A
DY IN
WO
Translated from the Original Doric 'Choose Reform or Civil War,
When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort-Queen shall hunt a King with hogs,
Riding on the
AN
IS
Tyrant Swellfoot,
King of Thebes.
Iona Taurina, his Queen.
Mammon,
Arch-Priest of Famine.
Purganax Wizard,
Minister of Swellfoot.
Dakry Wizard,
Minister of Swellfoot.
Laoctonos Wizard,
Minister of Swellfoot.
The Gadfly.
The Leech.
The Rat.
Moses, the Sow-gelder.
Solomon, the Porkman.
Zephaniah,
Pig-butcher.
The Minotaur.
Chorus of the Swinish Multitude.
Guards,
Attendants,
Priests, etc., etc.
CT I.
Scene I.-- A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death's-heads, and tiled with scalps.
Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of Boars,
Sows, and Sucking-Pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple.
Enter Swellfoot, in his Royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs.
Swellfoot.
Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power
These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [He contemplates himself with satisfaction.
Of gold and purple, and this kingly
Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,
And these most sacred nether
Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and
Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid)[1],
Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,
That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing!
Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,
Radical-butchers,
Paper-money-millers,
Bishops and Deacons, and the entire
Of those fat martyrs to the
Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,
Offer their secret vows!
Thou plenteous
Of their Eleusis, hail!
The Swine. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh!
Swellfoot. Ha! what are ye,
Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies,
Cling round this sacred shrine?
Swine. Aigh! aigh! aigh!
Swellfoot. What! ye that
The very beasts that, offered at her
With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,
Ever propitiate her reluctant
When taxes are withheld?
Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh!
Swellfoot. What! ye who
With filthy snouts my red potatoes
In Allan's rushy bog?
Who eat the
Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?
Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks
From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,
Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?
The Swine.—Semichorus I.
The same, alas! the same;
Though only now the name Of Pig remains to me.
Semichorus II.
If 'twere your kingly
Us wretched Swine to kill, What should we yield to thee?
Swellfoot.
Why, skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.
Chorus of Swine. I have heard your Laureate sing, That pity was a royal thing;
Under your mighty ancestors, we
Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,
Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew,
And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too;
But now our sties are fallen in, we catch The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;
Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;
Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga,
Has yet been ours since your reign begun.
First Sow.
My Pigs, 'tis in vain to tug.
Second Sow.
I could almost eat my litter.
First Pig.
I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.
Second Pig.
Our skin and our bones would be bitter.
The Boars.
We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter.
Semichorus. Happier Swine were they than we, Drowned in the Gadarean sea—I wish that pity would drive out the devils,
Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,
And sink us in the waves of thy compassion!
Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!
Now if your Majesty would have our bristles To bind your mortar with, or fill our
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles, In policy—ask else your royal Solons—You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!
Swellfoot.
This is sedition, and rank blasphemy!
Ho! there, my guards!
Enter a Guard.
Guard. Your sacred Majesty.
Swellfoot.
Call in the Jews,
Solomon the court porkman,
Moses the sow-gelder, and
The hog-butcher.
Guard. They are in waiting,
Sire.
Enter Solomon,
Moses, and Zephaniah.
Swellfoot.
Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those Sows [The Pigs run about in consternation.
That load the earth with Pigs; cut close and deep.
Moral restraint I see has no effect,
Nor prostitution, nor our own example,
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison—This was the art which the arch-priest of
Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy—Cut close and deep, good Moses.
Moses. Let your
Keep the Boars quiet, else—Swellfoot. Zephaniah,
That fat Hog's throat, the brute seems overfed;
Seditious hunks! to whine for want of grains.
Zephaniah.
Your sacred Majesty, he has the dropsy;—We shall find pints of hydatids in's liver,
He has not half an inch of wholesome
Upon his carious ribs—Swellfoot. 'Tis all the same,
He'll serve instead of riot money,
Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes' streets;
And January winds, after a
Of butchering, will make them relish carrion.
Now,
Solomon,
I'll sell you in a
The whole kit of them.
Solomon. Why, your Majesty,
I could not give—Swellfoot. Kill them out of the way,
That shall be price enough, and let me
Their everlasting grunts and whines no more![Exeunt, driving in the Swine.
Enter Mammon, the Arch-Priest; and Purganax,
Chief of the Council of Wizards.
Purganax.
The future looks as black as death, a cloud,
Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it—The troops grow mutinous—the revenue fails—There's something rotten in us—for the
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!
Mammon.
Why what's the matter, my dear fellow, now?
Do the troops mutiny?—decimate some regiments;
Does money fail?—come to my mint—coin paper,
Till gold be at a discount, and
To show his bilious face, go purge himself,
In emulation of her vestal whiteness.
Purganax.
Oh, would that this were all!
The oracle!!
Mammon.
Why it was I who spoke that oracle,
And whether I was dead drunk or inspired,
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!
Purganax. The words went thus:—'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!
When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs,
Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.'Mammon.
Now if the oracle had ne'er
This sad alternative, it must arrive,
Or not, and so it must now that it has;
And whether I was urged by grace
Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words,
Which must, as all words must, be false or true,
It matters not: for the same Power made all,
Oracle, wine, and me and you—or none—'Tis the same thing.
If you knew as
Of oracles as I do—Purganax. You
Believe in nothing; if you were to
Of a particular number in the Lottery,
You would not buy the ticket?
Mammon. Yet our
Are seldom blanks.
But what steps have you taken?
For prophecies, when once they get abroad,
Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends,
Or hypocrites who, from assuming virtue,
Do the same actions that the virtuous do,
Contrive their own fulfilment.
This Iona—Well—you know what the chaste Pasiphae did,
Wife to that most religious King of Crete,
And still how popular the tale is here;
And these dull Swine of Thebes boast their
From the free Minotaur.
You know they
Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,
And everything relating to a
Is popular and respectable in Thebes.
Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;
They think their strength consists in eating beef,—Now there were danger in the
If Queen Iona—Purganax. I have taken good
That shall not be.
I struck the crust o' the
With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!
And from a cavern full of ugly shapesI chose a Leech, a Gadfly, and a Rat.
The Gadfly was the same which Juno
To agitate Io[2], and which Ezekiel[3]
That the Lord whistled for out of the
Of utmost Aethiopia, to
Mesopotamian Babylon.
The
Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee,
His crookèd tail is barbed with many stings,
Each able to make a thousand wounds, and
Immedicable; from his convex
He sees fair things in many hideous shapes,
And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.
Like other beetles he is fed on dung—He has eleven feet with which he crawls,
Trailing a blistering slime, and this foul
Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,
From isle to isle, from city unto city,
Urging her flight from the far
To fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle,
Ortygia,
Melite, and Calypso's Rock,
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Aeolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!
And through the fortunate Saturnian land,
Into the darkness of the West.
Mammon. But
This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?
Purganax.
Gods! what an if! but there is my gray Rat:
So thin with want, he can crawl in and
Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,
And he shall creep into her dressing-room,
And—Mammon. My dear friend, where are your wits? as
She does not always toast a piece of
And bait the trap? and rats, when lean
To crawl through such chinks—Purganax. But my Leech—a
Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings,
Capaciously expatiative, which
His little body like a red balloon,
As full of blood as that of hydrogen,
Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he
And clings and pulls—a horse-leech, whose deep
The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling for ever.
Mammon.
For Queen Iona would suffice, and less;
But 'tis the Swinish multitude I fear,
And in that fear I have—Purganax. Done what?
Mammon.
My eldest son Chrysaor, because
Attended public meetings, and would
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,
And other topics, ultra-radical;
And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's Paradise,
And funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills,
Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina,
And married her to the gallows[4].
Purganax. A good match!
Mammon.
A high connexion,
Purganax.
The
Is of a very ancient family,
Of Hounslow Heath,
Tyburn, and the New Drop,
And has great influence in both Houses;—oh!
He makes the fondest husband; nay, too fond,—New-married people should not kiss in public;
But the poor souls love one another so!
And then my little grandchildren, the gibbets,
Promising children as you ever saw,—The young playing at hanging, the elder
How to hold radicals.
They are well taught too,
For every gibbet says its
And reads a select chapter in the
Before it goes to play.[A most tremendous humming is heard.
Purganax. Ha! what do I hear?
Enter the Gadfly.
Mammon.
Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.
Gadfly. Hum! hum! hum!
From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray scalps Of the mountains,
I come! Hum! hum! hum!
From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces Of golden Byzantium;
From the temples divine of old Palestine, From Athens and Rome, With a ha! and a hum! I come!
I come! All inn-doors and windows Were open to me: I saw all that sin does, Which lamps hardly
That burn in the night by the curtained bed,—The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red, Dinging and singing, From slumber I rung her,
Loud as the clank of an ironmonger; Hum! hum! hum! Far, far, far!
With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, I drove her—afar! Far, far, far!
From city to city, abandoned of pity, A ship without needle or star;—Homeless she passed, like a cloud on the blast, Seeking peace, finding war;— She is here in her car, From afar, and afar;— Hum! hum! I have stung her and wrung her, The venom is working;— And if you had hung her With canting and quirking,
She could not be deader than she will be soon;—I have driven her close to you, under the moon, Night and day, hum! hum! ha!
I have hummed her and drummed
From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her, Hum! hum! hum!
Enter the Leech and the Rat.
Leech. I will suck Blood or muck!
The disease of the state is a plethory,
Who so fit to reduce it as I?
Rat. I'll slily seize and Let blood from her weasand,—Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny,
With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.
Purganax.
Aroint ye! thou unprofitable worm! [To the Leech.
And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell! [To the Gadfly.
To sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings,
And the ox-headed Io—Swine(within). Ugh, ugh, ugh!
Hail!
Iona the divine,
We will be no longer Swine,
But Bulls with horns and dewlaps.
Rat. For,
You know, my lord, the Minotaur—Purganax(fiercely).
Be silent! get to hell! or I will
The cat out of the kitchen.
Well,
Lord Mammon,
This is a pretty business.[Exit the Rat.
Mammon. I will
And spell some scheme to make it ugly then.—[Exit.
Enter Swellfoot.
Swellfoot.
She is returned!
Taurina is in Thebes,
When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell!
Oh,
Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy,
And waving o'er the couch of wedded
The torch of Discord with its fiery hair;
This is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!
Swellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea,
The very name of wife had conjugal rights;
Her cursèd image ate, drank, slept with me,
And in the arms of Adiposa
Her memory has received a husband's—[A loud tumult, and cries of 'Iona for ever!—No Swellfoot!'! Hark!
How the Swine cry Iona Taurina;
I suffer the real presence;
Purganax,
Off with her head!
Purganax. But I must first impanelA jury of the Pigs.
Swellfoot. Pack them then.
Purganax.
Or fattening some few in two separate sties,
And giving them clean straw, tying some
Of ribbon round their legs—giving their
Some tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass,
And their young Boars white and red rags, and
Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking
Between the ears of the old ones; and
They are persuaded, that by the inherent
Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs,
Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up,
Not to say, help us in destroying her.
Swellfoot.
This plan might be tried too;—where's
Laoctonos?
Enter Laoctonos and Dakry. It is my royal
That you,
Lord General, bring the head and body,
If separate it would please me better,
Of Queen Iona.
Laoctonos. That pleasure I well knew,
And made a charge with those battalions bold,
Called, from their dress and grin, the royal apes,
Upon the Swine, who in a hollow
Enclosed her, and received the first
Like so many rhinoceroses, and
Retreating in good order, with bare
And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,
Bore her in triumph to the public sty.
What is still worse, some Sows upon the
Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,
And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry,'Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!'Purganax. Hark!
The Swine(without).
Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!
Dakry.
Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower,
Which overlooks the sty, and made a
Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,
Of delicacy, mercy, judgement, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
Adultery, destitution, and divorce,
Piety, faith, and state necessity,
And how I loved the Queen!—and then I
With the pathos of my own eloquence,
And every tear turned to a mill-stone,
Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was madeA slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and
The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,
With dust and stones.—Enter Mammon.
Mammon. I wonder that gray
Like you should be so beardless in their schemes;
It had been but a point of
To keep Iona and the Swine apart.
Divide and rule! but ye have made a
Between two parties who will govern
But for my art.—Behold this
AG! it
The poison
AG of that Green Spider huge,
On which our spies skulked in ovation
The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead:
A bane so much the deadlier fills it
As calumny is worse than death,—for
The Gadfly's venom, fifty times distilled,
Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,
In due proportion, and black ratsbane,
That very Rat, who, like the Pontic tyrant,
Nurtures himself on poison, dare not touch;—All is sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud,
Who is the Devil's Lord High Chancellor,
And over it the Primate of all
Murmured this pious baptism:—'Be thou
The
EN
AG; and this power and grace be thine:
That thy contents, on whomsoever poured,
Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest
To savage, foul, and fierce deformity.
Let all baptized by thy infernal
Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch!
No name left out which orthodoxy loves,
Court Journal or legitimate Review!—Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton,
Of other wives and husbands than their own—The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!
Wither they to a ghastly
Of what was human!—let not man or
Behold their face with unaverted eyes!
Or hear their names with ears that tingle
With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!'—This is a perilous liquor;—good my Lords.— [Swellfoot approaches to touch the
EN
AG.
Beware! for God's sake, beware!—if you should
The seal, and touch the fatal liquor—Purganax. There,
Give it to me.
I have been used to
All sorts of poisons.
His dread
Only desires to see the colour of it.
Mammon.
Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it),
Our victory is assured.
We must
Her Majesty from the sty, and make the
Believe that the contents of the
EN
Are the true test of guilt or innocence.
And that, if she be guilty, 'twill transform
To manifest deformity like guilt.
If innocent, she will become
Into an angel, such as they say she is;
And they will see her flying through the air,
So bright that she will dim the noonday sun;
Showering down blessings in the shape of comfits.
This, trust a priest, is just the sort of
Swine will believe.
I'll wager you will see
Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties,
With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her
Among the clouds, and some will hold the
Of one another's ears between their teeth,
To catch the coming hail of comfits in.
You,
Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab,
Make them a solemn speech to this effect:
I go to put in readiness the
Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine,
Where, for more glory, let the
Take place of the uglification of the Queen.
Dakry(to Swellfoot).
I, as the keeper of your sacred conscience,
Humbly remind your Majesty that the
Of your high office, as
To red Bellona, should not be deferred.
Purganax.
All part, in happier plight to meet again.[Exeunt.
ND OF
HE
ST
CT.
CT
Scene I.—The Public Sty.
The Boars in full Assembly.
Enter Purganax.
Purganax.
Grant me your patience,
Gentlemen and Boars,
Ye, by whose patience under public
The glorious constitution of these
Subsists, and shall subsist.
The Lean-Pig
Grow with the growing populace of Swine,
The taxes, that true source of Piggishness(How can I find a more appropriate
To include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,
And all that fit Boeotia as a
To teach the other nations how to live?),
Increase with Piggishness itself; and
Does the revenue, that great spring of
The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,
Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,
Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps,
All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,
And the revenue will amount to—nothing!
The failure of a foreign market
Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,
And such home manufactures, is but partial;
And, that the population of the Pigs,
Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on
And water, is a fact which is—you know—That is—it is a state-necessity—Temporary, of course.
Those impious Pigs,
Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared
The settled Swellfoot system, or to
Irreverent mockery of the
Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been
Into a loyal and an orthodox whine.
Things being in this happy state, the
Iona—[A loud cry from the Pigs. She is innocent! most innocent!
Purganax.
That is the very thing that I was saying,
Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona
Most innocent, no doubt, returns to Thebes,
And the lean Sows and Boars collect about her,
Wishing to make her think that we believe(I mean those more substantial Pigs, who
Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw)That she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig
Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has
Your immemorial right, and which I
Maintain you in to the last drop of—A Boar(interrupting him).
Does any one accuse her of?
Purganax. Why, no
Makes any positive
There were hints dropped, and so the privy
Conceived that it became them to
His Majesty to investigate their truth;—Not for his own sake; he could be
To let his wife play any pranks she pleased,
If, by that sufferance, he could please the Pigs;
But then he fears the morals of the Swine,
The Sows especially, and what
It might produce upon the purity
Religion of the rising
Of Sucking-Pigs, if it could be
That Queen Iona—[A pause.
First Boar. Well, go on; we
To hear what she can possibly have done.
Purganax.
Why, it is hinted, that a certain Bull—Thus much is known:—the milk-white Bulls that
Beside Clitumnus and the crystal
Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh
Of lotus-grass and blossoming
Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet
Loading the morning winds until they
With living fragrance, are so beautiful!—Well,
I say nothing;—but Europa
On such a one from Asia into Crete,
And the enamoured sea grew calm
His gliding beauty.
And Pasiphae,
Iona's grandmother,—but she is innocent!
And that both you and I, and all assert.
First Boar.
Most innocent!
Purganax. Behold this
AG; a bag—Second Boar.
Oh! no
EN
GS!!
Jealousy's eyes are green,
Scorpions are green, and water-snakes, and efts,
And verdigris, and—Purganax. Honourable Swine,
In Piggish souls can prepossessions reign?
Allow me to remind you, grass is green—All flesh is grass;—no bacon but is flesh—Ye are but bacon.
This divining
AG(Which is not green, but only bacon colour)Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o'erA woman guilty of—we all know what—Makes her so hideous, till she finds one
She never can commit the like again.
If innocent, she will turn into an angel,
And rain down blessings in the shape of
As she flies up to heaven.
Now, my
Is to convert her sacred
Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do),
By pouring on her head this mystic water.[Showing the Bag.
I know that she is innocent;
I
Only to prove her so to all the world.
First Boar.
Excellent, just, and noble Purganax.
Second Boar.
How glorious it will be to see her
Flying above our heads, her
Streaming like—like—like—Third Boar. Anything.
Purganax. Oh no!
But like a standard of an admiral's ship,
Or like the banner of a conquering host,
Or like a cloud dyed in the dying day,
Unravelled on the blast from a white mountain;
Or like a meteor, or a war-steed's mane,
Or waterfall from a dizzy
Scattered upon the wind.
First Boar. Or a cow's tail.
Second Boar.
Or anything, as the learned Boar observed.
Purganax.
Gentlemen Boars,
I move a resolution,
That her most sacred Majesty should
Invited to attend the feast of Famine,
And to receive upon her chaste white
Dews of Apotheosis from this
AG.[A great confusion is heard of the Pigs out of Doors, which communicates itself to those within.
During the first Strophe, the doors of the Sty are staved in, and a number of exceedingly
Pigs and Sows and Boars rush in.
Semichorus I.
No!
Yes!
Semichorus II.
Yes!
No!
Semichorus I.
A law!
Semichorus II.
A flaw!
Semichorus I.
Porkers, we shall lose our wash, Or must share it with the Lean-Pigs!
First Boar.
Order! order! be not rash! Was there ever such a scene,
Pigs!
An old Sow(rushing in).
I never saw so fine a dash Since I first began to wean Pigs.
Second Boar(solemnly).
The Queen will be an angel time enough. I vote, in form of an amendment,
Purganax rub a little of that stuff Upon his face.
Purganax(his heart is seen to beat through his waistcoat). Gods!
What would ye be at?
Semichorus I.
Purganax has plainly shown a Cloven foot and jackdaw feather.
Semichorus II.
I vote Swellfoot and Iona Try the magic test together;
Whenever royal spouses bicker,
Both should try the magic liquor.
An old Boar(aside). A miserable state is that of Pigs, For if their drivers would tear caps and wigs,
The Swine must bite each other's ear therefore.
An old Sow(aside). A wretched lot Jove has assigned to Swine, Squabbling makes Pig-herds hungry, and they
On bacon, and whip Sucking-Pigs the more.
Chorus. Hog-wash has been ta'en away: If the Bull-Queen is divested, We shall be in every way Hunted, stripped, exposed, molested; Let us do whate'er we may, That she shall not be arrested.
Queen, we entrench you with walls of brawn, And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet:
Place your most sacred person here.
We pawn Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it. Those who wrong you, wrong us; Those who hate you, hate us; Those who sting you, sting us; Those who bait you, bait us;
The oracle is now about to
Fulfilled by circumvolving destiny;
Which says: 'Thebes, choose reform or civil war, When through your streets, instead of hare with dogs, A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs,
Riding upon the
AN
UR.'Enter Iona Taurina.
Iona Taurina(coming forward).
Gentlemen Swine, and gentle Lady-Pigs,
The tender heart of every Boar
Their Queen, of any act
With native Piggishness, and she,
With confidence upon the grunting nation,
Has thrown herself, her cause, her life, her all,
Her innocence, into their Hoggish arms;
Nor has the expectation been
Of finding shelter there.
Yet know, great Boars,(For such whoever lives among you finds you,
And so do I), the innocent are proud!
I have accepted your protection
In compliment of your kind love and care,
Not for necessity.
The
Are safest there where trials and dangers wait;
Innocent Queens o'er white-hot ploughshares
Unsinged, and ladies,
Erin's laureate sings it[5],
Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,
Walked from Killarney to the Giant's Causeway,
Through rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry,
White-boys and Orange-boys, and constables,
Tithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured!
Thus I!—Lord Purganax,
I do commit
Into your custody, and am
To stand the test, whatever it may be!
Purganax.
This magnanimity in your sacred
Must please the Pigs.
You cannot fail of beingA heavenly angel.
Smoke your bits of glass,
Ye loyal Swine, or her
Will blind your wondering eyes.
An old Boar(aside). Take care, my Lord,
They do not smoke you first.
Purganax. At the approaching
Of Famine, let the expiation be.
Swine.
Content! content!
Iona Taurina(aside). I, most content of all,
Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall![Exeunt omnes.
Scene II.—The interior of the Temple of Famine.
The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in parti-coloured rags, seated upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled.
A number of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. [Solomon, the Court Porkman.] A flourish of trumpets.
Enter Mammon as arch-priest,
Swellfoot,
Dakry,
Purganax,
Laoctonos, followed by Iona Taurina guarded.
On the other side enter the Swine.
Chorus of Priests, accompanied by the Court Porkman on marrow-bones and cleavers. Goddess bare, and gaunt, and pale, Empress of the world, all hail! What though Cretans old called thee City-crested Cybele? We call thee Famine!
Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cramming!
Through thee, for emperors, kings, and priests and lords,
Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words, The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits, Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots—Those who consume these fruits through thee grow fat, Those who produce these fruits through thee grow lean,
Whatever change takes place, oh, stick to that! And let things be as they have ever been; At least while we remain thy priests, And proclaim thy fasts and feasts.
Through thee the sacred Swellfoot
Is based upon a rock amid that
Whose waves are Swine—so let it ever be
