Well, I say nothing;-but Europa rode
On such a one from Asia into Crete,
And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath
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 !

Pyrganax.

Behold this Bag; a bag

Second Boar. Oh! no Green Bags! Jealousy's eyes are green, Scorpions are green, and water-snakes and efts,

And verdigris, and—

Pyrganax.

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 Bag
(Which is not green, but only bacon-colour)
Is filled with liquor which, if sprinkled o'er
A woman guilty of-we all know what-
Makes her so hideous, till she finds one blind,
She never can commit the like again.

If innocent, she will turn into an angel,
And rain down blessings in the shape of comfits
As she flies up to heaven. Now, my proposal
Is to convert her sacred Majesty

Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do)

By pouring on her head this mystic water.

I know that she is innocent; I wish

Only to prove her so to all the world.

[Showing the Bag.

First Boar. Excellent, just, and noble Pyrganax ! Second Boar. How glorious it will be to see her Majesty Flying above our heads, her petticoats

Streaming like-like-like

Third Boar.

Pyrganax.

Anything.

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 precipice

Scattered upon the wind.

First Boar.

Or a cow's tail,

Second Boar. Or anything, as the learned Boar observed. Pyrganax. Gentlemen Boars, I move a resolution— That her most sacred Majesty should be

Invited to attend the feast of Famine,

And to receive upon her chaste white body
Dews of apotheosis from this Bag.

[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 lean Pigs and Sows and Boars rush in.

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, that
Pyrganax rub a little of that stuff

Upon his face

Pyrganax.

[His heart is seen to beat through his waistcoat. Gods! What would ye be at?

SEMICHORUS I.

Pyrganax 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 dine
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 be

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 Ionian Minotaur.

Enter IONA TAURINA.

lona Taurina (coming forward).

gentle Lady Pigs,

Gentlemen Swine and

The tender heart of every Boar acquits

Their Queen of any act incongruous

With native piggishness; and she, reposing
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 deceived

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 only
In compliment of your kind love and care,
Not for necessity. The innocent

Are safest there where trials and dangers wait;
Innocent queens o'er white-hot ploughshares tread,
Unsinged; and ladies (Erin's laureate sings it)
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 Pyrganax, I do commit myself
Into your custody, and am prepared

To stand the test, whatever it may be.

Pyrganax. This magnanimity in your sacred Majesty
Must please the Pigs. You cannot fail of being

A heavenly angel.-Smoke your bits of glass,
Ye loyal Swine, or her transfiguration

Will blind your wondering eyes.

An Old Boar (aside).

They do not smoke you first.

Pyrganax.

Of Famine, let the expiation be.

Swine. Content! content!
Iona Taurina (aside).

Take care, my lord,

At the approaching feast

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 party-coloured rags, seated upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. A number of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side; Court Porkmen with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. A flourish of trumpets.

Enter MAMMON as Arch-priest, SWELLFOOT, DAKRY, PYRGANAX, LAOCTONOS, followed by IONA TAURINA guarded. On the other side enter the Swine.

CHORUS OF PRIESTS,

Accompanied by the Court Porkmen 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

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 dynasty
Is based upon a rock amid that sea

Whose waves are Swine-So let it ever be !

lean:

[SWELLFOOT &c. seat themselves at a table magnificently covered at the upper end of the Temple. Attendants pass over the stage with hog-wash in pails. A number of Pigs, exceedingly lean, follow them licking up the wash.

Mammon. I fear your sacred Majesty has lost

The appetite which you were used to have.
Allow me now to recommend this dish-

A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,

Such as is served at the Greak King's second table.
The price and pains which its ingredients cost
Might have maintained some dozen families
A winter or two-not more. So plain a dish
Could scarcely disagree.

Swellfoot.

After the trial,

And these fastidious Pigs are gone, perhaps

I may recover my lost appetite.

I feel the gout flying about my stomach.

Give me a glass of maraschino punch.

Pyrganax (filling his glass and standing up). The glorious Constitution of the Pigs.

VOL. II.

D