The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling for ever.
Mammon. This
For Queen Iona would suffice, and less;
But ’tis the Swinish multitude I fear,
And in that fear I have—–
Purganax. Done what?
195
Mammon. Disinherited
My eldest son Chrysaor, because he
Attended public meetings, and would always
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,
200
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 bridegroom
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,—
210
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 learning
215
How to hold radicals. They are well taught too,
For every gibbet says its catechism
And reads a select chapter in the Bible
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.
220
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
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Of golden Byzantium;
From the temples divine of old Palestine,
From Athens and Rome,
With a ha! and a hum!
I come! I come!
230
All inn-doors and windows
Were open to me:
I saw all that sin does,
Which lamps hardly see
That burn in the night by the curtained bed,—
235
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!
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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,
245
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;—
250
Hum! hum!
I have stung her and wrung her,
The venom is working;—
And if you had hung her
With canting and quirking,
255
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 her
From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her,
260
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.
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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.
270
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.
275
For,
You know, my lord, the Minotaur—–
Purganax (fiercely).
Be silent! get to hell! or I will call
The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon,
This is a pretty business.
[Exit the RAT.
Mammon.
I will go
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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 kings
285
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,
290
And in the arms of Adiposa oft
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 impanel
A jury of the Pigs.
295
Swellfoot. Pack them then.
Purganax. Or fattening some few in two separate sties,
And giving them clean straw, tying some bits
Of ribbon round their legs—giving their Sows
Some tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass,
300
And their young Boars white and red rags, and tails
Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers
Between the ears of the old ones; and when
They are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue
Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs,
305
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 General
Laoctonos?
Enter LAOCTONOS and DAKRY.
It is my royal pleasure
That you, Lord General, bring the head and body,
310
If separate it would please me better, hither
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 square
315
Enclosed her, and received the first attack
Like so many rhinoceroses, and then
Retreating in good order, with bare tusks
And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,
Bore her in triumph to the public sty.
320
What is still worse, some Sows upon the ground
Hav
e 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. I
325
Went to the garret of the swineherd’s tower,
Which overlooks the sty, and made a long
Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,
Of delicacy, mercy, judgement, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
330
Adultery, destitution, and divorce,
Piety, faith, and state necessity,
And how I loved the Queen!—and then I wept
With the pathos of my own eloquence,
And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which
335
Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made
A slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round
The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,
With dust and stones.—–
Enter MAMMON.
340
Mammon. I wonder that gray wizards
Like you should be so beardless in their schemes;
It had been but a point of policy
To keep Iona and the Swine apart.
Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction
345
Between two parties who will govern you
But for my art.—Behold this BAG! it is
The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,
On which our spies skulked in ovation through
The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead:
350
A bane so much the deadlier fills it now
As calumny is worse than death,—for here
The Gadfly’s venom, fifty times distilled,
Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,
In due proportion, and black ratsbane, which
355
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 Hell
360
Murmured this pious baptism:—‘Be thou called
The GREEN BAG; and this power and grace be thine:
That thy contents, on whomsoever poured,
Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest looks
To savage, foul, and fierce deformity.
365
Let all baptized by thy infernal dew
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, lover
370
Of other wives and husbands than their own—
The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!
Wither they to a ghastly caricature
Of what was human!—let not man or beast
Behold their face with unaverted eyes!
375
Or hear their names with ears that tingle not
With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!’—
This is a perilous liquor;—good my Lords.—
[SWELLFOOT approaches to touch the GREEN BAG.
Beware! for God’s sake, beware!—if you should break
The seal, and touch the fatal liquor—–
Purganax. There,
380
Give it to me. I have been used to handle
All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty
Only desires to see the colour of it.
Mammon. Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done
385
(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it),
Our victory is assured. We must entice
Her Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs
Believe that the contents of the GREEN BAG
Are the true test of guilt or innocence.
390
And that, if she be guilty, ’twill transform her
To manifest deformity like guilt.
If innocent, she will become transfigured
Into an angel, such as they say she is;
And they will see her flying through the air,
395
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 thing
Swine will believe. I’ll wager you will see them
Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties,
400
With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail
Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps
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,
405
Make them a solemn speech to this effect:
I go to put in readiness the feast
Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine,
Where, for more glory, let the ceremony
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 care
Of your high office, as Man-milliner
To red Bellona, should not be deferred.
Purganax. All part, in happier plight to meet again.
[Exeunt.
END OF THE FIRST ACT.
ACT II
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 burthens
The glorious constitution of these sties
Subsists, and shall subsist. The Lean-Pig rates
5
Grow with the growing populace of Swine,
The taxes, that true source of Piggishness
(How can I find a more appropriate term
To include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,
And all that fit Boeotia as a nation
10
To teach the other nations how to live?),
Increase with Piggishness itself; and still
Does the revenue, that great spring of all
The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,
Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,
15
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 for
Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,
20
And such home manufactures, is but partial;
And, that the population of the Pigs,
Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw
And water, is a fact which is—you know—
That is—it is a state-necessity—
25
Temporary, of course. Those impious Pigs,
Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn
The settled Swellfoot system, or to make
Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions
Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipped
30
Into a loyal and an orthodox whine.
Things being in this happy state, the Queen
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 being r />
35
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 swill
Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw)
40
That she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig faction
Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been
Your immemorial right, and which I will
Maintain you in to the last drop of—–
A Boar (interrupting him). What
Does any one accuse her of?
Purganax. Why, no one
45
Makes any positive accusation;—but
There were hints dropped, and so the privy wizards
Conceived that it became them to advise
His Majesty to investigate their truth;—
Not for his own sake; he could be content
50
To let his wife play any pranks she pleased,
If, by that suffrance, he could please the Pigs;
But then he fears the morals of the Swine,
The Sows especially, and what effect
It might produce upon the purity and
55
Religion of the rising generation
Of Sucking-Pigs, if it could be suspected
That Queen Iona—–
[A pause.
First Boar. Well, go on; we long
To hear what she can possibly have done.
Purganax. Why, it is hinted, that a certain Bull—
60
Thus much is known:—the milk-white Bulls that feed
Beside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes
Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews
Of lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel
Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath
65
Loading the morning winds until they faint
With living fragrance, are so beautiful!—
Well, I say nothing;—but Europa rode
On such a one from Asia into Crete,
And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath