PURGANAX. [Filling his glass, and standing up. The glorious constitution of the Pigs! ALL. A toast! a toast! stand up, and three times three! DAKRY. No heel-taps-darken day-lights! LAOCTONOS. Claret, somehow, Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret! SWELLFOOT. Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment; But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine, And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes. (TO PURGANAX) For God's sake stop the grunting of those pigs! PURGANAX. We dare not, sire! 'tis Famine's privilege. CHORUS OF SWINE. Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine! Thy throne is on blood, and thy robe is of rags; Thou devil which livest on damning; Saint of new churches and cant, and GREEN BAGS; Till in pity and terror thou risest, When the loaves and the skulls roll about, We will greet thee-the voice of a storm Would be lost in our terrible shout! Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine! In the pride of thy ghastly mirth : MAMMON. I hear a crackling of the giant bones Of the dread image, and in the black pits Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames : The presence of the unseen Deity. SWELLFOOT. I only hear the lean and mutinous swine DAKRY. In a crisis Of such exceeding delicacy, I think We ought to put her majesty, the QUEEN, Is here. MAMMON. THE BAG PURGANAX. I have rehearsed the entire scene With an ox-bladder and some ditch-water, On Lady P.-it cannot fail. [Taking up the bag Your majesty (to SWELLFOOT) In such a filthy business had better Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you. Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad genius IONA TAURINA. My lord, I am ready-nay I am impatient, [A graceful figure in a semitransparent veil passes unnoticed through the Temple; the word LIBERTY is seen through the veil, as if it were written in fire upon its forehead. Its words are almost drowned in the furious grunting of the Pigs, and the business of the trial. She kneels on the steps of the Altar, and speaks in tones at first faint and low, but which ever become louder and louder. LBIERTY. Mighty Empress, Death's white wife, By the God who made thee such, By the starving and the cramming Of fasts and feasts!-by thy dread self, O Famine! Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low [Whilst the veiled figure has been chaunting the strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELLfoot, have surrounded IONA TAURINA, who, with her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the business, in perfect confidence of her innocence PURGANAX, after unsealing the GREEN BAG, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the Pigs begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the skulls; all those who cat the loaves are turned into Bulls, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a MINOTAUR rises. MINOTAUR. I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest I am the old traditional man-bull; And from my ancestors having been Ionian, Even the palings of the royal park, Or double ditch about the new inclosures; And if your majesty will deign to mount me, IONA TAURINA. [During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs, and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back. Ho, ho! tally-ho! tally-ho, ho, ho! Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down, |