Image of Mustapha in Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (1594)

The image of the historical Turkish Prince Mustapha (15201566) is symbolic in Elizabethan Age as a reflection of paternal filicide.The tragedy of Prince Mustapha is portrayed in many plays. It is a unique portrait of subjugation in the Elizabethan eyes of the European fear of Turkey. Although some historians envisage Mustapha with admiration for his tragic fate by the Turkish tyrant, Greville stands by the side of the Turkish prince. Greville’s Soliman is an arrogant sultan with bloody hands who cares only for his crown. Roxolana is the evil sultana who plotted the demise of Mustapha to save the crown for her own son. By an irony of fate, Roxolana ends up a victim to her own plot. Though Greville expresses his allure in the Turkish courts affairs, he portrays his apprehension in the Turkish Sultan.