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
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 cursed image ate, drank, slept with me,
And in the arms of Adiposa oft
Her memory has received a husband's
THE SWINE, (without). Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!
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, judgment, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
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
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 millstones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling sucking pigs into the air,
With dust and stones.-
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
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
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.
Let all, baptised 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
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 nor beast
Behold their face with unaverted eyes!
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 The seal, and touch the fatal liquor [break
Give it to me. I have been use to handle All sorts of poisons. His dread majesty Only desires to see the colour of it.
Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done,
(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.
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,
So bright that she will dim the noon-day 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;
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,
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.
All part, in happier plight to meet again.
The Public Sty.
The Boars in full Assembly.
Enter 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
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
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,
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,
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-
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 whipt
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!
That is the very thing that I was saying,
Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona being
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
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
To let his wife play any pranks she pleased,
If, by that sufferance, 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
Religion of the rising generation
Of sucking-pigs, if it could be suspected
That Queen Iona-
Well, go on; we long
To hear what she can possibly have done.
Why, it is hinted, that a certain bull
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
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
His gliding beauty. And Pasiphae,
Iona's grandmother,- -but she is innocent!
And that both you and I, and all assert.
Oh! no GREEN BAGS!! Jealousy's eyes are green, Scorpions are green, and water-snakes, and efts, And verdigris, and—
PURGANAX.
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
Hog-wash has been ta'en away:
If the Bull-Queen is divested,
We shall be in every way
Hunted, stript, 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."
IONA TAURINA (coming forward). Gentlemen swine, and gentle lady-pigs, 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 who ever 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 plough-shares
Unsinged; and ladies, Erin's laureate sings it.*
Rich and rare were the gems she wore.'
See Moore's Irish Melodies.
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. A spot or two on me would do no harm; Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad genius
Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,
Upon my brow-which would stain all its seas,
But which those seas could never wash away!
My Lord, I am ready-nay I am impatient,
To undergo the test.
[A graceful figure in a semi-transparent 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.
Mighty Empress ! Death's white wife!
Ghastly mother-in-law of life!
By the God who made thee such,
By the magic of thy touch,
By the starving and the cramming,
Of fasts and feasts!-by thy dread self, O Famine!
I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude,
Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.
The earth did never mean her foizon
For those who crown life's cup with poison
Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge-
But for those radiant spirits, who are still
The standard-bearers in the van of Change.
Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and toil, and Age !—
Remit, O Queen! thy accustom'd rage!
Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low
FREEDOM calls Famine,-her eternal foe,
To brief alliance, hollow truce.-Rise now!
[Whilst the veiled Figure has been chaunting this
strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELL-
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