The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  No poem contains more of Shelley’s peculiar views with regard to the errors into which many of the wisest have fallen, and the pernicious effects of certain opinions on society. Much of it is beautifully written: and, though, like the burlesque drama of Swellfoot, it must be looked on as a plaything, it has so much merit and poetry—so much of himself in it—that it cannot fail to interest greatly, and by right belongs to the world for whose instruction and benefit it was written.

  * * *

  1The oldest scholiasts read—

  A dodecagamic Potter.

  This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,—but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  2To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between Whale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  3One of the attributes in Linnaeus’s description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;—except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  4What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its kernel prostitution, or the kernel prostitution without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the ‘King, Church, and Constitution’ of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  5 This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  6 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more famous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute of philosophical accuracy.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  7 Quasi, Qui valet verba:—i. e. all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter’s progenitor who selected this name seems to have possessed a pure anticipated cognition of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity. —[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  8 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  9 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and now unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious.

  If either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral pervasion laid to their charge.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  OEDIPUS TYRANNUS

  OR

  SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT

  A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS

  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 IONIAN MINOTAUR.’

  ADVERTISEMENT

  THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their dramatic representations), elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and, from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Boeotarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Boeotiae; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes,

  ‘A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.’

  No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous Chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last Act. The word Hoydipouse (or more properly Oedipus) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated.

  Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, Swellfoot in Angaria, and Charité, the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  CHORUS of the Swinish Multitude.

  GUARDS, ATTENDANTS, PRIESTS, etc., etc.

  SCENE.—THEBES

  ACT 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 divine

  These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array

  [He contemplates himself with satisfaction.

  Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch

  Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,

  5

  And these most sacred nether promontories

  Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these

  Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt’s pyramid,

  (Nor with less toil were their foundations laid),1

  Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,

  10

  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 army

  Of those fat martyrs to the persecution

  15

  Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,

  Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres

  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 are

  20

  The very beasts that, offered at her altar

  With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,

  Ever propitiate her reluctant will

  When taxes are withheld?

  Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh!

  Swellfoot. What! ye who grub

  With filthy snouts my red potatoes up

  25

  In Allan’s rushy bog? Who eat the oats

  Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?

  Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest

  From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,

  Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?

  The Swine.—Semichorus I.

  30

  The same, alas! the same;

  Though only now the name

  Of Pig remains to me.

  Semichorus II.

  If ’twere your kingly will

  Us wretched Swine to kill,

  35

  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 Pigs

  40

  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;

  45

  Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch,

  And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;

  Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none

  Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

  First Sow.

  My Pigs, ’tis in vain to tug.

  Second Sow.

  50

  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.

  55

  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!

  60

  Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!

  Now if your Majesty would have our bristles

  To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons

  With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,

  In policy—ask else your royal Solons—

  65

  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,

  70

  Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah

  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,

  75

  Nor prostitution, nor our own example,

  Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison—

  This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine

  Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy—

  Cut close and deep, good Moses.

  Moses. Let your Majesty

  Keep the Boars quiet, else—–

  80

  Swellfoot. Zephaniah, cut

  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,

  85

  He has not half an inch of wholesome fat

  Upon his carious ribs—–

  Swellfoot. ’Tis all the same,

  He’ll serve instead of riot money, when

  Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes’ streets;

  And January winds, after a day

  90

  Of butchering, will make them relish carrion.

  Now, Solomon, I’ll sell you in a lump

  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 hear

  95

  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 level

  100

  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,

  105

  Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed

  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,

  110

  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,

  115

  A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs,

  Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.’

  Mammon. Now if the oracle had ne’er foretold

  This sad alternative, it must arrive,

  Or not, and so it must now that it has;

  120

  And whether I was urged by grace divine

  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—

  125

  ’Tis the same thing. If you knew as much

  Of oracles as I do—–

  Purganax. You arch-priests

  Believe in nothing; if you were to dream

  Of a particular number in the Lottery,

  You would not buy the ticket?

  Mammon. Yet our tickets

  130

  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,

  135

  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 descent

  140

  From the free Minotaur. You know they still

  Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,

  And everything relating to a Bull

  Is popular and respectable in Thebes.

  Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;

  145

  They think their strength consists in eating beef,—

  Now there were danger in the precedent

  If Queen Iona—–

  Purganax. I have taken good care

  That shall not be. I struck the crust o’ the earth

  With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!

  150

  And from a cavern full of ugly shapes

  I chose a LEECH, a GADFLY, and a RAT.

  The Gadfly was the same which Juno sent

  To agitate Io,2 and which Ezekiel3 mentions

  That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains

  155

  Of utmost Aethiopia, to torment

  Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast

  Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee,

  His crookèd tail is barbed with many stings,

  Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each

  160

  Immedicable; from his convex eyes

  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 ha
s eleven feet with which he crawls,

  165

  Trailing a blistering slime, and this foul beast

  Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,

  From isle to isle, from city unto city,

  Urging her flight from the far Chersonese

  To fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle,

  170

  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.

  175

  Mammon. But if

  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 out

  Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,

  180

  And he shall creep into her dressing-room,

  And—–

  Mammon. My dear friend, where are your wits? as if

  She does not always toast a piece of cheese

  And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough

  To crawl through such chinks—–

  Purganax. But my LEECH—a leech

  185

  Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings,

  Capaciously expatiative, which make

  His little body like a red balloon,

  As full of blood as that of hydrogen,

  Sucked from men’s hearts; insatiably he sucks

  190

  And clings and pulls—a horse-leech, whose deep maw