The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Full Chorus of IONA and the SWINE.

  Tallyho! tallyho!

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  Through rain, hail, and snow,

  Through brake, gorse, and briar,

  Through fen, flood, and mire,

  We go! we go!

  Tallyho! tallyho!

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  Through pond, ditch, and slough,

  Wind them, and find them,

  Like the Devil behind them,

  Tallyho! tallyho!

  [Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the SWINE, with the empty GREEN BAG.

  THE END.

  NOTE ON OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, BY MRS. SHELLEY

  IN the brief journal I kept in those days, I find recorded, in August, 1820, Shelley ‘begins Swellfoot the Tyrant, suggested by the pigs at the fair of San Giuliano.’ This was the period of Queen Caroline’s landing in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of her claims; which failing, Lord Castlereagh placed the ‘Green Bag’ on the table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King’s name that an inquiry should be instituted into his wife’s conduct. These circumstances were the theme of all conversation among the English. We were then at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friend came to visit us on the day when a fair was held in the square, beneath our windows: Shelley read to us his Ode to Liberty; and was riotously accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared it to the ‘chorus of frogs’ in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus—and Swellfoot was begun. When finished, it was transmitted to England, printed, and published anonymously; but stifled at the very dawn of its existence by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who threatened to prosecute it, if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of bringing it out, of course did not think it worth the annoyance and expense of a contest, and it was laid aside.

  Hesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my publishing it at first. But I cannot bring myself to keep back anything he ever wrote; for each word is fraught with the peculiar views and sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human race, and the bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The world has a right to the entire compositions of such a man; for it does not live and thrive by the outworn lesson of the dullard or the hypocrite, but by the original free thoughts of men of genius, who aspire to pluck bright truth

  ‘from the pale-faced moon;

  Or dive into the bottom of the deep

  Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,

  And pluck up drowned’

  truth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that he was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in his slightest word than in the waters of Lethe which are so eagerly prescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woe. This drama, however, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere plaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among many, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were full of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name.

  * * *

  1 See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  2 The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  3 And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Aethiopia, and for the bee of Egypt, etc.—EZEKIEL.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  4 ‘If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone—CYMBELINE.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  5 ‘Rich and rare were the gems she wore.’ See Moore’s Irish Melodies.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  CHARLES THE FIRST

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, Pursuivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students, Judges, Clerk.

  SCENE I.—The Masque of the Inns of Court.

  A Pursuivant. Place, for the Marshal of the Masque!

  First Citizen. What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns,

  Like morning from the shadow of the night,

  The night to day, and London to a place

  Of peace and joy?

  5

  Second Citizen. And Hell to Heaven.

  Eight years are gone,

  And they seem hours, since in this populous street

  I trod on grass made green by summer’s rain,

  For the red plague kept state within that palace

  10

  Where now that vanity reigns. In nine years more

  The roots will be refreshed with civil blood;

  And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven

  That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan’s cry,

  The patience of the great Avenger’s ear.

  15

  A Youth. Yet, father, ’tis a happy sight to see,

  Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden

  By God or man;—’tis like the bright procession

  Of skiey visions in a solemn dream

  From which men wake as from a Paradise,

  20

  And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life.

  If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?

  And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw

  Unseasonable poison from the flowers

  Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?

  25

  Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present

  Dark as the future!—

  · · · · · · ·

  When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear,

  And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping

  As on Hell’s threshold; and all gentle thoughts

  30

  Waken to worship Him who giveth joys

  With His own gift.

  Second Citizen. How young art thou in this old age of time!

  How green in this gray world? Canst thou discern

  The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint

  35

  Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art

  Not a spectator but an actor? or

  Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?

  The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,

  Even though the noon be calm. My travel’s done,—

  40

  Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found

  My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still

  Be journeying on in this inclement air.

  Wrap thy old cloak about thy back;

  Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road,

  45

  Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust,

  For the violent paths of pleasure. This Charles the First

  Rose like the equinoctial sun, …

  By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil

  Darting his altered influence he has gained

  50

  This height of noon—from which he must decline

  Amid the darkness of conflicting storms,

  To dank extinction and to latest night …

  There goes

  The apostate Strafford; he whose titles

  55

  whispered aphorisms

  From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas

  Had been as brazen and as bold as he—–

  First Citizen. That

  Is the Archbishop.

  Second Citizen. Rather say the Pope:

  London will be soon his Rome: he walks

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  As if he trod upon the heads of men:

  He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;—

  Beside him moves the Babylonian
woman

  Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,

  Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,

  65

  Which turns Heaven’s milk of mercy to revenge.

  Third Citizen (lifting up his eyes). Good Lord! rain it down upon him! …

  Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,

  As if her nice feet scorned our English earth.

  The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be

  70

  A dog if I might tear her with my teeth!

  There’s old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,

  Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,

  And others who make base their English breed

  By vile participation of their honours

  75

  With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates.

  When lawyers masque ’tis time for honest men

  To strip the vizor from their purposes.

  A seasonable time for masquers this!

  When Englishmen and Protestants should sit

  80

  dust on their dishonoured heads,

  To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt

  For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven

  and foreign overthrow.

  The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort

  85

  Have been abandoned by their faithless allies

  To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer

  Lewis of France,—the Palatinate is lost—–

  Enter LEIGHTON (who has been branded in the face) and BASTWICK.

  Canst thou be—art thou—–?

  Leighton. I was Leighton: what

  I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,

  90

  And with thy memory look on thy friend’s mind,

  Which is unchanged, and where is written deep

  The sentence of my judge.

  Third Citizen. Are these the marks with which

  Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker

  Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,

  The impious tyrant!

  95

  Second Citizen. It is said besides

  That lewd and papist drunkards may profane

  The Sabbath with their

  And has permitted that most heathenish custom

  Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths

  100

  On May-day.

  A man who thus twice crucifies his God

  May well his brother.—In my mind, friend,

  The root of all this ill is prelacy.

  I would cut up the root.

  Third Citizen. And by what means?

  105

  Second Citizen. Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib.

  Third Citizen. You seem to know the vulnerable place

  Of these same crocodiles.

  Second Citizen. I learnt it in

  Egyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of Nile

  Betrays not with its flattering tears like they;

  110

  For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep.

  Nor is it half so greedy of men’s bodies

  As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow

  In slime as they in simony and lies

  And close lusts of the flesh.

  A Marshalsman. Give place, give place!

  115

  You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate,

  And then attend the Marshal of the Masque

  Into the Royal presence.

  A Law Student. What thinkest thou

  Of this quaint show of ours, my agèd friend?

  Even now we see the redness of the torches

  120

  Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions

  [Gasp?] to us on the wind’s wave. It comes!

  And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant,

  Rouse up the astonished air.

  First Citizen. I will not think but that our country’s wounds

  125

  May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious,

  Though wicked counsels now pervert his will:

  These once cast off—

  Second Citizen. As adders cast their skins

  And keep their venom, so kings often change;

  Councils and counsellors hang on one another,

  130

  Hiding the loathsome

  Like the base patchwork of a leper’s rags.

  The Youth. Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!—List how the music

  Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches

  Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided

  Like waves before an admiral’s prow!

  135

  A Marshalsman. Give place

  To the Marshal of the Masque!

  A Pursuivant. Room for the King!

  The Youth. How glorious! See those thronging chariots

  Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind,

  Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped

  140

  Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths

  Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon;

  And some like cars in which the Romans climbed

  (Canopied by Victory’s eagle-wings outspread)

  The Capitolian—See how gloriously

  145

  The mettled horses in the torchlight stir

  Their gallant riders, while they check their pride,

  Like shapes of some diviner element

  Than English air, and beings nobler than

  The envious and admiring multitude.

  150

  Second Citizen. Ay, there they are—

  Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,

  Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,

  On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows,

  Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,

  155

  Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.

  These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,

  Who toil not, neither do they spin,—unless

  It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.

  Here is the surfeit which to them who earn

  160

  The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves

  The tithe that will support them till they crawl

  Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health

  Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,

  Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,

  165

  And England’s sin by England’s punishment.

  And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,

  Lo, giving substance to my words, behold

  At once the sign and the thing signified—

  A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,

  170

  Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung,

  Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins

  And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral

  Of this presentment, and bring up the rear

  Of painted pomp with misery!

  The Youth. ’Tis but

  175

  The anti-masque, and serves as discords do

  In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers

  If they succeeded not to Winter’s flaw;

  Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself

  Without the touch of sorrow?

  Second Citizen. I and thou—–

  180

  A Marshalsman. Place, give place!

  SCENE II.—A Chamber in Whitehall. Enter the KING, QUEEN, LAUD, LORD STRAFFORD, LORD COTTINGTON, and other Lords; ARCHY; also ST. JOHN, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

  King. Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept

  This token of your service: your gay masque

  Was performed gallantly. And it shows well

  When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]

/>   5

  With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown.

  A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,

  Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,

  Though Justice guides the stroke.

  Accept my hearty thanks.

  Queen. And gentlemen,

  10

  Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant

  Rose on me like the figures of past years,

  Treading their still path back to infancy,

  More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer

  The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept

  15

  To think I was in Paris, where these shows

  Are well devised—such as I was ere yet

  My young heart shared a portion of the burthen,

  The careful weight of this great monarchy.

  There, gentlemen, between the sovereign’s pleasure

  20

  And that which it regards, no clamour lifts

  Its proud interposition.

  In Paris ribald censurers dare not move

  Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;

  And his smile

  25

  Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do

  If … Take my heart’s thanks: add them, gentlemen,

  To those good words which, were he King of France,

  My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.

  St. John. Madam, the love of Englishmen can make

  30

  The lightest favour of their lawful king

  Outweigh a despot’s.—We humbly take our leaves,

  Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

  [Exeunt ST. JOHN and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

  King. My Lord Archbishop,

  Mark you what spirit sits in St. John’s eyes?

  35

  Methinks it is too saucy for this presence.

  Archy. Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch wood-cocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer’s brain, and takes the bandage from the other’s eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex’s there.