THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARLOWE

Spy, murder victim, and the boldest poet of his day, the transgressive Elizabethan dramatist is catnip to biographers.

- BY ANTHONY LANE

Diluting the offensiveness of some of Christopher Marlowe's plays for modern audiences is no easy task.

Do you know the one about the Jewish guy and the Muslim Turk? They gang up on this Christian friar and strangle him. Then they take him into the street and prop him up on a staff, as if he were alive and begging. Along comes another friar, who doesn't like the first friar, so he grabs the staff and beats the life out of him, unaware that he’s already dead. When the Jew and the Muslim turn up again, they accuse Christian No. 2 of killing Christian No. 1. And the Muslim points to the body and says that his brains are dropping out of his nose. Honestly, it’s a scream.

Then, there’s the one about the two Asian guys who are harnessed to a chariot and made to pull it along, like horses, with bits in their mouths, while this other Asian guy, holding the reins, lashes them with a whip. And here’s the joke: they used to be kings! And they're lucky, because there’s another king, a British one, who has to stand in filthy water for ten days, with the sound of a drum to stop him from sleeping. You know, like at Abu Ghraib. At last, he lies down on a feather bed, which sounds nice, except a table is laid on top of him and men stomp on it. Then he gets raped with a red-hot poker. And that’s the end of him.