman is supposedly inclined to sin by nature. When she is “slaved to appetite,” as one character comments, nothing can keep her from being “[f]alse and unworthy”

(IV.ii.15, 16). Apparently, the play’s confidence in the efficiency of inner faith as a counter measure to Islamic apostasy is limited when it comes to the conversion of the Christian woman. Indeed, when Paulina feigns to desire conversion to Islam in order to gain time for the Christians’ escape and announces that she “will turn 160

Turk,” none of the Christians in attendance responds to her with disbelief. On the contrary, with crude misogyny Vitelli’s servant Gazet encapsulates the Christian heroine’s declaration in his aside: “Most of your tribe do so / When they begin in whore” (5.3.152-153).

The play’s emphasis on the vision of Paulina as a potential female renegade becomes more meaningful when it is construed against the historical instances of captivity of Christian women and their enslavement in Islamic harems in this period. Within the context of Mediterranean trafficking and piracy, hundreds of women were abducted from Christian territories and sold as desirable commodities in the slave markets of Turkey and North Africa. Islamic law allowed these women to be used as concubines and a large part of the harem women in early modern Ottoman courts were Christian slaves. Both Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations attest to the vulnerability of Christian women to Turkish abduction and enslavement in harems. Also, accounts of captive

Christian virgins who became queens to Ottoman sultans were widely circulated in

Massinger’s London. While most of these women were captives from Eastern

European countries and the Mediterranean region, there were also Englishwomen in the Islamic courts of Algiers and Morocco, as Matar has documented (Turks,

Moors and Englishmen 41). The story of Paulina’s position as an abducted

Christian woman enclosed in the harem of the Tunisian viceroy approximates to these real-life incidents. Thus, through the confrontation between Paulina and

Asambeg, The Renegado presents a second scenario for the harem; yet instead of masculine fantasies about what is going on inside the harem walls, this time the 161

scenario involves fears regarding the fate of the Christian women behind these hidden walls.8

The practice of concubinage, which involved the enslavement of women of non-Muslim origin in the harems for the purposes of reproduction and menial labor, had been a standard feature of the Ottoman society since the early years of the empire. According to Islamic law, a man could have four legal wives and as many concubines as he wanted to, as long as he could provide for all the women and children in his household, and throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, members of the Ottoman ruling class regularly kept slave concubines acquired through warfare and plunder alongside their legal wives. As the

Ottomans expanded their territories and imperial influence, the number of concubines in Islamic harems significantly increased. In fact, within the Ottoman dynasty slave concubinage was adopted almost as a reproductive principle from the mid-fifteenth century onwards (Peirce, The Imperial Harem 17). Earlier sultans contracted legal marriages with princesses of neighboring Christian and

Muslim royal houses for diplomatic purposes (Peirce 29). By the sixteenth century, however, the empire had already become a world power and it was perceived that establishing intimate familial bonds with lesser powers could jeopardize the sultan’s autonomy (Peirce 30). A concubine woman did not constitute such a threat for the sultanate, because her lineage was rejected by the

Ottoman patriarchy upon entrance to the harem (Peirce 17).

8 In an essay entitled “Slavery, Sex, and the Seraglio: ‘Turkish’ Women in Early Modern Texts” (2008), Malieckal similarly draws attention to the non-Turkish/non-Muslim origin of the Ottoman harem women. She puts the word “Turkish” in quotes when referring to these slave women and emphasizes the prominent role they played in the Ottoman Empire. 162

In Massinger’s play, this erasure of the concubine’s personal history is a problematic issue. Vitelli’s concern that Asambeg’s violation of Paulina’s chastity would also permanently undo her Christian identity is not altogether groundless, because, obviously, Islam denied a concubine’s history, thus her previous inscription by Christian patriarchy. However, we should note that this rejection would not include Paulina’s religion, as claimed by Vitelli. A concubine could remain Christian even if she legally married a Muslim man. Though this can be related to Islam’s tolerance to other Abrahamic religions, the same understanding was not shown to a Christian man, as demonstrated in the play by the sultan’s decree which requires Vitelli either to convert or to die for having a sexual relationship with a Muslim woman. Apparently, Christian and Muslim patriarchies shared similar concerns of miscegenation and assumed an analogy between the chastity and religious identity of their women when set against foreign men.

According to this shared patriarchal perspective, a woman’s identity was determined by the identity of the man who owned her body; for this reason, once a

Christian woman fell in the possession of a Muslim man, it was of less importance for both Muslims and Christians whether she remained true to her religion or not.

The opposition between Islam and Christianity was essentially understood by both parties not as a war of religions but as a war of patriarchies, in which women were valued merely as commodities that were either exchanged as trophies of conquest or identified as passive bearers of male seed that should be protected from foreign men’s inscription.

However, in the Islamic tradition, when a Christian concubine in an

Ottoman court fulfilled her role prescribed by the patriarchy and gave birth to a 163

Muslim man’s offspring, despite her position as a slave, she could enjoy many legal and social privileges both within the household and in the community. In non-dynastic houses, for example, once a concubine had borne a child she could not be sold or alienated from the household. Her stipend was increased, she was served and treated with respect by others, and she became a free woman if her master died or wished to marry her (Peirce, The Imperial Harem 30). If this

Christian woman was a concubine in the imperial harem, on the other hand, the extent of the status and privileges that she could attain was extraordinary. Though she entered the harem devoid of lineage, her new role bestowed “a kind of retroactive or reverse lineage” and a corresponding social status, which emanated from “the blood link to the royal family established through [her] offspring”

(Peirce 41). Starting her career as the physical custodian of the child prince, a concubine mother acted as a lifelong advisor and ally for her son. In the event that a concubine’s son ascended to the throne, her career could culminate in attaining the politically recognized title of the valide sultan, a title which in the Ottoman hierarchy came second only to the sultan himself. In other words, the intimate mother-son relationship with the reigning sultan or his heir allowed concubine mothers to attain an immense power within the dynasty. Many of these women used this power effectively to become strategic players of the empire and their activities extended well beyond the walls of the harem to the domestic and international Ottoman politics.

Safiye Sultan (1550-1605), mother of Mehmed III, who corresponded with

Elizabeth I and played a significant role in the establishment of Anglo-Ottoman relations, as explained earlier in this thesis, was one of these concubine mothers. 164

Born as Sofia Baffo, daughter of the Venetian Governor of Corfu, she was captured and presented to Murad III’s harem sometime in the 1560s. Safiye acted as Murad’s voice in diplomatic correspondence and after his death in 1595, she became the valide sultan and ruled as co-ruler with her son for eight years until

Mehmed III’s death in 1603. Concubine mothers who reigned both before and after Safiye were also very powerful women. Her immediate predecessor Nurbanu

Sultan, or Cecilia Venier-Baffo (1525-1583), was also a noble woman of Venetian descent; in fact, she was a natural cousin of Safiye. After she became the valide sultan in 1574, Nurbanu maintained a pro-Venetian political position and corresponded with Queen Catherine de' Medici of France (Peirce, The Imperial

Harem 153). The most famous of these concubine women was probably Hürrem

Sultan (1506-1558), or Roxelana as she is called in European languages. Her original name was Aleksandra Lisowska, daughter of a Ruthenian priest from western Ukraine, then part of Poland. After being abducted by Crimean Tatars, she was taken as a slave to Constantinople and selected for the harem of Süleyman I.

The Sultan contracted legal marriage with this concubine and fathered five children with her.9 Hürrem was Süleyman’s advisor on internal matters of the state and corresponded with the Polish and Persian states (Peirce 67). The legendary love between the two inspired several European artistic and literary works, including three English plays written in the seventeenth century.10

9 Normally Hürrem should have been disqualified as the sultan’s sexual partner after the birth of her first son Mehmed, under the “one-mother-one-son” rule and would have eventually accompanied her son to an Ottoman province. However, Hürrem’s reign departed from the established practice and the power she attained created a general mood of discontent within the Ottoman community. Many thought the Sultan was “bewitched” by his concubine (Andrea 16-17).

10 Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (composed c. 1604, published 1609), Sir William Davenant’s The Siege of Rhodes (1656) and Earl of Orrey’s Mustapha (1665). In Greville’s play, which was influenced by Senecan

165

When seen in comparison to the vulnerable position that the early modern

European writers speculated for enslaved Christian women in Ottoman harems, the extent of the power and public esteem that these real-life concubine women achieved creates a telling contradiction. Though these women were technically slaves, they were not treated as such; on the contrary, they occupied a position at the center of the dynastic power and exercised extraordinary authority which they attained merely through their feminine roles in the royal family.11 The systematic enslavement of Christian youths to be converted and trained to fill the highest administrative and military offices of the state was a fundamental Ottoman polity.

Together with this slave corps, women of the imperial harem formed the core of the Ottoman courtly elite in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and marriages between the members of the two groups were not uncommon. Apparently, opportunities of advancement and wealth offered by the Ottoman Empire were not restricted to Christian male apostates. Many female renegades also enjoyed social and political privileges within the Ottoman community, and several of them acted as powerful sultanas and queen mothers in the empire’s history.

In addition, this historical information about the harem women is significant in pointing to certain European misconceptions about this Islamic drama, Hürrem is involved in the murdering of Süleyman’s eldest son Mustapha to secure her own son’s position. The play misrepresents the Ottoman history by making Mustapha the heir apparent to the Sultan and Hürrem/Rossa a malicious usurper.

11This particular period which is known in both popular and scholarly literature as ‘the sultanate of women’ continued until the death of Kösem Sultan in 1651. Kösem, originally named Anastasia, was the daughter of a priest on the Island of Tinos and was probably the most powerful woman in Ottoman history. Kösem was valide sultan for almost thirty years (1623-1651) and she practically ruled the empire alone when she acted as the official regent during the minority of her son, Murad IV, between 1623 and 1632 and her grandson, Mehmed IV, between 1648 and 1651. The imperial harem’s rise to power is considered as one of the most dramatic developments in Ottoman history and was often interpreted by Ottoman politicians “as a sign of the ‘decline’ of the empire” (Andrea 14). In a recent research on the position of Greek women in the Ottoman Empire, Maria-Anna Garviniotou has argued that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the harem women continued to act as influential members of the dynasty, who took initiative and gave important decisions. 166

setting as a site of orgiastic sexuality and oriental despotism, which are reflected also in Massinger’s The Renegado. While sexual desire was one of the essential dynamics of harem life, the Ottoman court was clearly not a locus of hidden sensuality or a paradise of pleasure, reserved for the gratification of one man as represented in early modern accounts. As in any hereditary dynasty, the outcome of the sultan’s sexual activity had political significance; thus sex in the harem was necessarily regulated by rules (Peirce, The Imperial Harem 3). Furthermore, the harem’s vital role in the perpetuation of the Ottoman royal family and the need to prepare the concubines as potential consorts and mothers for the sultans rendered the sixteenth century harem a “highly structured and disciplined training institution,” which resembled a “nunnery” because of its strict hierarchy and enforced chastity (Peirce 6). The harem was forbidden, off the limits for outsider’s eyes; yet, its inaccessibility was not due to the jealousy of a caricaturized tyrant, but rather to the harem’s status as a sacred and exalted place, where the privacy of the women needed to be protected (Peirce 4).12 In this respect the harem myth elaborated by Christian writers, which is often accompanied by voyeuristic fantasies like Vitelli’s erotic penetration of Donusa’s bedroom, can be read as an ironic allegorization of Western patriarchy’s own shortcomings, rather than as a sign of Islam’s degeneration.13

12 In fact, to an Ottoman subject the term ‘harem’ would not connote a space defined exclusively by sexuality. Derived from the Arabic root h-r-m, the harem is by definition a sanctuary or a sacred precinct. It refers to private quarters in a domestic residence to which general access is forbidden or controlled, as well as to the female members of a family. (Peirce, “Beyond Harem Walls” 43). As Peirce adds “The word harem is a term of respect, redolent of religious purity, and honor, and evocative of the requisite obeisance” (The Imperial Harem 3).

13 For a deconstruction of the harem as a western fantasy, see Alan Grosrichard’s, The Sultan’s Court: European Fantasies of the East, trans. Liz Heron (London: Verso, 1998) pp. 143-146 167

Deep-rooted hostility against Islam and feelings of fear and envy about the

Ottomans’ expansionist policy were important motives that drove the Christian writers to posit the seraglio as the epitome or the secret core of the corrupt power of this empire, and women inhabiting it as the victimized, sexualized subjects of

Islamic tyrants. Customs like polygamy and concubinage, which were associated with the image of the harem, were unfamiliar concepts to Christians and were misinterpreted, often intentionally, as if they were universally practiced by

Muslims in an attempt to prove Islam’s licentiousness, though many Christian writers knew that these customs were largely restricted to a small elite group.14 It is further important to take into account that “the seraglio tale is rooted in a West” which was “beginning to question the principles of its political institutions, the pools of education, the role of the family, and the enigma of the relations between the sexes” (Grosrichard 125). For this reason, alongside the concerns about the

Ottoman imperial threat, the socio-economic conditions and prerogatives with respect to gender in Western societies constituted an important reference point for

Christian writers in constructing the myth of the harem.

As I discussed in the previous chapter, the Renaissance and the

Reformation generated a new set of attitudes at every level of the social life in

England, and these changes were registered to a large extent in the notion of an ideal family. Greater responsibilities attributed to the wife in this new model caused an elevation in the woman’s status within the household. In addition, the

14In A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, with an Account of the Author’s Being Taken Captive (1704), Joseph Pitts says: “[i]t hath been reported that a Mohammetan may have as many wives as he pleaseth, and I believe it is so, yet there is not one in a thousand hath more than one wife, except it be in the country, where some here and there may have two wives, yet I never knew but one which had as many as three wives” (Reprinted in Vitkus, Piracy 243). 168

spiritual equality of man and woman proffered by Protestantism, together with the humanists’ emphasis on women’s education and the growing demand for industrial labor force, allowed many women to contribute actively to the social and economic life in England. However, Englishwomen’s increasing intrusion into the public domain was at the same time a constant source of anxiety and resentment for their male counterparts. Fearing that their dominance would be compromised,

Englishmen implemented greater measures in order to control women and constantly attempted to re-confine them to the private realm of the household, where they could merely fulfill their duties of childcare, home-keeping, and domestic production.

The image of the harem, which was introduced to the English imagination in this period and the hostility against women, implied in its image provided a fertile discursive ground for early modern writers to explore and reflect on the intricate gender paradigms emerging in England. As a foreign model, the harem was the proof that the women’s domain was universally restricted to the household and her prescribed role was to fulfill her feminine duties and show complete submission to her husband’s authority. Simultaneously though, the harem was a negative model for the Protestant ideal, for it showed that when left unguided by true morals, the natural male dominancy could reach to a point of tyranny, where women were veiled, enclosed, and enslaved because of unchecked male jealousy and cruelty. In the hands of the Christian writers, the image of the harem and its women became an extremely efficient discursive trope to exhibit the civility of

Christian patriarchy in contrast to the barbarity that women were presumably subjected to in other parts of the world. By underlining the extent of excessive 169

liberties that women enjoyed in England, the victimized image of the Muslim woman provided the much-needed argument to respond efficiently to the

Englishwomen’s rising protests about their inferior status.

The defensive stance of Englishmen was called forth by the increasing advances of women, for, despite all the sanctions and measures taken against them, many Englishwomen continued to transgress their boundaries and actively engaged in the male domains of public life, religion, literature, and industrial production.15 In addition, descriptions of foreign visitors to early modern London, which compare the city to a “paradise of women” where, rather than fulfilling their household chores, women went about town in their finery and chatted and drank ale with men, suggest that the actual Englishwomen, or at least some of them, hardly conformed to the home-keeping, motherly ideal propounded in the period’s writings on proper female conduct. (Warnicke 7). Even if these observations are exaggerated, they attest to the fact that early modern Englishwomen indeed challenged the established patriarchal norms at various degrees, and that their transgressions compelled their male counterparts to seek support even from non-

European models, such as the Ottoman.

The setting of the harem and the status of woman in Muslim society, as represented in The Renegado, serve a similar strategic function. While Vitelli’s indulgence in sensual pleasures in the dangerous Ottoman seraglio and Paulina’s

15 For evidence of women’s achievements in the Renaissance period see Judith Brown’s “A Woman’s place was in the home: women’s work in Renaissance Tuscany” (1986), Margaret Ezel’s The Patriarch’s Wife: Literary Evidence and the History of the Family (1987), Elaine Beilin’s Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance (1987), Alison Wall “Elizabethan precept and feminine practice: the Thynne family of Longleat” (1990), and Tina Krontiris’ Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and Translators of Literature in the English Renaissance (1992). 170

role as an enslaved potential concubine conform to the stereotypical image of the harem in early modern representations, certain scenes in the play present a direct comparison of the liberties of women in the Muslim and Christian societies. By alluding to alleged Turkish forms of absolute male domination, Massinger attacks

Islam as a hypocritical religion which allows sexual license to men, while oppressing and confining women. At the same time, with misogynistic satire, he criticizes the supposed audacious and liberal position of women in the English society, by explicitly exploiting the inferior image of the Muslim woman.

The public trial of Donusa for her illicit sexual liaison with a Christian man is used as an opportunity to undermine and attack Islamic law as an arbitrary, irrational set of rules which victimizes women. The fact that Asambeg releases

Paulina from her confinement in order to allow her to watch the trial also hints at the idea that the moral lesson conveyed in this scene is specifically addressed to the female members of the play’s audience. Donusa enters the stage dressed in black, indicating that “her sentence is gone out before” (IV.ii.75) and she is already facing execution. So, all she can do is plead for compassion, relying on her position as the niece of the Ottoman sultan and the fact that this is “the first spot tainting [her] honor” (IV.ii.97). Yet, the cruel viceroy would “dare not pity”

(IV.ii.67) her and denies her appeals. The frustrated princess thus rises up against her accuser and condemns the double standard that she is being subjected to. She scorns the Muslim man for being “a tyrant,”

A most voluptuous and insatiable epicure In his own pleasures; which he hugs so dearly, As proper and peculiar to himself, That he denies a moderate lawful use Of all delight to others. (IV.ii.118-122) 171

Donusa is aware that Asambeg keeps in the harem a “lovely Christian virgin”

(IV.ii.139) whom he intends to marry and she wonders:

Thy offense Equal if not transcending mine, why then (We being both guilty) dost thou no descend From that usurped tribunal and with me Walk hand in hand to death? (IV.ii.139-143)

In addition, Donusa attacks the unjust laws of “[i]ndulgent Mahomet” for making

“weak women servants, proud men masters” (IV.ii.128, 127). Though her pleasures are deemed unlawful, having her “heate and May of youth,” she can be excused for her offense. But, these “bloody laws” term “her embraces with a

Christian a death” (IV.ii.129), while allowing the Muslim men to use “cobweb edicts” (IV.ii.132) and license themselves to “tame their lusts” with any beautiful woman, whether “Persian, Moore, / Idolatresse, Turke, or Christian” (IV.ii.133,

135-136). Donusa’s speech reveals the Islamic hypocrisy in giving power and privilege only to men, while subjugating women with injustice and cruelty. The inferior status of Muslim women as exhibited in this scene, in effect, renders the

Ottoman social order an inverted reflection of Christian patriarchy, which is presumably built on principles of rationality, self-control, and restraint of base emotions, while simultaneously it functions as a reminder of the extent of the liberties that Christian women were allowed in their home society.

The playwright’s preoccupation with the comparison of women’s liberties in the Ottoman and English societies can also be observed in an earlier scene where Donusa and her English-born eunuch slave, Carazie, are caught in a 172

conversation about women in England. In this scene, Massinger once again presents Islam as a religion of lechery and oppression. At the same time, he criticizes the audacious Englishwomen, who ask for greater liberties despite the excessive freedom they enjoyed in contrast to their Muslim sisters. Donusa begins by addressing Carazie: “I have heard / That Christian ladies live with much more freedom / Than such as are born here” (I.ii.16-18). Complaining about the position of women in her own society, she continues:

Our jealous Turks Never permit their fair wives to be seen, But at the public bagnios, or the mosques, And even then, veil’d and guarded. (I.ii.19-21)

Then, she questions Carazie about the custom among the women of England. The account that the eunuch slave gives in his response is not at all different than the descriptions of foreign visitors who view England as a “paradise of woman.”

Carazie explains:

Women in England, For the most part, live like queens. Your country ladies, Have liberty to hawk, to hunt, to feast, To give free entertainment to all comers, To talk, to kiss; there’s no such thing known there As an Italian girdle. Your city dame, Without leave, wears the breeches, has her husband At as much command as her prentice; and if need be Can make him cuckold by her father’s copy. (I.ii.27-35)

Women in Carazie’s account obviously have nothing to do with the “veil’d and guarded” women that Donusa describes. Contrary to Muslim women who are oppressed by their jealous husbands, Carazie’s Englishwomen know “nothing but

[their] will.” They perform acts and enjoy privileges which are ordinarily reserved for men. Their bodies, like their speech, defy men’s rule and circulate without 173

restriction. They freely cuckold their husbands and will one day actually do so by law:

… that is not only fit, but lawful, Your madam, there, her much rest and high feeding Duly consider’d, should, to ease her husband, Be allow’d a private friend: they have drawn a bill To this good purpose, and, the net assembly, Doubt not to pass it. (I.ii.43-48)

Taken aback by Carazie’s portrayal of women in England, Donusa ironically remarks: “[w]e enjoy no more / That are o’the Ottoman race, though our religion /

Allows all pleasure” (I.ii.49-51). Of course, the Islamic rule that Donusa refers to licenses only men to enjoy such sexual freedom. However, even if she is veiled and supposedly secluded, by recklessly circulating in the streets and indulging in sexual pleasures with the first man she sees, Donusa justifies every point in the diatribe against the excessive liberties of women (Kahf 105). Nevertheless,

Carazie’s exaggerated account that depicts English women as decisively opposing patriarchal constraints, presents their behavior as even more unnatural and immoral than that of Donusa. Within the context of Islam’s alleged licentiousness,

Donusa’s statement becomes a measure for the freedom enjoyed by women in

England and effectively denounces and forecloses any appeals for more.

Thus, within a plot which combines the threat of religious apostasy with the romance pattern of a Christian hero’s conquest of a Muslim princess in the setting of exotic Islamic lands, Massinger not only echoes the anxieties against the expansionist Ottomans, but also presents the Muslim and Christian worlds in many ways as mirror images to posit a clash of civilizations, as well as to reflect on certain contemporary problems faced by English patriarchy. Islamic symbols 174

introduced in the play, such as the veil and the harem, inaugurate some of the most enduring tropes of Orientalism and simultaneously serve as strategic tools to justify the subjugation of women in England at a time when the society was going through a crisis in gender. What Christian patriarchy expects of women is embodied in Paulina, who, in contrast to her steadfast defense from aggressive

Muslim lust, displays an altogether obedient and humble attitude in the presence of

Christian men. Once converted to Christianity, Donusa also conforms to this ideal of femininity. Free of Islamic lechery and oppression, she happily submits to the authority of her Christian husband. Though Donusa primarily functions as a component of the Christian-Muslim confrontation, the instant containment of her transgressive qualities is clearly the kind of transformation that Englishmen expected from their own disobedient, unruly wives.

If in the conversion of Donusa Massinger is able to erase the alterity between the Christian heroine and the Muslim princess so easily, this is largely because Donusa’s white skin and aristocratic status aid her incorporation into a

Christian-European framework and facilitate her assimilation. Throughout the play, both Donusa and Paulina are described as exceedingly beautiful and fair.

Apparently, her desirability as a woman and her aristocratic rank render Donusa less than the Other, and consequently her conversion does not pose any danger on the “whiteness of Christian patriarchy” (Loomba, “Break Her Will” 104). In the remaining chapters of this study, I intend to read the representation of the Muslim woman against racial prejudices in early modern Europe, prejudices that were particularly intensified by the Spanish experiences with black-skinned non-

Christian peoples, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Americas. In the 175

remaining two plays, I will analyze the ideological inscription of the Muslim woman within the context of English colonial aspirations in the seventeenth century. I will point to the crucial function of the skin color in codifying the differences between various kinds of Muslims, and try to demonstrate how discourses on color, gender and religious ideology inform one another in the imaginative construction of the Other, as well as in the self-fashioning of a colonial ideal that is reflective of English nationalistic sentiments.

176

Chapter 5

Dark Female Sexuality and the Fear of Ottoman Colonialism in

The Knight of Malta

The threat that the Islamic Ottoman Empire posed on Europe throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries should be understood as a complex and multivalent one, which operated on several levels and changed over time. As

European economies became increasingly dependent on the luxury goods that were obtained from the territories under Ottoman control, the Christian-Muslim contact inevitably intensified. Despite King James’s explicit animosity against the

Turks, England’s trade with the Ottoman Empire reached its peak point in the

1620s. With the growing participation in the Mediterranean commerce, the number of English merchants and seamen venturing into Ottoman lands also increased. Consequently, piracy, enslavement, and religious conversion remained constant risks for Christians throughout this period, as demonstrated by the two turning Turk plays I analyzed in the preceding chapters. Both A Christian Turned

Turk and The Renegado call our attention to the immediate economic and religious threats that this commercial and cross-cultural contact implied for the Englishmen of the early modern period. However, given the particular military strengths and imperial aspirations of the Ottomans, implications of the contemporary Turkish power were far more extensive and pervasive for Europe. The successive military conquests of the Ottoman Empire in Christian territories and its extortion of taxes 177

and labor from colonized states indicated that European nations had to face not only the religious and commercial but also the imperial and colonial implications of the Ottoman expansion.

In this chapter I will focus on the Christian anxieties in the face of Turkish expansionism in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. I will discuss the strategies of representation of early modern English writers in countering the perceived territorial and colonial threat of Islam. Through a close reading of The

Knight of Malta (1616-1619) by John Fletcher, Nathan Field, and Philip

Massinger, I want to show how the gendered pattern of representation in the period’s drama that expresses English concerns with respect to the cultural and commercial contact with Islam is used to reflect the Christian fears about Ottoman colonialism. The play features two Muslim female characters, one of whom is stigmatized by the black color of her skin, while the political and ideological struggle in the play is centered on the sexual affinities of these women with

Christian male characters. In my analysis I argue that in the depiction of the black woman, the play highlights the threat of racial and moral contamination associated with Ottoman expansionism, and presents a strategy of resistance by countering the malignity of this woman and by ultimately expelling her from the Christian community. In the portrayal of the white Muslim woman, on the other hand, the play represents the object of colonial desire, and through the dramatization of her honorable conquest by a civilized Christian masculinity it fashions a European colonizer who is specifically modeled in contrast to the presumed tyranny of the

Ottoman imperialism.

178

Ottoman Colonialism and the Order of Malta

Having reached the very gates of Vienna in 1529, the Ottomans conquered the vast majority of Christian territories in Eastern Europe within the following several decades. North African regencies in Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli also became

Ottoman dominions in the 1530s, enabling the Turkish empire to assert control over the entire eastern Mediterranean region. Turkish vessels were regularly raiding the coasts of Italy, Spain, and France. Though the Ottoman navy was unexpectedly crushed by a combined European fleet in 1571 at the Battle of

Lepanto, this proved to be merely a temporary setback. The Ottomans soon resumed expanding their territories and two years later after Lepanto, the

Venetians were forced to recognize by treaty the Ottoman possession of Cyprus, which was the initial cause for the declaration of war between the two. It was also during this period that several European nations first embarked upon overseas voyages, with the intent of exploiting and conquering lands in the Americas.

Though the contact with the peoples of the New World might have generated a sense of European superiority, this was clearly not the case for the West’s relations with the Islamic East. While Christian nations were establishing their first permanent colonies in the New World, they constantly faced the threat of being colonized by the Ottomans at home (Vitkus, “Early Modern Orientalism” 210).

Until the very end of the seventeenth century, the outcome of the global contest for world resources and power remained uncertain and the Turk represented a fierce colonial threat to the entire Christendom.

Based in Constantinople, the military strength of the Ottoman Empire was derived from its unified geographical presence and governmental authority, which 179

allowed it to maintain control over colonized territories and protect itself against revolt. The key to the structure of the Ottoman state was the system of timariots. In an arrangement similar to that of European feudal lords, timariots were men entrusted by the sultan with the control of a colonized territory and its inhabitants.

During time of war they joined the Ottoman army, and in times of peace they took care of the sultan’s land by exploiting the workforce of the local peasants. In A

Relation of a Journey (1615) George Sandys described the Ottoman timariots as

“dispersed throughout the whole Empire” and “answerable to the greatnesse thereof: whereby the principall part of souldiery is provided for, and the Empire strengthened, both against foreigne invasions and revolts of the subdued” (48).

In addition, while the Ottomans did not force the native Christian populations of conquered lands to convert to Islam, they exacted heavy taxes from

Christian communities within their dominions. Many contemporary travel writers and historians attested to the fact that the implications of the Turkish colonization of Christians were mostly economic. For example, in A Voyage into the Levant

(1636) Henry Blount asserted that rather than merely putting Christian subjects to death, the Turk “takes a more pernicious way to extinguish Christianity ... Hee rather suckes the purse [of Christians], then unprofitable blood, and by perpetuall poverty renders them low towards himself, and heavie to one another” (110).

However, the heaviest tax that the Turks levied on the Christians living in their dominions took the form of systematic enslavement. Once every three years, ten to twelve thousand Christian children were taken from their parents as tribute to the sultan. These Christian youths “were distributed amongst the Turkish husbandsmen in Asia, there to learne the Turkish language, religion, and manners: 180

where after they had been brought up in all painefull labour and travaile by the space of two or three yeeres, they were called unto the court,” where they were trained to become Janissaries, who formed a highly feared cadre of the Turkish army (Knolles 71). Furthermore, the sultan’s “Bassaes, his Generals of his armies, and the Governours of his provinces and cities” were all selected from these tribute children (Knolles 72). This system served the Ottomans well, as it extracted from the Christians their “best elements, who might otherwise have been the natural leaders in resistance to the Turks” (Parry 73). Undergoing a forced conversion to become the very agent of the Turk’s invasion and subjugation of other Christians, these “creatures” of the sultan were the most striking and terrifying figures that represented the Ottoman colonization and assimilation

(Knolles 72).1

These grave disadvantages of Ottoman domination over Eastern Europe created a common sense which was frequently urged among Christian nations to set on a large-scale military campaign against the Islamic empire under the unifying cause of Christendom. Many contemporary writers adopted the religious rhetoric of the Crusades to characterize the Ottoman imperial threat. For example, in his General Historie, Knolles attested to the territorial threat that the Ottomans posed to the entire Christendom by saying “having conquered so much of [it] as far exceedeth that which is thereof at this day left” and argued that in “turning their weapons one upon another,” Christian nations “weakened themselves and

1 Nicholas de Nicolay in The Nauigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie (1585) similarly argues that the Turks do “by outrageous force ravish these most deare infants & bodies, free by nature, from the lappes of their fathers & mothers, into a servitude of enmity more than bestiall, from babtisme to circumcision, from the companie of the Christian faith, to servitude and Barbarous infidelity, from childly & fatherly kindness to mortal enmity towards their own blood” (69). 181

opened a way for [the Turk] to devoure them one after another” and urged them to forget their “endlesse quareles” and “joyne their common forces against the common enemie” (iii). Despite the growing secularization and division among religious factions in Europe, the language of holy warfare employed within the

Christian-Turk opposition in the early modern age served an important strategic purpose that was largely motivated by Europe’s fear of colonization and exploitation (Degenhardt 220).

In line with the growing ambivalence about strategic alliances among

Christian nations, many early modern English playwrights dramatized or alluded to coalitions of Protestants and Catholics against the Turks. For example in A

Christian Turned Turk, the dying Captain Ward’s final speech clearly sounds like a call for a crusade, where he curses the Turks praying:

O may, the force of Christendom Be reunited and all at once requite The lives of all that you have murdered, Beating a path to Jerusalem Over the bleeding breasts of you and yours. (16.309-313)

Similarly, in The Renegado, Massinger gives us a highly sympathetic portrait of a

Catholic priest in the character and accomplishments of Francisco, notwithstanding the fact that a bitter anti-Catholic rhetoric prevailed in England at that time. By depicting Francisco as a heroic figure who not only saves both

Grimaldi and Vitelli, but also devises the escape plan for all the Christians in

Tunis, the playwright clearly supports the notion of a common Christian cause against the evil of the Islamic enemy. 182

Written sometime between 1616 and 1619, The Knight of Malta provides a dramatization of a pan-Christian brotherhood forged against Ottoman imperialism.

The play is set on the small island of Malta which, together with Rhodes and

Cyprus, represented a crucial battleground for military and commercial control of the Mediterranean, and was thus heavily contested by Christian and Ottoman forces throughout the sixteenth century. Rewriting the historical siege of Malta by the Ottomans in 1565, the play invokes the real European anxieties about the territorial expansion of the Turks. At the same time, as a strategy to resist conquest, it adopts the rhetoric of a Christian crusade, for without denying their

Catholic orientation, it idealizes the Knights of the Order of Malta and their mission to combat the religious and colonial threat posed by the Ottomans.

Though the vow of chastity that all members of the Order were required to take was explicitly denounced by Protestantism, in the play it is shown to be crucial for maintaining the immunity of both the knights and the island to foreign intrusion and invasion.

The Order of the Knights Hospitallers, who later became known as the

Knights of Rhodes and Malta, was founded during the early crusading period as a pan-Christian alliance, whose initial mission was to perform works of charity for sick and poor pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem. After being driven out of Palestine by the Turks in 1291, the Knights settled in Cyprus. In 1309 they conquered the island of Rhodes and ruled it as an independent state until they were defeated by

Süleyman I in 1522. The Knights operated without a base for seven years before they established themselves on Malta. In 1530, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles

V assigned to the Order of Malta the task of taking Tripoli from the Turks. Apart 183

from this primary mission, the Knights’ avowed aim was to counter-attack the expansionist Ottomans in the Mediterranean Sea by harassing their shipping and searching out and destroying Turkish corsairs (Senior 99). Unlike the foot-loose pirates and renegades, who, in many cases, were men outlawed in their own country, the Knights of the Order of Malta were recruited from men of noble birth who were obliged to take vows of poverty and chastity. However, as Senior warns us, “it would be naïve to pretend that such vows were strictly adhered to, or that all vessels that sailed from Malta … were manned by saints” (99). The Knights failed in their attempt to capture Tripoli; moreover they left themselves vulnerable to an

Ottoman attack in 1565. Nevertheless, under the command of the Maltese Grand

Master Jean la Valette, who is featured in the present play, the Knights successfully repelled this Ottoman threat. The famous Christian defense of Malta, which was celebrated as a great victory around Europe, provided the historical background for The Knight of Malta as well as for some other English plays like

Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1589) and Webster’s The Devils Law Case (1623).

Though Christians retained the island and largely succeeded in holding the Turks at bay on both the Venetian and Austrian fronts, Malta’s boundaries continued to be threatened throughout the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. At the time The Knight of Malta appeared on stage, the island still connoted a sense of precarious, recently-won stability at the very edge of Christian Europe.2

2 For more historical information on the Order of Malta see Peter Mullany’s “The Knights of Malta in Renaissance Drama” (1973), C. M. Senior’s A Nation of Pirates: English Piracy in Its Heyday (1976), and Peter Earle’s Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (1970). 184

“Hell’s perfect character”

The Knight of Malta dramatizes the exceptional triumph of Christians in defending

Malta against the Ottomans; by so doing, it foregrounds a moment of Christian empowerment against Ottoman imperialism. Interestingly enough, even though the premise of the plot is the historical siege of Malta, the play de-emphasizes the problem of the Ottoman invading forces and avoids the dramatization of an actual combat between the Turks and the Knights. In the plot the Ottomans do not pose a significant military threat. Rather, the Christians confront the Turks off stage in

I.iii., where the victory of the Christians is signaled only by stage directions. The

Knights return safe from the naval battle, which takes place “within a league” of the island’s coast (I.iii.14) and by the beginning of the second act the Turkish siege of Malta is effectively dealt with.

Moreover, there is not a single male Turkish character that represents the threat of the Ottoman military forces. Instead, the threat of military invasion is displaced by an internal problem within the ranks of the Christian fellowship, as the problem originates in the spiritual contamination of one of the knights, whose illicit sexual relationship with a black Muslim woman appears to be the principal cause of all his evil doings. Rather than depicting an actual military encounter, the play represents the danger of foreign invasion through the figure of a Muslim woman, who assertively works against the Christian community and threatens the

Maltese religious and racial integrity. Thus, like in the previous turning Turk plays that I analyzed in this study, The Knight of Malta foregrounds the vice of lust as the weak point that renders the Christians vulnerable to foreign intrusion and 185

contamination. At the same time, the sexuality of an unbridled Islamic woman becomes the essential catalyst in the struggle between Christians and Muslims, constituting an immediate danger to the solidarity and unity of the Christian patriarchal order.

The moral and physical threat to the male fellowship of the Knights of

Malta is exposed by the duplicity of the French knight Mountferrat. As the villain of the play, Mountferrat breaks his vow of chastity, initiates a sexual liaison with the Moorish waiting-woman Zanthia, and together they devise evil schemes against the other members of the community. The French knight’s disclosure of his evil nature at the opening of the play demonstrates his lustful intentions towards Grand Master Valetta’s virtuous sister Oriana, and exposes him as a dishonorable man who is unfit for the role of protector of Malta. In his speech,

Mountferrat confesses that having served as a good soldier for sixteen years, he is no longer willing to adhere to his monastic vows. He maintains a sexual relationship with Zanthia, and wishes to have the same with Oriana. Though the virtuous maiden explicitly refuses his advances, even the smiles of pity that she sends are apparently bliss for Mountferrat:

Great Solyman that wearies his hot eyes, But to peruse his deck’d Ceraglio, When from the number of his Concubines He chooseth one for that night, in his pride Of them, wives, wealth, is not so rich as I In this one smile, from Oriana sent. (I.i.34-41)

In an environment where chastity is deemed essential for the protection of the

Christian community, Mountferrat’s imaginative glimpse of the Ottoman seraglio clearly places him on the negative side of the play’s officially declared values, as 186

he approves of this Islamic symbol of degeneration, rather than denounces it. A direct association is drawn between the Ottoman sultan’s lust and Mountferrat’s uncontrollable desire, which shows an affinity of the French knight with the enemy and identifies him as the fracture in the Christian brotherhood.

The play dramatizes the potential induction of two worthy men into the

Order of Malta. The two knights-to-be, the Italian Miranda and the Spanish

Gomera, are distinguished by the same military and class-related prerequisite qualities that make them good candidates for the fellowship. Yet, the play suggests that the true measure of the knights’ fitness for the Order is not nobility of birth and military skill, but their ability to maintain the vow of chastity, and it involves a series of tests to ensure that only a man fully devoted and capable of sustaining a life of chastity will be allowed to the fellowship. When invited to join the brotherhood by Valetta at the Order’s meeting, both Miranda and Gomera express uncertainty. At first, they plead their general unworthiness for the honor of knighthood, but soon it becomes clear that the real reason for their hesitancy is their mutual love for the same woman that Mountferrat desires. However, with

Mountferrat’s evil conspiracy, the situation becomes more complicated and the question of who shall marry Oriana gains broader national implications for Malta and its safety. In the same meeting, Mountferrat accuses Oriana publicly of facilitating a Turkish invasion by secretly agreeing to marry the Basha of Tripoli.

The forged letter resembling Oriana’s hand-writing gives direct evidence of treason. In front of Valetta and other members of the Order, the contents of the letter are read out loud:

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Let your forces by the next evening be ready; my brother feasts then; put in at St. Michaels; the ascent at that port is easiest; the keys of the castle you shall receive at my hands. That possess’d you are the Lord of Malta, and may soon destroy all by fire; than which I am hotter, ‘till I embrace you. Farewell! Your wife Oriana. (I.iii.156-160)

The letter clearly links female sexual desire with territorial invasion by suggesting that Oriana’s “hot” lust for the Basha and her desire to “embrace” him, dictate her treason against Malta, and this treason will enable the Basha to invade and become the “Lord” of the island. The safety of Malta suddenly becomes dependent on the chastity of Oriana and the patriarchal order demands her immaculate virtue as a force of resistance against the imminent Turkish invasion.

Though Oriana is never at the risk of being lost to the Basha of Tripoli, the tenuous integrity of the male characters in the play seems to be threatened when a woman is charged with treason. Oriana is sentenced to death by her brother, the

Grand Master Valetta, without even being allowed to speak. This fact reveals that it is not the defense of Christianity, but the defense of Christian masculinity at stake on the island of Malta. Upon being convicted for treason, Oriana calls herself a “martyr,” who is almost “innocent as borne” (I.iii.174). Although she has “no proof” of her innocence, her essential virtue seems to shine through, convincing

Gomera to rise up in her defense and challenge the accuser to a duel. With the undercover help of Miranda, who timely understands the villain’s conspiracy and fights in Mountferrat’s stead in order to lose purposely, Gomera wins the battle and relieves Oriana from the charges of treason. Though on this occasion each man proves his worthiness as a potential husband for Oriana, Valetta awards 188

Oriana to Gomera, who “deserves her more” since he was “the first to undertake her cause” (II.v.184, 185).

In the space of a single scene the play first showcases a challenge to the

Christian masculinity, with a woman’s alleged treachery, and then allows it to resume its dominant place, when the virtue of this woman proves constant and her chastity remains unbroken. In this case, the play places the Christian woman’s body in the service of masculinity, providing the Christian male ego with a space to act out its superiority and uphold its honor. At the same time, this scene reveals how significant the chastity of the members of the Christian community is in safeguarding the political and imperial threat of the Ottomans. Just as the Knights of the Order are required to take a vow of chastity to prove that they are worthy of becoming the protectors of Malta, Christian women are similarly charged with the responsibility of protecting its territory and national unity through their sexuality.3

The play maps a hostile exterior world constituted by Muslims at the edges of

Malta, and the bodily chastity of the Christians who inhabit it is presented as crucial in securing the island from the risk of Turkish conquest.

3 The inviolable chastity of the Christian heroine is a common strategy for resistance to the Turkish threat employed in many contemporary plays. Throughout the genre Muslim men regularly desire Christian women. In turn, Christian women actively defend their chastity against the repulsive advances of these corrupt and foolish Islamic rulers. In Massinger’s The Renegado, for example, Paulina is protected from the Muslim viceroy Asambeg’s lust by a sacred relic that she wears around her neck. In Thomas Kyd’s Soliman and Perseda (1591), Perseda puts poison on her mouth and forsakes her life in order to preserve her chastity, ensuring that her pursuer dies the moment he kisses her. Probably, the most unambiguously portrayed Christian heroine that overpowers a Muslim ruler is Bess Bridges in Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West (1600-1604). In the play, this beautiful English maiden is desired by Mullisheg, the king of Fez. Yet, in her encounters with the Moorish king, Bess successfully preserves her virginity in memory of the Englishman Spencer. Moreover taking advantage of the king’s doting, she effects the liberation of various Christian men that the Muslim ruler holds captive. Bess’ role in the play actually transgresses that of the Christian maiden who is merely devoted to a Christian hero. In charge of her own ship and men, Bess is a masculinized Christian woman, who is able to unite and mobilize the men around her for a greater cause (Howard “An English Lass Amid the Moors” 102). 189

The only weak point in this strict guard line of chastity that protects Malta is Mountferrat, who devises the scheme that threatens the solidarity of the Order.

Significantly, however, the real evil and treachery in the play appear to spring from the malignity of the Moorish servant-woman, Zanthia. The forged letter that accuses Oriana of betraying the island has actually been written by this black woman, and the language of this letter highlights the concupiscence of its true author. Through her creative writing, Zanthia subtly plays with the Order’s patriarchal insecurities and exposes the fragility of the assumed virtuous position of European masculinity. She shows how quickly the Christian men’s jealousy and suspicion can be provoked and how even a woman like Oriana can be vilified as a

“devil’s dam,” though she is the ultimate embodiment of the Order’s feminine ideal.

The play portrays Zanthia as a vile, lascivious and faithless woman whose only concern is the gratification of her lust. Her perjury and malice are driven by her insatiable desire, as all she expects from Mountferrat in return for her services is sexual intimacy. She uses her illegitimate relationship with the French knight as an opportunity for treachery, which is specifically aimed at her mistress Oriana, and more generally at the moral and social order of Malta. From the very beginning, Zanthia attacks the patriarchal prerogatives of the established order of

Malta with her transgressive femininity. Unlike Oriana, who, though a conformist, is easily discredited by her Christian brothers, Zanthia knows exactly how she is being used in the male economy. As Mountferrat approaches her with allurements, calling her his “black swan,” his “Pearle that scorns a staine” (I.i.163), Zanthia 190

immediately understands that this is the hint of a new favor that he would ask and retorts:

Ay, you say so now; But like a property, when I have serv’d Your turns, you’ll cast me off, or hang me up For a sign, somewhere. (I.i.166-169)

Zanthia is aware that the French knight does not value her as a lover; still, she is willing to enter the game to satisfy her own desires. Being black-skinned, she knows her worthlessness as a beautiful woman in the community, but she calls for an alternative view for sexual beauty:

My tongue Sir, cannot lispe to meet you so, Nor my black Cheeke put a feigned blush To make me seem more modest than I am. This ground-worke will not beare adulterate red, Nor artificial white, to cozen love. …. and yet Mountferrat, know I am as full of pleasure in the touch As e’re a white fac’d puppet of them all, Juicy and firme. (I.i.172-182)

Moreover, Zanthia defends the women’s right to pleasure when, in a conversation with Oriana later in the play, she compares the merits of husbands of various professions. She concludes that a soldier’s wife, like Oriana, is best because she will not be short-changed sexually. “Like a great Queen” she collects the booty he wins:

He layes it at her feet, and seeks no further For his reward, then what she may give freely, And with delight too, from her own Exchequer Which he finds ever open. (III.ii.60-63)

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Oriana, of course, is unwilling to face the question of female sexual desire that

Zanthia raises: “Be more modest / Thou talkst of nothing” (III.ii.64-65). Zanthia, however, retorts with her quick wit. Pointing to the swollen belly of her mistress, she says:

Of nothing Madam? You have found it something; Or with the raising up this pretty mount here, My lord hath dealth with spirits. (III.ii.68-70)

In The Knight of Malta Zanthia’s black color functions as the external proof of her spiritual degeneracy and renders her a symbol of sin and lechery. Her “black shape” serves as an indicator of her “blacker actions” and demonstrates her racial and social alterity, as well as her incompatibility with the Christian community.

Blackness had very broad significations in early modern English discourses and negative connotations of this word were well-established in the Elizabethan social lexicon, even before black people actually appeared in England.

In Christianity the white/black or light/dark polarity was inherently associated with the dualism of Good and Evil. White represented purity, innocence, and perfect human beauty, while black stood for sin, death, mourning, and danger (Fryer 135). With the intensified English contact with non-European peoples and the proliferation of slave trade in the sixteenth century, this traditional aesthetic discrimination and religious dogma became infused with ideas about the black peoples of Africa, as well as the New World. The view that many Africans, especially the sub-Saharans, lived under no organized religion and were “savage” and “wild” people “of beastly living” circulated in many travelogues, including an influential account of Africa by Leo Africanus, a converted Moor under the 192

custody of Giovanni Medici, Pope Leo X.4 The alleged departure of the black peoples of Africa and America from normative gender roles and their sexual exoticism, as described in these travelogues, “helped shape a model to control the meaning of Africa and legitimize conquest and exploitation, while consolidating normative gender roles and sexuality at home” (Loomba, Shakespeare, Race and

Colonialism 10).

Moreover, the tradition that associated blackness with Islam was already firmly established in early modern English culture. England’s outlook towards the

Moors was largely influenced by Spain’s Reconquista experience, which involved an 800-year effort to take back the Christian lands from these Muslim people of mixed Arab and Berber origin, who came through Gibraltar and invaded most of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century. Though the Moors were not necessarily dark-skinned people and had already become a powerless minority within the territories of Spain by the sixteenth century, the state and the Catholic

Church systematically oppressed and discriminated them on the basis of skin color and religion, fearing that they might regain the control of the land.5 In Spain, the difference between Christians and Muslims was a site of intense ideological anxiety and after the independent political existence of Muslims ended in 1492, a

4 Joannes Leo Africanus (original name al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi) was a Spanish traveler, scholar and diplomat who was captured by pirates and delivered to Vatican in 1518. It is told that the Pope was impressed by Leo’s learning and decided to convert him and become his godfather. He later encouraged him to write the stories of his travels. Leo’s work, A Geographical Historie of Africa was translated to English by John Pory in 1600. Leo’s accounts were also included in Purchas’s collection and remained as “the single most authoritative travel guide on Africa for the next three centuries” (Hall, Things of Darkness 28).

5 The concept of purity of blood, or limpenzia de sangre, introduced by the Inquisition in 1480, sought to differentiate “pure” Christians from converted Moors and Jews. As Loomba points out, these blood laws marked a crucial turning point in the history of race and dated the “new” racial vocabulary by introducing a correlation “between a ‘cultural’ category like religion and a ‘biological’ category like lineage” (Shakespeare, Race and Colonialism 7).

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series of revolts by the Moorish people broke out on the Iberian Peninsula and were suppressed by the Spanish state each time with more rigorous measures.6

The extraordinary proximity of Spain to the Moorish people within its territories, and its efforts to expel the assimilated Muslim elements from its newly founded nation constituted an instructive precedent with respect to cultural exchange and hybridity for the rest of Europe, as well as for England (Burton

110). While evidence for black presence in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mostly appears as isolated entries in parish records, household accounts, or personal diaries, Elizabeth’s two public proclamations dated 1596 and 1601 deporting the blacks from her realm indicate that black people had a viable existence and cultural significance in England in this period.

The proclamation issued in 1601 stated that:

…whereas the Queen’s majesty, tendering the good and welfare of her own natural subjects greatly distressed in these hard times of dearth, is highly discontented to understand the great numbers of Negars and Blackamoors which (as she is informed) are crept into this realms since the troubles between Her Highness and the King of Spain, who are fostered and relieved here to the great annoyance of her own liege people that want the relief which those people consume; as also for that the most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel, hath given especial commandment that the said kind of people should be with all speed avoided and discharged out of her majesty’s dominions… (Reprinted in Jones 20)

6 A 1566 edict which was protested by the Revolt of Alpujarras in 1568 prohibited “the Moriscos the use of the Arabic language, annulling of all contracts written in Arabic, surrendering all Arabic books within thirty days and prohibiting any Moorish rite, Moorish clothing, and the use of Arabic names and customs” (Chejne 10). Interracial marriage was banned, and castration was suggested as a method to prevent the repopulation of Spain with Muslims. By 1582, expelling the Muslims was already one of the options on Philip II’s table and in 1609, Spain finally decreed the expulsion of over a million of Moriscos “so that” as the Duke of Lerna put it; “all the kingdoms of Spain will remain pure and clean from this people” (qtd. in Chejne 13). For more information on the history of the Moors also see R. W. Southern’s Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (1962), Normal Daniel’s The Arabs and the Medieval Europe (1975), Anwar Chejne’s Islam and the West: The Moriscos’s a Cultural and Social History (1983), and Albert Hourani’s A History of Arab Peoples (1991). 194

In this document Elizabeth suggests that the “Blackamoors” in her realm are actually the Muslim people of the Iberian Peninsula who were expelled by the

Spanish state and immigrated to England. However, she conflates this distinct designation with a historically more generic and meaningful one, the “Negar,” which was often used in relation to sub-Saharan Africans whom the English had been trading as slaves as early as 1555. Though Matar cautions us that these two terms were not interchangeable in early modern England (Turks, Moors and

Englishmen 7), the Queen erases the geographical distinction between the two and creates “a composite subject group of ‘black’” who, by virtue of their innate characteristic of blackness, form a race, a people, which should be avoided

(Bartels, “Too Many Blackamoors” 305). In addition to this color coding,

Elizabeth defames “most” of the blacks as “infidels, having no understanding of

Christ and his Gospel.” If these “blackamoors” were indeed the Muslims of Spain, then Elizabeth’s accusations clearly contradict her foreign policies towards Islamic states like the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Morocco, with whose rulers she sought military and commercial alliance, using common religious doctrines of

Islam and Protestantism as a strategy to justify this affinity. Apparently, while the dark-skinned Muslim people of North Africa were seen as important trade partners, those within the territories of England could easily be labeled as the

“black infidel” and targeted as the source of wider social problems at times of crisis.

Early modern English dramatic works include a number of black/Moorish characters, who are mostly depicted as villainous outsiders, representing the

“darkly subversive forces that threaten the European society from within” 195

(D’Amico 2). As an opposite in race, religion and disposition, the Moor is used by

English writers as an opportunity to underline the overly simplified opposition between fair Western standards and the dark barbarian, civilization and the savage, or the human and the monstrous (D’Amico 2). Mystery plays of the late medieval ages and early modern court masques also featured black faced characters; however, the first black Moor on the English stage as a speaking character appeared in George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar in 1589.7 In this dramatization of a classic confrontation of good and evil, Muly Mahamet, the Moor, is portrayed as a villainous usurper who commits many crimes and slaughters, including fratricide and parricide, in his struggle to seize the throne from the rightful heir,

Abdelmelek. Similarly, Aaron in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (1589) is depicted as a villain, who through his sexual relationship with Tamora, Queen of the Goths, expands his power in Rome and spreads malice to its inhabitants. Black in color and wicked in nature, he betrays his masters and manipulates other characters and “becomes the very symbol of the evil that is loosed upon Rome”

(Barthelemy 93). Aaron inspired several other villainous Moors on the early modern stage, including Eleazar in Thomas Dekker’s Lust’s Dominion and

William Rowley’s All is Lost by Lust (1619).

When it comes to the representation of black female characters, the significance of the dark skin becomes even more heavily charged than that of their

7 Blackening up the actors face was a simple way of discriminating evil from good in medieval mystery plays (Vaughan, Performing Blackness 2). In these plays, which were enactments of allegories rather than mimetic representations, type characters or personifications of Vice and Devil were usually black faced. The earliest English court masque, on the other hand, was Ben Jonson’s The Masque of Blackness, which was devised upon Queen Anne’s request in 1605. The masque dramatized the River Niger’s search for a solution to whiten up his black daughters, impersonated by the Queen and several other ladies. Informed by Oceanus, his father, that the sun, in the personage of King James, possesses such a power, Niger sends his daughters to the English court, confident that they will become white again. 196

male counterparts. In depictions of black women, racial and religious inscriptions overlap with the patriarchal fear of the darkness of female sexuality. Villainous or not, black male characters in English dramatic works of the early modern age are frequently depicted as protagonists who are involved in love relationships with white women and, any offspring born to such an interracial union is representable on the stage. After all, Shakespeare’s Moorish commander Othello is a romantic hero who conquers the heart of a fair Venetian lady. Similarly for Aaron, the black child he fathers from Tamora allows him to claim his rights not only as a husband and father, but also as an emperor. Black women, on the other hand, appear mostly in minor roles in the period’s dramatic productions. They are depicted as lascivious servants who, despite legitimately existing in the community, represent the lowest level of cultural, racial, gender and class hierarchies. These women are allowed to pay homage to white men, yet they can never be whitened or allowed to be part of the Christian family (Loomba, Shakespeare, Race and Colonialism

125).

According to Boose, the need to suppress the black female-white male union in English literature is related to the culture’s pre-existing fears about the female sex and gender dominance (46). Drawing on Janet Adelman’s work, Boose argues that patriarchal society depends on the principle of inheritance according to which the father’s identity is transmitted from father to son and “the mother’s dark place” is the weak point that leaves the father’s designs for “perfect self- replication” susceptible to contamination (Boose 46). In this respect, the black female’s signifying capacity as a mother threatens “the wholesale negation of white patriarchal authority,” because with her skin color, which is more powerful 197

than white and capable of absorbing and coloring it, “black women controlled the power to resignify all offspring as the property of the mother” (Boose 46).

A good example that supports Boose’s argument might be the unseen, voiceless Moorish woman, who apparently is the mistress of Shylock’s servant

Lancelot, in The Merchant of Venice. Though the entire dramatic life of this black woman is off-stage, she is sexually exploited in a comical conversation between

Lancelot and Lorenzo. When Lancelot mocks Lorenzo by saying that the latter’s conversion of Jessica will raise the price of pork in the commonwealth, Lorenzo replies: “I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting up of the negro’s belly: the Moor is with child by you Lancelot” (III.v.31-33). To this, Lancelot quips: “[i]t is much that the Moor should be more than reason, but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for”

(III.v.34-36).

This comical exchange about an invisible black woman is significant with regard to both the racial and the gender politics of The Merchant of Venice. In the first place, it suggests that there is a difference between Lorenzo’s marriage with the Jew’s daughter and Lancelot’s liaison with the Moor. The implications of the second union, with respect to miscegenation, would be found more threatening by the commonwealth than the Lorenzo-Jessica relationship, because of the Moor’s black skin. Secondly, Lancelot’s concerns about his lover’s honesty not only reflect the early modern associations of blackness with lechery, but also reveal the deep-seated patriarchal fear of losing the reproductive authority that Boose argues about. Lancelot will never be able to confirm the identity of the father of the 198

offspring of this pregnant black woman, as the child will be stigmatized with the color of his mother’s skin.

This attitude towards black women receives fuller attention in representations of several Moorish waiting women in seventeenth century English drama. In fact, in Black Face Maligned Race, Anthony Gerard Barthelemy mentions the blackamoor maid figure as a specific dramatic type of the early modern English stage. Featured under the variations of the name Zanthia, and commonly characterized as licentious women threatening white patriarchal supremacy, blackamoor maids appear in a number of plays produced in this age, including John Marston’s Wonder of Women (1606), John Webster’s The White

Devil (1612), and Philip Massinger’s The Bondman (1623) and Believe As You List

(1631). Despite the scarcity of historical evidence, the presence of black female servants who were brought to England through slave trade and employed in menial household jobs in the early seventeenth century was documented by a number of scholars and might have provided the material context for these dramatic representations.8 While the early modern black woman remained historically unrecorded, her distorted image as the treacherous and lecherous maidservant in the period’s drama reveals that a sign system of racial and sexual prejudices against her black femininity was already in place in England’s social grammar.

8 Both James Walvin and Peter Fryer argue that black serving maids were common in England. In Staying Power (1984) Fryer claims it was “the smart thing for titled and propertied families in England to have a black slave or two among the household servants” (9). In “Representations of Black and Blackness in the Renaissance” (1993) Peter Erickson similarly argues that the sheer number of visual representations of black servants and servant maids in Renaissance painting attests to the broad existence of blacks in the English society, and “confirms the existence of blackness as a potent visual signifier of ethnic difference” (499). According to Habib Imtiaz the documental scarcity with respect to the presence of black women in the early modern age was “a function of the particular dynamics of the black subject’s colonial encounter” (280). At the moment of their arrival, black people existed in the historical narrative of their capturers “only as miscellaneous goods and as a kind of human curiosity,” and since they had “no place in the colonizer’s hierarchy,” they had “no value for his scribal record” (Imtiaz 280). 199

Zanthia in John Marston’s Wonder of Women (1606) is the first blackamoor maid figure represented on the English stage. Like her namesake in the present play, she is set in stark contrast with her fair and virtuous mistress,

Sophonisba, the Carthaginian princess who is lustfully pursued by the villainous

Syphax. Zanthia betrays her mistress when she accepts Syphax’s offer to give her gold, if she aids him in his attempt to rape Sophonisba. In the play, which stresses value of female fidelity and steadfastness, this black woman acts as a symbol of knavery and degeneration. With her skin color, she functions as an ancillary to the play’s effort to foreground Sophonisba’s integrity and purity. Zanche in John

Webster’s The White Devil (1612) is also depicted as a faithless and morally debased black woman, who is prone to intrigue, promiscuity and betrayal. Though her job is to cater to the whims of her mistress, Vittoria, she places the satisfaction of her desires before loyalty, as she hastily transfers her allegiance to Mullinassar, the Moor (actually Francisco in disguise) by revealing the truth about the murders of Isabella and Camillo. Zanche further plans to steal Vittoria’s money and jewels to furnish a dowry, hoping that Mullinassar would marry her. Yet, both

Mullinassar and her former lover, Flamineo, merely castigate Zanche as a bawd.

Webster’s play focuses on the decay and corruption that surround courtly life. For this reason, Zanche can hardly be claimed to be the primary opponent of her community. Rather, she functions as “a degraded mirror” of the culture’s collective vision of the play’s white devil, Victoria (Boose 47).

Zanthia in The Knight of Malta is probably the most malevolent and aggressive of all the black female characters of the period’s drama. Though she is similar to her abovementioned counterparts in many respects, this blackamoor 200

maid is more textually prominent and more articulate than both Marston’s Zanthia and Webster’s Zanche. Zanthia militates vigorously against Christian patriarchal authority and Mountferrat’s weak masculinity enables her to reverse the gender hierarchies and overpower him. Unlike her counterparts, Zanthia marries the man she pursues, though this marriage is decreed as a punishment for Mountferrat.

Zanthia is clearly more than a debased whore; she is the vivid literalization of all the patriarchal fears which, according to Boose’s argument, required the suppression of her representation.

Despite this clear colonial inscription however, I argue that Zanthia’s representation should also be contextualized within the play’s historical setting and the Christians’ opposition against the Turk. Zanthia is not an Ottoman, or specifically identified as Muslim. We can infer her religion only from the fact that she is a Moor. At first glance, Zanthia’s religion does not appear as a determining factor in her depiction and, as in the case of her counterparts in contemporary plays, her blackness and position of servitude seem enough to render her a symbol of corruption and degeneration. However, with her constant militancy against the

Christian Order of Malta, which is manifested both in her language and her actions, Zanthia is more than a black slave woman who attacks the white male supremacy when she finds the opportunity. Being “hell’s perfect character”

(IV.i.63) Zanthia is designated as the ultimate source of evil and her role as a demonic agent is inadvertently a moral one, which is better understood when seen in connection with the Islamic enemy that encircles the island.

It should be underlined that despite an emerging racial lexicon, the color difference in the early modern age was primarily perceived in terms of religious 201

and cultural attributes rather than as an unchangeable bodily characteristic. With reference to the Book of Genesis, the black Africans were regarded as the descendants of Ham, Noah’s disobedient son, who contrary to his father’s commandment copulated with his wife while still on the ark and was punished by fathering a child named Chus, “who not only itselfe, but all his posteritie after him should be soo black and loathsome that it might remaine spectacle of disobedience to all the world” (Best 56). Thus, blackness was understood not as a biological condition but as “a curse of infection of blood” that originated in the sin of a white man (Hall, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” 106). In fact, it was considered possible “to wash the Ethiopes white,” to remove blackness by baptism, if only they returned to God. Black people’s skin color was the signifier of their spiritual and moral state, the sign of their connection with Satan. In the early modern age, the Turk’s image as an aggressive expansionist who subjugated Christians by military force and religious conversion was often associated with the figure of

Anti-Christ. So, there is an inherent spiritual link between Zanthia and the unseen

Ottoman enemy lurking around Malta. In fact, if there is a coalition between the

Catholics and Protestants on the island, Zanthia is automatically aligned with the

Turk. In addition to the racial and feminine threat she poses to the Christian community, this black woman also functions as a visual corollary to the threat of moral contamination that might be caused by a possible Islamic invasion of Malta.

As both in A Christian Turned Turk and in The Renegado, the two turning

Turk plays analyzed in the preceding chapters, in The Knight of Malta, an opposition is established between the non-Christian woman and her Christian counterpart in terms of morality and sexuality. However, in the present play this 202

opposition attains an added significance since the non-Christian woman is black, and the emphasis on the vow that the members of the Christian order need to take renders chastity essential in protecting Malta from the enemy. Women’s sexuality is seen as the primary danger to the solidarity of the fellowship and the Order can tolerate only a woman like Oriana, who upholds the values of the patriarchal society and encourages chastity, order, and self-control. With her passive, white femininity Oriana functions in the community as the appropriate vessel, enabling the father’s perfect self-replication and the continuation of the lineage. Zanthia’s disregard of honor, motivated by lechery, stands in sharp contrast to Oriana’s uncompromising modesty. Zanthia sabotages all the privileges of the Christian community of Malta. Indeed, through this woman’s blackness the play explicitly employs an allegory to emphasize Mountferrat’s conflict between vice and virtue

(Barthelemy 129). With her “black shape and blacker actions” (IV.i.63) Zanthia constitutes the opposite of Oriana, who represents the ever-constant virtue. As the two women contrast in moral attributes, so they do in color. Against the faithful and “matchless Oriana” (I.iii.119), whose fairness of the skin implies her chaste and honorable disposition, Zanthia’s dark complexion is the outward sign of her debased morality. Yet, Mountferrat’s “strong libidinous will” (I.i.219) does not allow him to see the distinction between the blackness of Zanthia and the fairness of Oriana. For him “[n]ight makes their hues alike, their use is so” (I.i.222). As

Barthelemy observes: “[w]ere he [Mountferrat] to aspire virtuously to Oriana, he would have achieved her spiritual perfection; however, since he wishes to spoil her, he can only embrace the spoiled Zanthia” (129). Thus, the play explicitly connects Mountferrat’s failed manhood to his uncontrolled sexual desire, making 203

it imperative for the Order to banish him from Malta, as the island depends on a civil and honorable masculinity to protect it and defend its cause.

Still, the consequences of the joint forged treachery of Mountferrat and

Zanthia have shown how vulnerable the ideal of virtuous masculinity among the members of the Order is and how easily even the chaste Oriana can become the target of suspicion and hatred. In fact, after she is cleared of the charges of treason,

Oriana is doubted by her newly-wed husband Gomera, who starts pouring out his insecurities when he is provoked by Oriana’s praise of her former suitor Miranda.

Inferring that Oriana is still in love with Miranda, he expresses his resentment:

Fool that I was, to give it up to the deceiving trust Of wicked woman! For thy sake, vile creature, For all I have done well in, in my life, I’ve digg’d a grave, all buried in a wife. (III.ii.220-223)

Even though the Christian patriarchal ideology of Malta exalts Oriana as the embodiment of good womanhood against Zanthia’s malignant femininity,

Gomera’s hasty conclusions about his wife’s virtue make it apparent that patriarchy considers every woman to be an innately transgressive Eve, who poses a potential threat to the masculine order. In fact, male jealousy, disloyalty and suspicion repeatedly surface in the play to test or victimize women, especially

Oriana, who as one character comments in the end, “knows now / What is the curse of the divine justice laid / On the first sinful woman” (IV.iii.4-5).

In such a hostile environment where men suspect even the virtuous women of their own society, it should hardly come as a surprise to see an alien black woman designated as the embodiment of patriarchy’s darkest misogynistic misconceptions. In fact, the play associates Zanthia’s transgressive dark femininity 204

with Devil himself. When Oriana faints upon Gomera’s accusations, Zanthia pours a sleeping potion into her mistress’ mouth, which will render her unconscious and simulate death. In doing so, her purpose is to give Mountferrat the chance to satisfy his desires and then kill Oriana, to save the villain for herself. The sleeping potion places Zanthia in the role of an enchantress, bringing together the magic associated with non-European cultures and the sorcery associated with witches, both domestic and alien. In early modern travel narratives, women of Africa are described as unbridled and sexually perverted wives who dominate their husbands through the use of dark magic. Furthermore, the female poison-maker, who concocts potions in order to control male behavior, is a figure found in both medieval and Renaissance texts. In the portrait of Zanthia the play combines these two images and renders this black woman as the ultimate symbol of the dark and devious side of the female sex, with the potential to cause an unsettling inversion of gender roles.

Mountferrat does not drink any magical potion, but having the control of

Oriana’s destiny gives Zanthia the power to rule the Christian man too. From this point onwards Zanthia not only becomes the main conspirator of the villainies, but also asserts dominance over the villain himself. When Mountferrat gets outraged with the false news of Oriana’s death and discards his black lover, Zanthia claims for her vengeance:

That ’tis in my power To punish thy ingratitude. I made trial But how you stood affected, and since I Know I’m used only for a property, I can and will revenge it to the full: For understand, in thy contempt of me, Those hopes of Oriana, which I could Have chang’d to certainties, are lost for ever. (IV.i.100-107) 205

Seeing that Oriana might still be alive, Mountferrat changes his attitude altogether and agrees to fulfill any of Zanthia’s wishes, including the murder, if she lets him quench his “mad desires / For once in Oriana” (IV.i.132-133). Mountferrat’s weakness for Oriana turns him into a toy in the hands of Zanthia, enabling the black woman to attain the power to subjugate the Christian man. In other words, the vice of lust effeminates the French knight and becomes the vulnerable point through which the alien black female penetrates and realizes the darkest nightmare of Christian patriarchy: the ultimate overthrow of Christianity by Satan’s heiress, who, using her dark sexuality, dominates and overpowers men.

In fact, Zanthia’s contempt for Christian patriarchal ideals is vividly displayed when she suggests to Mountferrat to seal their marriage contract in blood:

Come Mountferrat Here join thy foot to mine, and let our hearts Meet with our hands! The contract that is made And cemented with blood, as this of ours is, Is a more holy sanction, and much surer, Than all the superstitious ceremonies You Christians use. (IV.iv.42-48)

This perverted and grotesque rite that Zanthia offers instead of the sacred Christian matrimonial ceremony not only confirms her image as a black African witch, but also reveals that Zanthia’s threat on the Christian order of Malta is very real.

While the Ottoman enemy that besieged the island tries to destroy Christianity from outside, the black woman, Satan’s true representative, threatens it from inside. 206

Zanthia’s attack on the Maltese order reaches its climax when she wounds a Christian man with a pistol on the stage. When discovered together with

Mountferrat in the church, Zanthia does what she sarcastically describes as a “poor woman’s part” (IV.iv.30) and shoots Gomera on his right arm so that he will drop his sword. Mountferrat asks her to “[c]ut his throat” (IV.iv.38), yet, Zanthia refrains from doing so. She turns to Gomera saying:

Forbear! – Yet do not hope ‘tis with intent to save thee, But that thou mayst live to thy further torment, To see who triumphs o’er thee. (IV.iv.39-42)

Even after being captured by the General Norandine, Zanthia apparently has proven her victory and remains unrepentant. With her last words she rebukes the men defeated with her: “[f]rom me learn courage” (IV.iv.59).

Because of his evil treachery Mountferrat is banished from Malta as a

“[c]orrupted and contagious member” of the Order, and is forced to marry Zanthia.

Before being expelled from the island with Mountferrat, Zanthia is cursed most abusively by the Order’s soldiers. For Gomera, she is an “enchanting witch,” the

“agent dam” to the “damn’d hell hound” Mountferrat (V.ii.25). Norandine calls her confession “the only truth that / Issued out of hell, which her black jaws resemble” (V.ii.202-203) and despises her “bacon-face” which “looks like the picture of America” (V.ii.244). Despite this insulting language that employs animal imagery and connects the black woman’s satanic side to the assumed savagery of the natives of the New World, I believe that it is still an ironic political achievement on Zanthia’s part to leave Malta with her newly-wed French husband with the prospect of begetting her “devillings” (V.ii.345). 207

In The Knight of Malta there is one other Muslim female character, Lucinda, the

“milk white” Turkish virgin of noble birth, who has been captured by the Knights from the Ottoman forces during the defense of the island. Lucinda functions as a foil to the depraved morality of the black Zanthia. Even though she is referred to as a “slave” by the members of the Christian community of Malta, her inner virtue clearly distinguishes her from Zanthia’s debased servitude. She upholds the ideals of the Christian patriarchal order with regard to both Christian-Muslim and male- female hierarchies, thus becoming an ideal conquered subject on whom the

Knights can reflect their ideology. Despite their divergent portrayals, ultimately both of these Muslim women serve to uphold the values of the established order of

Malta, which represents the ideology of Christian white male supremacy. While

Zanthia embodies the threat of moral and bodily contamination, which should be banished in order to preserve the integrity of the Christian community, Lucinda helps cultivate a model of European masculinity, which can honorably convert and redeem the colonized subject. Through the contrasting depictions of Lucinda and

Zanthia, the play employs the Muslim woman material not only to express anxieties about Ottoman imperialism, but also to suggest a strategy for the emerging European colonialism.

As I discussed in the previous chapter, the fact that Christian women were abducted by Muslims during military conquests and piratical operations was a serious concern for Europe in this period. Christians constantly accused the Turks of being lecherous barbarians who forcefully captured Christian women and 208

enslaved them in harems to satisfy their lustful appetites. The “beautiful Turkish woman,” Lucinda, who first appears in the play as a spoil of the battle against the

Turks, can be considered as the Muslim counterpart of these abducted Christian women, and her initial treatment by the Maltese soldiers indicates that it was not unusual among Christians to abduct the women of the enemy and violate their bodies. Soldiers enter quarrelling about who shall take the newly captured beautiful maiden and approach Norandine, asking him to award her to one of them. Though Norandine is a general in the service of a Christian Order reputed for its members’ commitment to chastity, at first, he shows no respect for the captive maiden’s honor and immediately dismisses her, instructing his soldiers to

“share her among ye” (II.i.151). Her eloquent speech, which exposes her inner virtue, effects her escape from the “soldiers’ wildnesse” and succeeds in taming

Norandine’s aggression. “Victorious sir,” she pleads:

Seldom seen in man so valiant, Minds so devoid of virtue: he that can conquer Should ever know how to preserve his conquest, 'Tis but a base theft else. Valour’s a virtue, Crown of men’s actions here; yours, as you make it. And can you put so rough a foil as violence, As wronging of weak woman, to your triumph? (II.i.160-166)

In her speech Lucinda upholds a distinction between legitimate conquest and “base theft,” thus helping preserve the rationalizing structure for imperial domination.

She is not interested in her “liberty” (II.i.171), but she asks for a kinder, gentler domination which would not include the violent “wronging of weak woman,” as all she expects within this power structure is to protect her “honour” (II.i.171).

Norandine is impressed by Lucinda’s speech and decides to give the Turkish 209

maiden to the service of Miranda, who actually captured her during the battle, a solution that satisfies her.

By awarding Lucinda to Miranda instead of his lustful soldiers, Norandine corrects his previous uncivilized attitude towards the Turkish captive, and in return for his kindness, the Muslim woman submits and even seems content with her inferior position. Norandine’s treatment of Lucinda contrasts with the sexual tyranny that Christian female slaves were presumably subjected to in the Ottoman lands. It replaces masculine sexual aggression against a foreign woman’s body with sexual self-restraint, thus legitimizes domination. In the case of Zanthia, this model of self-controlled Christian masculinity functions as a safeguard against the threat of Turkish invasion. In Lucinda’s case, however, the same model of self- disciplined masculinity is posited as a crucial component of the ideal European colonialist, who is distinguished from the violent Ottoman expansionist due to his virtuous disposition.

In his prominent essay, “The Work of Gender in the Discourse of

Discovery” (1991), Montrose suggests that “the female body maps an important sector of the Elizabethan cultural unconscious” and within the proto-colonialist discourse it “serves an emergent imperialist project of exploration, conquest and settlement” (2). Pursuing instances of this gendered textualization in Sir Walter

Ralegh’s accounts on the discovery of Guiana, Montrose argues that the discursive representation of the early colonial exploitation and domination assumes a narrative form “as a mode of symbolic action whose agent is gendered masculine and whose object is gendered feminine” (“Discovery” 6). Though I will focus on the English proto-colonial experience in the New World and India in the following 210

chapter, Lucinda’s position as a potential colonized subject allows us to apply the sexual and power dynamics that Montrose mentions in explaining the captive maiden’s function in relation to the Christian patriarchal authority of Malta.

In fact, the Donusa-Vitelli relationship in Massinger’s The Renegado has already demonstrated how the conquest of a foreign woman’s body, alongside her proper conversion to Christianity, is deemed analogous to a definitive military victory against the Islamic enemy. In addition, earlier in the present play,

Mountferrat’s forged letter has revealed how the inviolate female body of the

Christian heroine is conflated with the national and territorial integrity of Malta as, a strategy to defend Christian patriarchy against Ottoman invasion. In Lucinda’s portrayal the play once again associates the sexual conquest of a woman with religious and imperial conquest, and uses the discursive power of the female body as a medium to act out Christian colonial assertions. Indeed, the sexual desire becomes almost synonymous with the imperial and territorial desire, and

Lucinda’s tempting beauty reveals to be a true test for Miranda, her captor, to prove his virtuous masculinity not only as a potential knight of Malta but also as a model European colonizer.

Throughout the play, the Turkish woman is repeatedly referred to as a “fair virgin” of “incomparable beauty” (III.ii.61), a woman of “[m]ost exquisite” form

(III.ii.67). As Colonna, a former Turkish slave rescued by Miranda, explains

Lucinda’s temptation is the sole reason why Miranda initially denied her request to meet him:

You are a woman of a tempting beauty, And he, however virtuous as a man, Subject to human frailties; and how far They may prevail upon him, should he see you, 211

He is not ignorant; and therefore chuses With care t’avoid the cause that may produce Some strange effect, which will not keep rank With the rare temperance which is admir’d In his life hitherto. (III.iii.19-27)

Collona’s explanation implies that even if Miranda is a virtuous man, Lucinda’s exotic beauty could produce a “strange effect” in the young Christian, unlike the other female temptations that he is accustomed to. In fact, the extent of the

Spanish knight’s “human frailties” and his questionable chastity are revealed when he later gives in to his desire to meet Lucinda and is immediately overwhelmed by her charm. Even though Collona warns Lucinda not to wear “artificiall dressings”

(III.iii.67) that might enhance her sexual appeal to Miranda, her natural beauty is tempting enough to cause the Christian man to lose control in her presence.

When Lucinda starts praising her Christian captors for their civil treatment of her, the scene’s purpose to test Miranda’s potential as a model colonialist becomes clear. Lucinda approaches Miranda and expresses her gratitude for being treated with “all content and goodness” (III.iv.41). Though she expected her captivity to be nothing but a “heavy and sharpe burden” (III.iv.36), she claims to have found that “civility and sweetness of behaviour / Dwell round about me”

(III.iv.42-43), and adds: “therefore, worthy Master / I cannot say I grieve my liberty” (III.iv.44-45). However, Miranda is already bewitched by the Turkish maiden’s beauty and acts in complete opposition to her good opinion of him. He draws near her and whispers into her ear, “I must lie with ye Lady” (III.iv.70). To her surprise, he then declares: “I would get a brave boy on thee / A warlike boy”

(III.iv.90-91). The sexual desire that instantly arises in Miranda reinforces his position as the conqueror against his colonized subject, Lucinda. In other words, 212

the Christian desire of conquest is validated through Miranda’s masculine potency before a foreign and desirable woman. However, while the play offers a virile masculinity as an essential feature of the ideal Christian colonialist, at the same time, it privileges sexual continence as an inseparable component of the colonial strategy. Unless curbed by a virtuous disposition, Miranda’s potent manhood might be subject to decay and degeneration, just as Mountferrat’s uncontrolled desire causes him to succumb to female sexuality and compromise his masculine dominance.

Collona, who later turns out to be Lucinda’s lost husband, watches the whole seduction scene hidden. Patriarchal concerns with respect to female sexuality once again surface, as the young man prepares the audience by saying that if Miranda succeeds with this “virgin of fourteen,” it will be her fault because

“they are all born Sophisters, to maintain / That lust is lawfull, and the end and use

/ of their creation” (III.iii.94-94). However, contrary to the misogynistic apprehensions of her disguised husband, Lucinda proves that her chastity is secure.

Despite Miranda’s importunate blandishments, by drawing attention the true meaning of the Cross of Malta that he is wearing, she successfully evades the knight’s allures and helps him overcome the overwhelming sexual temptation.

Amazed with the virtue of this “excellent woman” (III.iv.142), Miranda lets

Lucinda go “unravished” and disdains his display of “wantonness” as “the foulest play I’ll shew” (III.iv.115, 161). As she leaves the stage, Lucinda assures Miranda of the rewards of this “noble” and “gentle” treatment, saying “I’m half a Christian

/ The other half I’ll pray for; then for you, sir” (III.iv.159-160). 213

With this exchange between Miranda and Lucinda, the play fabricates an ideal Christian colonizer who conquers and converts honorably, while sexual restraint grants him the license for domination. Within the context of the play’s historical plot, which features a Christian alliance in opposition to the expansionist

Ottomans, the behavioral attributes of the virtuous Christian masculinity represented by Miranda, can be seen in contrast to those of the tyrannous imperialism of the Turks. In fact, the above scene can be compared to the confrontation between Asambeg and Paulina in The Renegado, where the enslaved

Christian maiden heroically defends her chastity against the raging lust of her colonizer. Unlike Miranda, who embodies the legitimate conqueror by abstaining from harming Lucinda as an expression of manly prowess, Asambeg exemplifies the wrongful colonizer, who, though relentlessly pursues Paulina, is incapacitated by his sexual desire and destined to lose his dominant position. Accepting defeat by his weak and vulnerable captive, the Muslim viceroy confesses:

There is something in you That can work miracles, or I am cozened, Dispose and alter sexes. To my wrong, In spite of nature, I will be your nurse, Your woman, your physician, and your fool. (II.v.149-53)

Thus, in both plays lust is identified as an effeminizing vice which renders the conqueror impotent and his domination of the conquered illegitimate. While

Miranda’s avoidance of this vice is rewarded by the voluntary half-conversion of his conquered subject, Asambeg, because of his blinding lust, not only fails in subjugating Paulina, but also goes through a gender confusion which puts him into a shameful position before his captive. In The Knight of Malta, the chaste, civil, 214

refined and self-disciplined masculinity embodied in Miranda, which functions primarily as a safeguard against foreign invasion and contamination, is at the same time offered as a correct alternative for the aggressive but ineffective masculinity of the Ottoman colonizer.

The colonial paradigm implied in the relationship between Miranda and

Lucinda can also be useful in analyzing the divergence of the Turkish maiden’s portrayal from that of the blackamoor Zanthia. In different ways the sexual temptation and threat associated with these two female characters endow the imperatives of Christian masculinity with colonial and racial significance.

Although both women are associated with Islam, there is an apparent discrepancy between their representations as Muslim women, and this discrepancy overtly corresponds to their difference in skin color. Against the innate villainy of the

“black” bawd Zanthia, the virtue of the “fair” virgin Lucinda helps promotes the ideals of the Christian patriarchal authority of Malta. The play racializes Zanthia’s villainy by conflating her moral debasement with her “blackness.” Zanthia threatens to contaminate the community and her expulsion is necessary for the safety of the island, as well as for the Christians inhabiting it; however, the

“white” Lucinda is utterly convertible and can be easily assimilated as a Christian wife into the society.

The black/white contrast which is used to establish the opposition between the dark sexuality of non-Christian Zanthia and the virtuous womanhood of

Christian Oriana is this time employed to determine the exchange value and the colonial significance of the two foreign women in the cross-cultural interaction.

With her blackness, which signifies her physical and moral inferiority, Zanthia 215

embodies the already colonized subject in the play. Her portrayal is loaded with intensely negative qualities, such as lust, savagery and deceit, which were present in the emergent European discourse on the black peoples of Africa. Reflecting the degrading effects of colonization, Zanthia’s depiction is a blend of the basic ingredients of this proto-colonialist ideology and a crude and anxious misogynistic fantasy.

The play sets off Zanthia’s marginality with the conversion of her white counterpart Lucinda. Even though she has an alien status like Zanthia, the Turkish woman’s whiteness and female passivity make her reproduction possible as a

Christian wife. Due to her links with the powerful Ottomans, Lucinda is portrayed in a neutral light and her noble origins render her capitulation and conversion more meaningful. Thus, while the white Muslim woman is attributed significance as the object of ideological contest, the black Muslim woman, the powerful conjunction of the savage and the feminine, becomes a site for European masculinity to project its primitive desires, which should either be expelled or destroyed. Zanthia can never be romantically linked to Mountferrat, but “fair” Lucinda’s alien faith and ethnicity can easily become the elements of a romantic story which ends with her marriage to a European and her conversion into Christianity (Loomba, “Delicious

Traffick” 216). Indeed, towards the end of the play we learn from Lucinda’s disguised husband Collona that she has already been converted to Christianity.

Collona met her while he was a Christian prisoner in Turkey and he “doubly won her,” first to the true faith, then to himself (V.ii.228). They were “betroth’d”

(V.ii.230) but fled Constantinople before consummating the marriage. However, they were captured first by Turkish galleys, then by the Knights of Malta, who 216

seized the Turkish vessels in the recent battle. Lucinda is already a Christian at heart, and in the play her assimilation as an obedient Christian wife is affirmed to the extent that she wishes Oriana to see her new-born son “toss a Turk” (V.i.4).

Finally, the model that The Knight of Malta provides for establishing racial hierarchies and colonial domination through the portrayals of these two Muslim women, involves some crucial implications with respect to the Christian patriarchal concerns about reproductive control, which I discussed earlier. In the seduction scene, when Miranda whispers into Lucinda’s ear his intention to get “a warlike boy” (III.iv.91) on her, the latter responds: “[s]ure we shall get ill

Christians” (III.iv.92). Yet, Miranda’s solution for this concern seems effective and easy: “[w]e’ll mend them in the breeding then” (III.iv.93). What Miranda implies here is that through the penetrating Christian seed, Lucinda’s children “can be blanched off their inner stain” (Loomba, “Delicious Traffick” 216). For the

Christian community, Lucinda’s difference as a Muslim woman constitutes a much smaller reproductive threat, when compared to the results of miscegenation between a white man and a black Muslim woman. In fact, as Mountferrat and

Zanthia are banished from Malta after their villainy is discovered at the end of the play, Norandine confirms the reproductive implications of Mountferrat’s punishment when he says: “[a]way French stallion, now you have a Barbary mare of / your own go leap her and engender young devillings” (V.ii.344-345). With her procreative ability, Zanthia represents a fearful alterity to Christendom, while

Lucinda, whose fair skin confirms her convertibility, denotes what Loomba calls

“the possibility of controlled exchange” (“Delicious Traffick” 213).

217

Chapter 6

The Island Princes

Colonialism, Religion, (Inter)sexuality, and Intertextuality

John Fletcher’s The Island Princess is a tragicomedy which was first performed in

1619 by the King’s Men at the Blackfriars Theatre, and like much of Fletcher’s work, it remained a popular play throughout the seventeenth century. The play’s plot is based on Le Signeur de Bellan’s novella, L’Historie du Ruis Dias, et de

Quixaire, Princess des Moluccas (1615), which itself was inspired by a history of an early Portuguese enterprise in East India, Conquista de Las Island Moluccas

(1609), by Bartoleme Leonardo de Argensola. The play is the earliest and fullest treatment in English drama of the Moluccan Islands of the Indonesian archipelago

(also known as the Spice Islands), and contemporary critics consider the play to be related to the English mercantile and colonial enterprise in the early modern period. Some scholars even argue that in certain aspects the play articulates both the desire and the contradictions associated with this enterprise in a more sophisticated and expanded way than Shakespeare’s The Tempest1.

The setting of the play associates it with the world of East Indian commercial expansion, one of the two principal sites of early imperial enterprise,

1 See for example Gordon McMullan’s critical analysis in The Politics of Unease in the Plays of John Fletcher (1994). 218

together with the Americas. The Moluccan Islands were the sole source of highly prized spices such as clove, mace, and nutmeg, and they constituted a key point in the Eastern colonial trade in the early modern period. Since their ‘discovery’ by the Iberian powers in the fifteenth century, the colonial possession of these islands had always been problematic for the Europeans. In the earlier decades of the sixteenth century the ownership of the Moluccas had been a significant point of conflict between Portugal and Spain. This struggle was resolved in 1529 in favour of the Portuguese; however, the following years saw their decline as a dominant power in the Indian Ocean. The commercial potential of the Moluccas aroused considerable interest in England as well. Sir Francis Drake was the first

Englishman to step on the islands, and his 1579 voyage was greeted in London as a sign of the long-awaited fulfillment of English dreams of riches from the East

(Raman 157).2 During James’s reign, the East India Company, which assumed growing importance in the King’s foreign policies, cast envious eyes on the lucrative spice trade on the Islands.

However, in this period the English found it impossible to gain a stable position in the Moluccas, as they were fiercely rivaled by Dutch colonists, who already had succeeded the Spanish and the Portuguese as the principal European power in the East Indies. In the first two decades of the seventeenth century, the rivalry between the English and the Dutch for the Eastern colonial expansion became both overt and ferocious. Finally, in February 1623, things came to a bloody head with the massacre of English merchants by the Dutch on the island of

2 Sir Francis Drake began his circumnavigation of the globe from Plymouth on December 13, 1577. Having plundered Spanish settlements and shipping on his voyage through the Straits of Magellan and up the coast of Chile to the north of California, he arrived at Ternata in the East Indies on November 3, 1579. 219

Amboyna, a catastrophe which abruptly curtailed English interest in the Spice

Islands. Clearly, when Fletcher wrote The Island Princess, the ideological and political atmosphere in England was highly charged with concerns related to early colonial endeavors. In light of these current and problematic events, the play seems to be much more than an innocent romantic story, as it is likely to appear at first glance.

The plot of The Island Princess centers on the competition for the hand of

Quisara, Princess of the Island of Tidore. She is courted by many suitors, including the rulers of the neighboring islands of Bakam, Siana and Ternata, as well as the captain of the Portuguese garrison in Tidore, Ruy Dias, the princess’s favorite. When the evil Governor of Ternata kidnaps her brother, the King of

Tidore, Quisara announces that she will marry whoever rescues him. She hopes that Ruy Dias would perform this honorable deed, since it would allow him to claim her hand legitimately. However, Ruy Dias fails to rise to the challenge and the King is rescued by another Portuguese gentleman, Armusia, who has recently arrived at the island and fallen in love with the beautiful princess. Quisara is sorely disappointed with Ruy Dias’s incapacity to act, yet she remains reluctant to keep her promise to marry Armusia. However, as she overcomes this initial shock, she eventually transfers her affections to this newcomer Portuguese, and in the end unites with him.

Even such a brief introduction of the plot will suffice to illustrate that in

The Island Princess, Fletcher draws on the familiar gendered tropes of colonial expansion that can be frequently found in the discourse of early imperial enterprise. Representing the riches and beauties of her land, Quisara embodies the 220

essential metaphor of colonialism and her status as a desirable bride motivates all the actions in the play. In this context, the antagonism between the princess’s native suitors, the Portuguese commander and the gallant newcomer Armusia, can be read allegorically as “a struggle for the control of the island’s material resources” (Neill, Putting History to the Question 325).

In the play’s recent criticism, scholars have insistently highlighted colonial contexts as well. Shankar Raman, for example, argues that the play is a projection of English colonial ambitions in the East, with the play’s Portuguese hero as a version of Sir Francis Drake, representing the ideal English knight-merchant.

Michael Neill’s analysis shows that we need to read the Portuguese rivals, Ruy

Dias and Armusia, as representatives of the conflicting claims and identities of the

Dutch and the English in their struggle for the Spice Islands. Gordon McMullan reads the play against a western context arguing that India, the play’s given location, probably connotes a vague area, commonly called ‘the Indies,’ a term applied to new-found lands both to the west and the east of Europe. He offers the play as a resetting of English experiences in the Americas and suggests that the much-publicized marriage between John Rolfe and Pocahontas in 1614 should be seen as “thoroughly rehearsed” in The Island Princess (The Politics of Unease

224).3 While the text does not necessarily authorize any of these interpretations in particular, since it demonstrates anxieties which seem characteristic of the colonial

3 John Rolfe, the survivor of the wreck of the English ship Sea Venture wrote to the governor of Virginia in 1614 to ask his permission to marry the Virginian princess Pocahontas. Rolfe’s arguments to justify his marriage exemplify those propounded in the English proto-colonial discourse, as he claims that his marriage is not driven by his “vnbridled desire for carnall affection,” but his intention to do something “for the good of plantacon, the honor of or Countrye, for the glorye of God, for myne owne salvacon, and for the convertynge to the true knowledge of God and Iesus Christ an vnbelievnge Creature, namely Pohahuntas” (qtd. in McMullan 223). 221

through the metaphor of a non-European woman as the object of desire, the play can be described as a colonial text in the broadest sense. Fletcher’s alteration of his chief source, de Bellan’s L’Historie du Ruis Dias, et de Quixaire, Princess des

Moluccas (1615) is also relevant here. In de Bellan’s text, the hero is a young

Tidorean aristocrat, Salama, who performs the roles allotted to Armusia in

Fletcher’s version: he rescues the captive King of Tidore, confounds his

Portuguese rivals, and wins the love of Quisara. By displacing a native with a foreign husband, as Neill observes, Fletcher transforms the meaning of the story and “gives it a distinctively colonial twist” (Putting History to the Question 323).

While the plot generally focuses on the tale of an interracial marriage within a romantic framework, with another significant departure from de Bellan’s text Fletcher hints that the sole concern of the play is not early modern English colonial politics. From Act 4 onwards, with an unexpected turn in the plot, the religious venture occupies a centre position. Expanding the role given to the villainous Governor in his principal source, Fletcher introduces him once again to the play, disguised as a “Moorish priest” that returns to Tidore and orchestrates a plan for everyone’s destruction. He urges Quisara to insist on Armusia’s conversion as a proof of his faithfulness and integrity. When Armusia refuses to convert, delivering a resounding critique of the native religion, he is thrown into prison and faces torture and martyrdom. However, this misfortune is averted as

Quisara, moved by Armusia’s resoluteness in his faith, converts to Christianity, and the Portuguese act concertedly to rescue their compatriot. The play closes as the Governor’s machinations are revealed, Quisara is given to Armusia, and the islanders and the Portuguese are reconciled. 222

The sequence of events in the play following the return of the Governor to

Tidore in priestly disguise is reminiscent of the conversion scenes in turning Turk plays, which dramatize the conflict between Christianity and Islam in and around the Mediterranean. The threat of apostasy is, in fact, an interesting insertion to the plot, which, for the most part, seems to employ a pattern of colonial appropriation and possession. While Quisara’s conversion fits into a colonial scheme, as religious expansion was an essential part of imperial domination, the conversion threat posed to the Christian hero is uncommon in the Moluccan setting, which was geographically beyond the immediate influence of the Ottomans as well as the religious discords between the Spanish and the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula.

Even if it were to be argued that Fletcher’s point in making such an addition is to draw attention to the possibility of ‘going native’ in colonial terrains (Raman 179), when Armusia vehemently refuses to convert to Quisara’s religion, he acts as little more than a mouthpiece for Christian propaganda, and within the colonial context, as McMullan notes, this is “clearly awkward” (234).

Islam appeared in the Moluccas in the late 1300s, with the arrival of Arabic merchants who established themselves as the dominant traders of spice in the region. Many of the islands, particularly those which were centers of trade, peacefully converted to Islam in that period and adapted the ‘sultanate’ as their new social organization. Islam, however, was only one of the religions practiced in the Moluccas. On some of the islands and in the hinterlands indigenous religions, such as animism, persisted. In Fletcher’s play it is not clear whether the Moluccans are Muslim or not. While the play includes frequent allusions to Islam, at the same 223

time, it carelessly equates the Muslim religion with idolatry, polytheistic and pantheistic religious practices.

Nevertheless, critics like Loomba and Burton accept the Moluccans as

Muslim people and concentrate on the theme of religious conversion. In Quisara’s conversion to Christianity, Loomba sees a “fantasy of an Eastern queen who willingly crosses religious and cultural boundaries” (“Break Her Will” 94), and by tracing the differences between Fletcher’s play and its source material, she focuses on the ideological work that this fantasy performs in making religion emblematic of colonial difference. Burton, on the other hand, sees the play’s conversion theme from the opposite end and concentrates on the threat of apostasy posed to the

Christian hero. In reading the gender dynamics of Quisara’s relationship with both

Ruy Dias and Armusia separately, he shows how the play “participates in a dramatic recuperation of Christian masculinity that works to offset the effeminizing specter of turning Turk” (Burton 139). Similarly, in my analysis I want to credit the Moluccans both as Islamic and colonial people and see

Fletcher’s drama as a contextual and textual interplay between the discourse of early modern colonial experience and the discourse on Islam which was generated by trafficking in the Mediterranean. By emphasizing on the play’s resemblances with the English proto-colonial narratives on the one hand, and the contemporary dramatic representations of the Christian-Muslim encounters in the Mediterranean on the other, I want to demonstrate how the play uses various instances of difference interchangeably and as emanating from each other. I argue that by employing the bodily and spiritual conquest of the non-European/Muslim woman by an idealized Christian male as a common discursive pattern, The Island 224

Princess not only articulates the early modern English colonial desire, but also imagines the containment of the threat posed to Christianity by the powerful Islam in the same period.

Colonial Husbands or Potential Apostates

As is well known, until its spectacular expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, neither in the western nor in the eastern world was England considered as a pre-eminent power in the European colonial enterprise. In contrast to the successive territorial conquests of the Portuguese and the Spanish in the Americas,

England could lay claim only on a few poor and struggling colonies. As early as the 1560s, the conquistadores started to enslave Native Americans to mine gold and other precious metals, drawing the population to near-extinction. Despite several attempts, England, like other European powers, had to wait until the decline of the Spanish empire to establish their presence in the New World. The first English settlement in America, the Jamestown colony, was founded in 1607, and until that date England had to make do with plunders of English privateers on

Spanish shipping and attacks on the already established Spanish colonies in the

Caribbean. Spain did not leave unanswered even these small-scale initiatives and subjected the captive English to the rigors of the Inquisition, which was a major embarrassment from the point of view of Protestant England. For this reason, the

Anglo-Spanish rivalry in the New World “inevitably translated into a rhetoric of

Protestant resistance against the tyranny of Catholic Spain,” in which the Spanish were passionately condemned for their brutality against both its colonial rivals, as well as the native peoples (Linton 6). 225

Nevertheless, the main thrust of English expansion was not toward the

West in the early modern period. The riches of the East still occupied a larger place than the New World in the imaginative horizon of English colonial and mercantile enterprise. (Neill, Putting History to the Question 315). Yet, this time,

England was countered by Dutch colonists, who already had established a clear strategic advantage in Eastern plantation. Though, unlike Catholic Spain, the

Dutch were habitually conceived by the English as their Protestant brothers, the monopolistic claims of the United Provinces on the profitable Eastern spice trade resulted in growing hostilities between the two nations. During his voyage to the

East Indies, Drake had allegedly reached a verbal agreement with the King of

Ternate, who agreed to be confederate with the Queen and offered to place his kingdom under English protection (Raman 157). However, as in the Americas, the

English dream of a real toehold for share in the profits of Eastern trade had to be similarly postponed, as the Dutch were unwilling to abandon their recently gained superior position. Neither in the Moluccas, nor in the neighboring islands did the

Dutch colonists let their English counterparts assert any commercial dominance.

They regularly attacked English ships and destroyed their goods and cargo. This was ensued by the maltreatment and public humiliation of English prisoners, leading to the conditions that culminated in the torture and execution of ten agents of the English East India Company on Ambon Island by the Dutch on accusations of treason in 1623. This unfortunate incident became a national sensation in

England, and the intense strife between the two nations abated completely only after William of Orange became the King of England in 1689. 226

Clearly, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries England was not in a position to claim any superiority in the colonial rivalry among the European states.

However, both in the court and in the press there was an ongoing propagandist debate, where projections were made on the future direction of English colonial ventures. As Raman remarks, “unlike their Spanish and Portuguese rivals, who continuously produced epics, plays and fictional histories to glorify their colonial ventures, Englishmen did not generate many literary representations of their colonial projects in the early modern period” (161). Yet, the bulk of other non- literary texts that reflect a clear ideological stance towards colonialism as an essential national project indicates the determined attitude of the English in performing the task to transform the country from a mere onlooker to a central figure in the context of European expansionism. Probably the most widely acclaimed among these publications is Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal

Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589).

Both in this work as well as in his other writings, Hakluyt aimed to promote

English overseas trade and colonialism by drawing attention to the benefits that

England could gain from such exploits. Similarly, when Sir Walter Ralegh published The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empyre of Guiana

(1596) soon after he returned from his expedition to North America, he hoped to provide support and secure investments for the exploration and colonization of the unpopulated parts of the New World. With the establishment of the first colony in

Virginia in 1607, vast numbers of texts that imagined and celebrated the English colonial project were written in England. There were also a number of well- publicized English accounts of voyages to the East Indies and Japan in these 227

decades, one of which was the growing editions of Samuel Purchas’s Hakluytus

Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625). This encyclopaedic collection was written as a continuation to Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations, and though not published until 1625, it circulated in pamphlet form from 1613 onwards.

The common argument that can be found in all of these texts is that expansion and trade would be the means to strengthen the position of England as an overseas empire both economically and strategically. In fact, as Jowitt argues, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries “colonial writing was a tool by which

English writers articulated their own emerging sense of nationhood” (2).

England’s colonial self-image was inevitably linked to its representation of other

European nations, and, though they shared similar imperialistic ambitions, the

English sought to form a colonial identity in contradistinction to their rivals. In these writings, the English colonists are praised for their honor, heroism, and true religious faith, while the colonial practices of their rivals are presented so as to exclude all forms of faith, justice and integrity. For example, for Purchas, Dutch monopolistic claims on the Spice Islands constitute the principal obstacle for the providential fulfillment of England’s mercantile destiny. In his book he represents the Dutch in the most unflattering light possible, drawing attention to their cruelty and the illegality of their hegemonic practices in the region.

Similarly, Hakluyt justifies English territorial interests in the New World by comparing English colonists’ relationships with indigenous Americans to

Spanish colonists’ brutal treatment of the native peoples. While the colonial writers tend to represent the competition between England and its rivals as a crucial opposition between distinct systems of value and exchange, as the 228

experience of settlement in Ireland in the same period demonstrates, England’s colonial predecessors also served as models for the nation’s imperial projections.

Though they produced a whole body of literature condemning the Spanish atrocities in the West Indies, as Fuchs points out, this seems not to have prevented the English from using the same colonial logic in characterizing the Irish as barbarous and “subjecting them to the same treatment that the Native Americans received at the hands of the Spanish” (“Conquering Islands” 52).

As discussed in the previous chapter, Montrose’s analysis of the discourse of discovery in the early modern period shows how the feminization of the exotic territory served as a textual strategy in articulating colonial ambitions in English travel narratives. In his reading of the discourse prevalent in Renaissance accounts of encounters with the New World, Montrose argues that in proto-colonial writing representations of gender and sexual conduct provide a ready-made hierarchy of relations with which English writers negotiated a broader range of cultural differences. By gendering the land as feminine and by sexualizing its exploration and conquest, early modern colonial writers created a discursive crossover between the sexual and the colonial (“Discovery” 2).

The starting point of Montrose’s argument is the following description of

Guiana from Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie:

To conclude, Guiana is a countrey that hath yet her maydenhead, never sackt, turned, nor wrought, the face of the earth hath not been torne, nor the vertue and salt of the soyle spent by manurance, the graves have not bene opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor their images puld downe out of their temples. It hath never bene entered by any armie of strength, and never conquered or possessed by any Christian prince (Ralegh qtd. in Montrose, “Discovery” 12).

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As Montrose observes, in this passage Ralegh represents Guiana as a virgin female body, which is at the same time sexually available. By means of the metaphor of maidenhead and the subsequent negations, the text emphasizes the unspoiled nature of Guiana, yet in effect, it simultaneously arouses in Ralegh’s masculine readers an excitement at the prospect of despoiling this maiden status (Montrose,

“Discovery” 12). Drawing an analogy between a woman’s body and the land,

Ralegh invites the English colonist, like the predestined husband, to come claim this unpossessed territory, to cultivate its unwrought soil, and to extract its unmined gold. However, this enforced defloration of the land also involves destruction of the native religion and culture, as the text calls the Englishmen to pull down the pagan images from the temples. Thus, Ralegh’s metaphor conveys a larger meaning than merely equating the plenitude and fertility of a woman’s body with the colonial terrain. By subsuming the indigenous peoples of Guiana in the feminine Other of the land, it effaces their cultural existence and provides an ideologically legitimized pattern of representation, which allows the subjugation of the natives by “naturalizing” the exchange between the colonizer and the colonized “as the male’s mastery of the female” (Montrose 12).

Similarly, Ralegh employs feminine figures to draw a comparison between the conduct of the Englishmen and the Spaniards in the New World. While the text identifies England and Spain as manly rivals for possession of the feminized land, it constructs a moral opposition between English and Spanish colonists, which is epitomized in a contrast of their attitudes towards Native American women.

Whereas the Spanish abuse their position of mastery and use native women “for the satisfying of their own lusts” (Ralegh qtd. in Montrose, “Discovery” 20), the 230

English are distinguished from their rivals with their ability to maintain their temperance and chaste conduct. For Ralegh, what is at issue is not the masculine sexual prowess; on the contrary, it is through self-mastery and generosity that the

Englishmen earn the admiration of the natives of Guiana, and it is exactly this superior morality that justifies the English territorial and colonial interests in the region (Montrose 20).

The articulation of the colonial experience of Englishmen through gendered tropes is widespread in the New World narratives of the early modern age, and as England channeled its mercantile efforts towards the East, they seem to have been readily adapted in figuring the colonial desire in East India as well. For example, when Banda (islands neighboring the Moluccas) attempted independent trade with the English in 1620, the Dutch responded by deporting or killing almost the entire native population and by seizing the English spice factory on the island.

In Hakluytus Posthumus, Samuel Purchas represents the Dutch conquest of Banda in the kind of gendered and sexual terms that we see in Ralegh’s text: Banda is “a rich and beautiful bride [who] was once envied to English arms, and seemeth by the cries on both sides, to have been lately ravished from her new husband, unwarned, unarmed, I don’t know whither by greater force or fraud” (5:237).

Purchas’s rhetoric is indeed an expansion and sophistication of Ralegh’s metaphor.

By using the social institution of marriage, he constructs the English colonialists’ intention as that of honorable and legitimate unity with the region, while representing the Dutch as violent invaders, who by fraud and ravishment defiled the honor of their recently won bride. The English traders are thus constructed 231

sympathetically “as grieving new husbands deprived of the caresses of their lawful wives” (Jowitt 125).

Fletcher’s The Island Princess is clearly informed by these contemporary colonial writings describing the new found lands in America as well as the encounters with the non-European cultures in East India. The depiction of Princess

Quisara, and the ‘manly’ rivalry between the two European men to win her is remarkably similar to the colonial metaphors which are frequently used by English travelers. In substitution of the riches and beauties of her island, Quisara is an asset to compete for, and for the play’s male characters, sexual mastery over her becomes a way of articulating the success of their masculinity (Jowitt 124).

Despite a number of other local suitors, the competition for the hand of Quisara concentrates on two Portuguese characters: Ruy Dias, the commander of the garrison in Tidore, and the play’s hero Armusia. As a soldier and the master of the fort appointed by the Portuguese king, Ruy Dias is representative of the established colonial authority on the island. Armusia, on the other hand, is the newcomer, one of the “worthy Portugals” who have been “intic’d forward”

(1.3.13) by the “bravery of [their] minds and spirits” (1.3.14). In the play the gender dynamics of the love triangle between the island princess and these two characters can be read as a political allegory which figures the struggle for colonial control. By putting these two characters into test with respect to their manly vigor and virtue, the play creates an opposition between them, and establishes an idealized model of Christian-European colonial identity in Armusia by endowing him with moral attributes such as heroism, temperance and honesty. 232

From the beginning, Fletcher’s Portuguese imagine their national enterprise in an erotically charged language, which strikingly resembles the one used in colonial narratives. Welcoming Armusia and a group of other newly arrived Portuguese, Pyniero, Captain Ruy Dias’s nephew, remarks:

Where time is, and the sun gives light, brave countrymen, Our names are known, new worlds disclose their riches, Their beauties, and their prides to our embraces; And we, the first of nations, find these wonders. (1.3.9-12)

As in Ralegh’s Discoverie, here too, Pyniero creates a direct connection between the discovery and the possession of the “new worlds.” He describes Tidore as an exotic landscape, which, like Guiana, willingly opens itself to the exploitative

“embraces” of its discoverers. In responding to Pyniero’s welcome, Armusia employs a similar rhetorical technique and represents the island as a variation of earthly paradise:

We are arriv’d among these blessed Islands, And every breath of air is like an Incense: The treasure of the Sun dwells here, each tree As if it envied the old Paradise, Strives to bring forth immortal fruit; the spices Renewing nature, though not deifying, And when that falls by time, scorning the earth, The sullen earth should taint or suck their beauties, But as we dreamt, for ever so preserve us: Nothing we see, but breeds an admiration; The very rivers as we float along, Throw up their pearls, and curl their heads to court us; The bowels of the earth swell with the births Of thousand unknown gems, and thousand riches; Nothing that bears a life, but brings a treasure; … The people they show brave too, civil manner’d, Proportioned like the Masters of great minds, The women which I wonder at – Of delicate aspects, fair, clearly beauteous, And to that admiration, sweet and courteous. (1.3.20-40)

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Elaborating on Pyniero’s metaphor, Armusia describes the land exclusively in gendered and sexual terms. He evokes the sensual delights that the island offers to them and portrays the landscape as a place “where every wind that rises blows perfumes,” and whose rivers “[t]hrow up their pearls” to “court” them (1.3.32). He compares the bowels of the earth to a woman’s womb, which is swollen with births of “[n]othing that bears life, but brings treasure” (1.3.34). Yet, the climax of

Armusia’s speech comes when “his description slips from abundance of land to abundance of women” (McMullan 228). He expresses his admiration for the

Moluccan women who are “[o]f delicate aspects, fair” and “clearly beauteous,” and he presumes that they are ought to be as much “courteous” as the other products of the island, which voluntarily offer themselves to the colonists (1.3.39,

40). Kindled with Armusia’s reveries of wonder, Soza proclaims: “[w]e are fire already; / The wealthy magazine of nature sure / Inhabits here (1.3.42-44).

Despite the similarities in their reactions to the allures and riches of the islands, Pyniero and Armusia differ significantly in their attitudes towards the native population. While Pyniero will act as a mediator between the rival

Portuguese factions at a later point in the play, at this early stage, as the nephew of

Ruy Dias, he clearly represents the old colonial rule. Proper to the attributes of this former type of colonist, Pyniero views the East Indian people with suspicion and calls for their subjugation. In the opening scene of the play, he describes them as

“base breedings” and warns the guards to keep “[t]heir vigilant eyes fix’d on these

Islanders,” because “[t]hey are a false and desperate people, when they find / The least occasion open to encouragement, / Cruel and crafty souls, believe me

Gentlemen” (1.1.3-5). By contrast, echoing the tendency in travel narratives to 234

represent the English as sympathetic friends to the natives, Armusia discovers in the islanders a people “brave too, civil mannered / Proportioned like the Masters of great minds” (1.3.33-34). Thus, from the very beginning, Fletcher draws a distinction between the two types of European colonialists represented in the play, with respect to their purpose and position against the native people of the

Moluccas. In contrast to the established rule which seeks military domination,

Armusia’s role resembles a civil one, reflecting mercantile intentions similar to those expressed in English colonial writings.

If the natives are “base” and “crafty” as Pyniero suggests, Princess Quisara is differentiated from her people with her admirable beauty and honorable behavior. At the very beginning of the play we learn from Pedro that “fair”

Quisara is much sought after by suitors, and she has proved her “noble mind” by her anguish at the capture of her brother. The fairness of the princess is more explicitly described when Christophero imagines that “[t]he very sun… affects her sweetness / And dares not as he does to all else, dye it / Into his tawny livery”

(1.1.60-62). Thus, the first thing that the play emphasizes about Quisara is her beauty and white skin. In European thought whiteness is traditionally associated with Christian purity, and here it is used as a mark that distinguishes Quisara from the dark-skinned Moluccan people, while approximating her to the Portuguese colonists. The racial implication of Christophero’s remarks becomes clearer as the cynical Pyniero refuses to be “fool’d” by the princess’s fair skin. He asserts that she merely “keeps herself at a distance” from the sun “[a]nd wears her complexion in a case; let him but like it / A week or two, or three, she’d look like a Lion”

(1.1.63-64). In other words, Quisara is “complete” (1.1.59) in the eyes of the 235

Portuguese soldiers, only by virtue of her whiteness. If she were exposed to sunlight, soon she would be like her fellow Moluccans, who, presumably, for

Pyniero look like nothing but savage animals. Thus, her skin color is essential in constructing Quisara as a woman desirable by the European men; and when she will convert to Christianity and marry Armusia at the end of the play, her conversion will help assimilate her more easily into the European framework by eliminating the problem of miscegenation.

In this respect, Quisara aligns with the Ottoman princess Donusa in The

Renegado, and the Turkish virgin Lucinda in The Knight of Malta. In all three cases the whiteness and noble rank of the non-European women diminishes the alterity between them and their Christian counterparts, and signals their smooth incorporation into European culture, religion, and family without posing any particular threat to the society’s integrity (Loomba, “Break Her Will” 99). As a white, beautiful and unmarried princess with considerable territorial dowry,

Quisara is indeed, as Jowitt puts it, “tempting bait” for the Portuguese (134).

While, on the one hand, she is a metaphor for the virgin and fertile territories of her island ready to be husbanded by the colonists, on the other hand, with her whiteness, she acts as a intermediary that creates the necessary link to facilitate the process of colonization and assimilation of the Moluccans by the Europeans.

While the plot is structured around the simple question of which of the male characters will make the most suitable husband for the princess, Fletcher complicates the issue by depicting Quisara not as the passive colonial terrains of travel narratives, but as an active participant in making this choice. She decides to use the quest to release her brother as a love-test and promises to marry the man 236

who rescues him. In her opening words she reveals that she is a powerful princess, yet at the same time she expresses her vulnerability as a woman who is plagued by impatient suitors at a time when her brother is absent:

…though I be A Princess, and by that Prerogative stand free And no ways bound to render up my actions, Because no power above me can examine me; Yet my dear brother being still a prisoner, And many wand’ring eyes upon my ways, Being left alone a Sea-mark, it behoves me To use a little caution, and be circumspect. (1.2.6-11)

Thus, despite her commanding position as a princess, Quisara is obviously in need of “a champion who will combine gentleness towards her with the ability to rescue her brother” (Loomba, “Break Her Will” 99). She gathers her suitors and announces her decision; then, like the personification of the maiden colonial lands described in travelogues, she declares the essential features of this champion who will win her: “he must travell for me / Must put his hasty rape off and put on / A well confirmed, a temperate and true valour (1.3.126-8).

Quisara vows to be the bride of this true knight, yet it is soon revealed that she already has a favored candidate in mind, the Portuguese captain Ruy Dias. In private, she attempts to incite him to take on the deed with promises of love.

Whereas Ruy Dias “dare[s] not speak” his passion, Quisara takes the initiative in expressing her desires and speaks for him: “I dare then / That you might to hope to marry me” (1.2.52-53). She urges him to “[d]o some brave thing … of such an unmatch’d nobleness” “[t]hat may compel my faith, and ask my freedom” (1.2.57,

69). Quisara half-promises to convert, yet Ruy Dias finds himself tongue-tied.

Reversing the traditional gender roles, the princess’s uninhibited speech seems to 237

render her lover completely inactive (Burton 141). In this scene, Quisara clearly plays the role of the bold Saracen princess, who eagerly pursues her lover and in turn demands heroic action as proof of desire and worth. Yet, the inversion of the normative gender hierarchy between the two lovers reveals at the same time the female-dominated power relation between them (Jowitt 126).

Though Ruy Dias uses the appropriate language of knightly devotion in responding to his lady’s request, his claims are revealed as empty rhetoric when he shows a pathetic inability to perform the heroic role expected of him. While he proclaims “[c]ommand dear Lady, / And let the danger be as deep as hell, / As direful to attempt” (1.2.72-74), in the next scene he proves to be too slow to undertake the deed, retreating to prevarications and finding excuses for his delay.

In contrast, his younger countryman Armusia offers the fantasy of a more virile and virtuous Christianity. Leaving Ruy Dias in frustration, he storms the

Governor’s prison, frees the captive king, and claims the princess’ hand. The implicit contrast is significant. On the one hand, Ruy Dias, the representation of the established military rule in the colonial East, is shown to lack the necessary courage and virtue to be worthy of being husband to the island princess. On the other hand, Armusia, the new colonial ideal, acts swiftly in rescuing the captive

King and proves his courage and masculine vigor. The Portuguese hero’s victory over his compatriot, Ruy Dias becomes definitive when Pyniero, impressed with

Armusia’s bravery, confesses: “[h]e will get her with child too, ere you shall come to know him” (2.5.68-69).

Despite her vow to marry her brother’s rescuer, Quisara displays no intention to wed Armusia. While the King, who is now restored to the throne, 238

wants to hasten the nuptials between them, Quisara asks for time, and in the meantime she and Ruy Dias separately plot against Armusia in order to eliminate him. Armusia, who is disappointed with the Princess’s reluctance, specifically declines to force her affections. His companions Soza and Emanuel advise him to establish his mastery in the proper manly way: “shake her / Take her and toss her like a bar,” “pitch her upon a feather bed” where “you may break her will but bruise no bone sir” (3.2.23, 28). Yet, Armusia refrains from doing anything that

“shows too boisterous, / For my affections are as fair and gentle, / As her they serve” (3.2.46-48). Thus, “Armusia is not only a man of action, but also a true gentleman” (Loomba, “Break Her Will” 101). While his chivalric success in the

Princess’s love-test shows that he is no less a man than Ruy Dias, his self-mastery and virtuous conduct clearly distinguish him from his rival countryman, who, in the meantime, is duly conspiring against him.

In emphasizing this distinction between the two Portuguese suitors, the scene in Quisara’s bedchamber acquires considerable symbolic weight. When

Armusia enters her room in secret, hoping to convince her by talking, Quisara accuses him of trying to dishonor her. Yet, Armusia eloquently protests by arguing that his deep humility and service cannot be misread as “violence” or a “ruffian’s boldness” (3.3.58, 60). With his courtly manners he charms the princess and palliates her hostility. However, Ruy Dias, who barges into the room at this moment, displays the completely opposite behavior. Realizing that he is losing the contest for the princess’s affections, he is overcome by jealousy and loses his temper. While Armusia declines to argue in front of the princess and leaves the room peacefully, Ruy Dias starts to question Quisara in a manner which is clearly 239

not appropriate for his status as the princess’ servant. It is exactly at this moment that Quisara sees through Ruy Dias’s bluster. She furiously asserts her royal status and, contrasting him with Armusia, she rejects the Portuguese captain for:

… being nothing but a sound a shape, The mere sign of a Soldier – of a Lover The dregs and draffy part, disgrace and jealousy, I scorn thee, and condemn thee. (3.3.155-158)

Though Quisara earlier thought that the Portuguese were “rare wonders, / The

Lords of fate and fortune” (2.5.15-16), she now understands that what she saw in

Ruy Dias was only the “shape,” a “mere sign” (3.3.156). His failure in the love- test and his show of intemperance prove that he possesses only the outward trappings of virtue and lacks the valuable inferior qualities needed as a soldier and lover.

On the other hand, Armusia opens Quisara’s eyes to his “pure soul” and to his “innocence” (3.3.122). She can finally distinguish that from Ruy Dias’s “fog still,” which has prevented her from seeing the truth: “[s]ure I was blind when I first loved this fellow” (3.3.124, 123). Thus, the island princess makes her choice between the two Portuguese suitors. However, within the colonial scheme of the play she does more than simply choose the right husband for herself; she chooses between “two colonizing powers who look alike but are very different indeed”

(Raman 163). With his virtuous conduct and superior temperance, Armusia rises above Ruy Dias’s violent jealousy and thus earns the love and admiration of

Quisara, just like Ralegh’s Englishmen, who distinguish themselves from their

Spanish rivals by the same qualities and earn the allegiance of the natives of

Guiana. By making use of gendered tropes similar to those found in English travel 240

narratives, Fletcher dramatizes a colonial allegory through the romantic relationship between the island princess and her two Portuguese suitors. By drawing a comparison between these two men with respect to their masculine virtue and manly valor, the playwright idealizes in Armusia a colonial identity which he offers as a worthy alternative to the older type represented by Ruy Dias.

Fletcher further supports the colonial context of the play by means of theatrical devices that emphasize the superiority of the Europeans over the colonized Moluccans, in terms of both their subtlety and their technical knowledge. The fulfillment of the quest by Armusia is made possible by the use of gunpowder, a relatively new technology, unfamiliar to the naïve Moluccans.

Armusia’s followers start a spectacular fire in the town of Ternata, which leaves the natives “stand wond’ring at” (2.2.41) and gives Armusia the time needed to free the captive King. Moreover, in order to penetrate the enemy’s stronghold

“suspectless” (2.2.12), the Portuguese rescuers disguise themselves as “merchants, arm’d underneath” (2.2.1). As a popular stage device, disguise allows Fletcher to superimpose the identities of merchant and soldier in his Portuguese characters

(Raman 168). By doing this, he proposes a cunning strategy for the course of

European colonial project, in which, as Raman argues, “mercantile activity provides title and right for the military colonizing subject” (171), or if we use

Armusia’s terms, in which “policy” prepares the way for “manly force” (2.2.18,

19). Yet, the play also astonishingly acknowledges the duplicity of this strategy, when the Governor of Ternata attempts to persuade the King of Tidore of the dangers posed by Portuguese colonists:

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These men came hither as my vision tells me, Poor, weatherbeaten, almost lost, starv’d, feebled, Their vessels like themselves, most miserable; Made a long suit for traffic, and for comfort, To vent their children’s toys, cure their diseases: They had their suit, they landed and to th’rate Grew rich and powerful, suck’d the fat, and freedom Of this most blessed Isle, taught her to tremble; Witness the Castle here, the Citadel, They have clapp’d upon the neck of your Tidore, This happy town, till that she knew these strangers, To check her when she’s jolly…

Though you be pleased to glorifie that fortune, And think these strangers Gods, take heed I say, I find it but a handsome preparation, A fair fac’d Prologue to a further mischief. (4.1.41-52, 55-58)

At this point in the play the Governor is disguised and he is seeking to advance another plot against Tidore; for this reason his credibility is severely undermined.

Yet, his perception of the reality under the surface of the Portuguese support for

Tidore is startlingly accurate. Without exaggerating, he describes the process of colonization starting from the moment of arrival when the colonists are weak and seemingly harmless people, to their taking over of the island and the likelihood of a future oppression. As McMullan notes, this is “a remarkable deconstruction” of the motives of the entire colonial project, clearly denoting a European awareness with respect to the real nature and consequences of the process of colonization

(232).

Despite the fact that The Island Princess strikingly fits into the discursive patterns used in articulating the colonial experience of England in the early modern age, certain elements of the play align it significantly with the dramatic works analyzed earlier in this study, works which centre on Christian-Islamic encounters in the Mediterranean in the same period. As the Governor of Ternata 242

returns to Tidore in the guise of a Moorish priest to take his revenge, a play that has been proceeding quite smoothly suddenly derails and turns into another enactment of the fantasy of unchallenged Christian manhood against the feminized threat of Islam. As a result of the evil insinuations of the Governor, Quisara demands the conversion of Armusia to her religion as a pre-condition for their marriage. The entailing events follow almost the identical sequence of the plot of

Massinger’s The Renegado. Terrified at the thought of abandoning his religion,

Armusia expresses his hatred against both Quisara and the native religion, risking captivity and death. However, in the end, his absolute steadfastness and honor win

Quisara to his side, as she recognizes the truth contained in her lover’s religion and willingly converts to Christianity.

Within the colonial context of the play Quisara’s conversion to Christianity clearly makes sense. Converting the natives to the Christian religion was essential to the logic of imperial expansion. It was indeed, as McMullan notes, “the godly duty that justified the entire colonial enterprise” (228). In the play, this motive is emphasized in the initial act, when, in order to encourage Ruy Dias to undertake the love-test, Quisara allows him to believe that she would convert to his religion and become “a sweet soul’d Christian” (1.2.47). In the beginning, the possibility of a marriage between Quisara and Ruy Dias does not pose any particular threat on the religious faith of the Christian man. However, from Act 4 onwards, the direction of conversion is turned completely to the opposite side and presented as a principal danger to the princess’s Christian lover, who is now Armusia. Since the

Moluccan kingdoms were not powerful Islamic empires, like the Ottoman or

Persian ones, depicting a tale of apostasy in the Moluccan setting was quite 243

atypical. While there are few examples of European men ‘going native’ in the eastern colonial territories, these instances do not involve religious conversions, and their numbers do not justify the play’s emphasis on the threat of apostasy.4

The central role given to religious conflict within the economy of

Fletcher’s drama can be understood fully only when the play is seen as an interplay between two separate discourses which are generated by the contact with non-European cultures, but within different contexts. While in the male rivalry between the two Portuguese for the hand of Quisara the play alludes to colonial metaphors, when it introduces the threat of religious conversion it borrows from contemporary dramatizations of Christian encounters with Islam in the

Mediterranean. While both discourses negotiate the contact with the Other, the driving forces that undergird their productions are distinctive. Within the context of colonization the European characters of the play have a clear advantage over the colonized subjects and they seek to justify their interests in colonial territories.

Yet, in the Mediterranean context, the power balances are quite the opposite. Here, the threatened ones are the Europeans, because they frequently succumb to the lures of Islam and are challenged by conversion and assimilation. Even if at some points it appears somewhat awkward, Fletcher combines these two different contexts in his romantic drama, employing the established dynamics of gender relations as their common characteristic.

4 For example, Francisco Serrão, a Portuguese explorer and a cousin of Ferdinand Magellan, was shipwrecked and stranded at Hitu island in 1512. Later, he established ties with the Sultan of Ternate and became his personal advisor for all matters including military and family issues. Having been well received by the Sultan, Serrão never left the island, married a native woman and lived like a ‘white rajah’ until he was poisoned by the Sultan of Ternate in 1521. 244

In dramatizing the conversion threat posed to his Christian hero, Fletcher refers to a similar pattern to the one we observed in the turning Turk plays. For instance, the Governor tries to turn Quisara’s affections away from Armusia by appealing to her religious and nationalist sentiments. In order to persuade the princess to submit to his schemes, he praises her beauty with exorbitant flatteries and urges her to “[u]se it discreetly” to the advantage of her own people (4.2.153).

He compares her to a “heavenly form” whose “miracle must work on” the

Portuguese like a “chain” that Quisara should keep fast “[a]nd link it to our gods, and their fair worships” (4.2.161-170). While all this is nothing more than a ploy for him, because he anticipates Armusia’s reaction, the Governor here applies the same strategy that the Turkish men in Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk use in convincing Ward. He seeks to draw the Christian man into apostasy by using the allure and desirability of the Muslim woman. Despite the fact that the Governor speaks of a polytheistic religion here, his disguise as a Moorish priest make him clearly “a religious denominator” (Burton 141). And when Armusia refuses to convert and is imprisoned immediately, the play makes a direct reference to the stories of physical captivity and forced conversions that also inform Daborne’s and

Massinger’s plays.

Additionally, the portrayal of Quisara falls into the stereotype of the

Muslim woman of the turning Turk plays who are depicted as powerful and dangerous temptresses. Though her exceptional beauty and honor are frequently praised by the Portuguese, if we “observe her close” as Pyniero warns us in the opening act, we shall indeed “find her nature… will not prove excellent” (1.1.43,

44). Quisara’s sexuality is a dangerous force in the world of the play, and she 245

thoroughly exploits her royal status and beauty, causing actions unjust and corrupt.

Her desirability has led all the local princes to the brink of declaring war upon each other, yet she is represented as possessing sexual appetites of her own. The love-test she orchestrates in Act 1 is satirized and shown to be ill-conceived. First of all, it is not a fair contest, because Quisara has designed it with a winner in mind, even if she has entirely misread the character of her favored candidate.

When Ruy Dias proves inadequate to the task, Quisara withdraws her promise to marry the victor, and in the meantime she attempts to corrupt Pyniero with veiled promises of sexual favors in exchange for murdering Armusia. Most importantly, though, the apparent reason for the love-test, the welfare of her brother, is shown to be utterly subservient to the fulfillment of her erotic desires, because its sole purpose is to secure the man she wants for her husband rather than ensure the safe return of her brother (Jowitt 130). In other words, she risks her brother’s life in order to fulfill her vanity and romantic whims. Quisara is clearly a woman controlled by her emotions, and the threat of apostasy comes from this spoilt and unruly Muslim woman, instead of powerful Muslim men.

When Quisara attempts to convert Armusia to the native religion under the watchful eye of the Governor, the Christian hero’s earlier excitement about the exotic wonders of the Moluccan Islands instantly evaporates into hateful disgust, and the real stakes of the whole encounter between Armusia and Quisara reveal to be religious. When the princess asks Armusia to “[w]orship our Gods, renounce that faith you are bred in” (4.5.37), he violently rants against the “maumet Gods” of Quisara’s religion, which he presents as an incoherent mixture of Islam and idolatry (4.5.41). He accuses the islanders of human sacrifice and devil worship, 246

and threatens to destroy them and their temples for having tried to beguile him.

While the princess can hardly be claimed to have seduced Armusia throughout the play, as she was trying to avoid her marriage to him, at this point the Portuguese hero establishes her as an emblem of the temptress who causes man’s self- destruction. He regrets succumbing to her and repents:

Have mercy heaven, how have I been wand’ring? Wand’ring the way of lust, and left my maker? How have I slept like a Cork upon a water, And had no feeling of the storm that toss’d me? Trod the blind paths of death? Forsook assurance, Eternity of blessedness for a woman? For a young handsome face hazard my being? (4.5.56-62)

While cultural or racial differences have not impeded Armusia in pursuing

Quisara’s affections up to this point, after the princess asks him to convert, religion becomes the absolute marker of irreconcilability between the two lovers.

In the eyes of Armusia, Quisara’s once “young” and “handsome” face is now transformed to a black ugliness that “looks like death itself” (4.5.104). When

Quisara persists in her efforts, Armusia finds her “painted” and “crafty,” and accuses her of using “devilish arts” to tempt him (4.5.140). Lowering Quisara from her former goddess-like status, Armusia presents her as the incarnation of the

Devil in female form, and in doing so he clearly uses the differences of gender, color, and religion interchangeably.

Interestingly, it is at this particular moment, when Armusia vehemently curses and scorns Quisara that the princess is suddenly transformed, recognizing that she truly loves and honors this man. As in the conversion of Donusa in

Massinger’s The Renegado, the Christian hero’s fervent rejection of her seduction, authority and religion creates a curious effect on the princess, and she declares her 247

intention to convert to Christianity. As Armusia delivers one final speech scolding frantically the Moluccan gods and challenging them to “glut themselves with

Christian blood,” she crosses over to his side:

Stand fast sir, And fear ’em not; you that stepp’d so nobly Into this pious trial, start not now, Keep on your way, a virgin will assist ye, A virgin won by your fair constancy, And glorying that she is won so, will die by ye; I’ve touched you every way, tried ye most honest, Perfect, and good, chaste, blushing-chaste, and temperate, Indeed the perfect school of worth I find ye, The temple of true honour. (5.2.105-114)

Rather than converting her Christian lover, Quisara is herself converted by

Armusia’s “fair constancy” and steadfastness, which excites Quisara causing her to abandon her own faith (5.2.109). As the “mist of ignorance” is cleared away from her eyes, she finally recognizes the “truth” in Armusia’s religion and willingly chooses to embrace martyrdom with him (4.5.88).

As in The Renegado, so in Fletcher’s play the Muslim princess’s conversion clearly comes as a result of her love for the Christian hero. Quisara is persuaded to change her religion as she reads the value of the Christian faith through her lover’s character, which she describes as “the perfect school of worth”

(5.2.113). As she converts, she simultaneously transforms into an embodiment of female submissiveness. The once unruly and authoritative princess now asks

Armusia to be her guide, to “instruct” her. Like Donusa in Massinger’s play, who declares to be her Christian lover’s “humble shadow” (5.3.85), Quisara insists:

“[w]hich way you go sir, I must follow” (5.5.55). This change in her character stands in striking contrast to her earlier depiction. It appears that her submission to 248

Christianity entails her submission to masculine authority quite naturally. Thus, by turning the dangerous non-Christian princess into a tractable paragon of Christian womanhood, the play not only confirms the superiority of Christianity to the implicitly Islamic religion of the Moluccans, but also validates Christian patriarchal prerogatives that establish male superiority.

In her conversion speech Quisara also places emphasis on her status as a virgin, recalling the colonial context of the play in which she signifies the unravished and fertile territories of the Spice Islands. While Quisara’s conversion denotes that she is sexually and spiritually conquered by Armusia’s “honest,”

“chaste,” and “temperate” masculinity, it simultaneously legitimizes the conquest of her virgin body by the same masculinity in the marriage which is soon to take place. Thus, by using the gender dynamics of the relationship between Quisara and

Armusia as a justification ground, Fletcher’s drama negotiates both the European colonial desire and Christianity’s conflict with Islam. While with his virtuous and temperate conduct Armusia emerges victorious against his rival countryman, with religious evangelism and resistance he overcomes the Islamic threat, and both cases are inscribed in a pattern that ensures a greater male control over the female in general.

The happy ending of the play is also provided through a similar instance of interfaith desire between Quisara’s waiting woman Panura and Ruy Dias’s nephew

Pyniero. Panura’s love for Pyniero eventually leads her to betray the disguised

Governor to the Portuguese, and with her bravery and wholeheartedness she charms him. Yet, in this relationship the Christian man’s religion is never threatened; on the contrary, Pyniero uses his intimacy with Panura as an 249

opportunity to win her to Christianity and immediately offers to convert her.

Simultaneously, the information provided by Panura allows the Portuguese soldiers to attempt a bold rescue of their captive countryman. In the face of religious challenge, Armusia and Ruy Dias, whose rivalry once divided them, reunite and defeat the Governor, revealing him as a “false prophet” – the same charge laid against Muhammad in the European accounts of Islam. The play closes as the King seizes Ternata, delivering its main castle over to Pyniero, and announces that he too is “half persuaded” towards the new faith (5.5.89). While the play’s conclusion is clearly to the advantage of the Portuguese colonists,

Fletcher subtly undercuts the significance of this victory. Since the King remains only “half persuaded” and firmly established on the thrones of both Tidore and

Ternata, the princess’s betrothal to Armusia signifies more a familial infiltration of the colonial, rather than a full conquest. In view of England’s weak position both against Islam and as a European colonial power, it is understandable that Fletcher refrains from securing definitive domination over the Moluccan people of the East

Indies. Perhaps this is a projection that would only be redeemed at a later time, when England would stamp the world as the principal colonial power and establish irreversibly the hierarchy between a dominant England and a dominated East.

250

Conclusion

The subjugated and voiceless Muslim woman represented in North

American and European mass media today might seem as an immutable, essential image that is rooted in the historical past. Yet, the analyses that I have offered in this study reveal quite a different picture. Instead of the oppressed, secluded, and silenced figures of modern discourses on Islam, early modern English texts feature assertive and articulate Islamic female figures, who transgress the traditional bounds of femininity. In some of these texts, Islamic women are presented as powerful queens or noblewomen, who are endowed with sovereign authority and act as female representatives of the earthly Islamic power. In some others, they are depicted as unruly seductresses, who invert the patriarchal gender dynamics and dominate both Muslim and Christian men. While the notions of the harem and veil are not absent from these representations, they appear to be indicators of camouflaged lust and outrageous sexuality, rather than characterizations of Islam as a prohibitive religion. The rhetorical move in many early modern texts involving a Muslim woman is not to free her from oppression, as it is in modern representations, but to subdue her. Instead of the emphasis on her irreducible alterity, there is often an attempt to recuperate her as a Christian.

Post-colonial theory sees the image of the Muslim woman that is constructed by late twentieth-century media as an outcome of Orientalist 251

discourses, which emerged in the late eighteenth century with the French invasion of Egypt and continuously expanded as the European military and political superiority over the Middle East became more certain. The hegemonic power that the Europeans attained over the East enabled them to define the Oriental Other as their inferior opposite, in terms of culture, religion, and social structure, and the image of the Muslim woman became an important discursive vehicle for expressing the European desire of conquest and justifying domination. Yet, as I have tried to show in the preceding chapters, global power balances were not always in favor of Europe throughout history. Especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, none of the European states was in the position to claim superiority against the powerful Islamic empire of the Ottomans. It is true that in this period also, the image of the Muslim woman appeared as an essential discursive catalyst in the articulation of Europe’s cross-cultural relationship with

Islam. Yet, rather than denoting the East’s backwardness or its availability for

Europe’s possession, this earlier image was loaded with meanings which reflected anxieties with respect to the perceived religious and imperial threat posed by the

Ottoman Empire.

The arguments and the analyses of various early modern English texts that

I presented in this study point to the conclusion that the image of the Muslim woman, rather than being considered a timeless phenomenon, should be seen as an evolving picture, whose elements were modified throughout the ages in parallel with both the global and the domestic dynamics that informed the European mindset in each particular period. In this process of evolution, some of the previously emerged attributes of the image of the Muslim woman were discarded 252

and some new ones were acquired, while still some others were reappropriated and reintroduced to the image in line with the political and ideological implications of specific moments in history.

The modifications in the representation of the Muslim woman were dependent mostly on how Europe defined itself vis-à-vis the Islamic world. In other words, the power balances between Europe and Islam had a direct impact on how Islamic women were perceived by Western people. In addition, the notions of difference that shaped the European sense of normative self-hood, such as gender, sexuality, race, and class, significantly contributed to this evolution. Especially,

Christian-European patriarchal prerogatives with respect to gender, as well as the changing definitions of ideal womanhood had a profound effect on how Europeans understood and represented Islamic femininity in different ages. In our contemporary era, when the equality between man and woman is considered a hallmark of civilized Western societies, Muslim women are portrayed as weak and subordinated figures, who are victimized by the absolute Islamic male domination.

However, at a time when European patriarchy condemned female independency and favored a passive and humble disposition in women, Western writers often represented Islamic women as transgressive and degenerate female figures, who subverted the established gender norms.

To sum up, the image of the Muslim woman in early modern European discourses was cut out according to the gender standards of European men, alongside the political and ideological meanings attributed to Islam in that particular era. For this reason, any study on Western representations of Islamic women should be historically and geographically specific, rather than resorting to 253

generalizations, and should involve a multidisciplinary approach, which incorporates the reading of literary and historical texts against both the European politics towards Islam and the domestic constructions of gender and social hierarchies dictated by the dominant ideology in a given age.

254

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