Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain, THE SWINE. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh! SWELLFOOT. Ha! what are ye, Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies, Cling round this sacred shrine? SWINE. Aigh aigh aigh! SWELLFOOT. What! ye that are The very beasts that, offered at her altar With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards, Ever propitiate her reluctant will When taxes are withheld? Ugh! ugh ugh! SWINE. With filthy snouts my red potatoes up THE SWINE. SEMICHORUS I. The same, alas! the same; SEMICHORUS II. If 'twere your kingly will Us wretched swine to kill, What should we yield to thee? SWELLFOOT. Why skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar CHORUS OF SWINE. I have heard your Laureate sing, Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs But now our sties are fallen in, we catch The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch; Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, And then we seek the shelter of a ditch; Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none Has yet been ours since your reign begun. FIRST SOW. My pigs, 'tis in vain to tug! SECOND SOW. I could almost eat my litter! FIRST PIG. I suck, but no milk will come from the dug SECOND PIG. Our skin and our bones would be bitter. THE BOARS. We fight for this rag of greasy rug, SEMICHORUS. Happier swine were they than we, Drowned in the Gadarean sea! I wish that pity would drive out the devils Which in your royal bosom hold their revels, And sink us in the waves of your compassion! Alas, the pigs are an unhappy nation! Now if your majesty would have our bristles To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles, In policy-ask else your royal SolonsYou ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw, And sties well thatched; besides, it is the law! SWELLFOOT. This is sedition, and rank blasphemy! Enter a GUARD. GUARD. Your sacred Majesty? SWELLFOOT. Call in the Jews, Solomon the court porkman, Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah the hog butcher. GUARD. They are in waiting, sire. Enter SOLOMON, MOSES, and ZEPHANIAH. SWELLFOOT. Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those sows [The Pigs run about in consternation. That load the earth with pigs; cut close and deep. Moral restraint I see has no effect, Nor prostitution, nor our own example, Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison. This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy. MOSES. Keep the boars quiet, else— SWELLFOOT. Let your majesty Zephaniah, cut That fat hog's throat, the brute seems overfed; Seditious hunks! to whine for want of grains. ZEPHANIAH. Your sacred majesty, he has the dropsy. SWELLFOOT. "Tis all the same. He'll serve instead of riot-money, when streets; And January winds, after a day Of butchering, will make them relish carrion. The whole kit of them. |