Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, OR SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT; A TRAGEDY, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Thou supreme goddess! By whose power divine Last Line: [exeunt, in full cry; iona driving on the swine, with the empty green bag. | ||||||||
DRAMATIS PERSONAE TYRANT SWELLFOOT, King of Thebes. The GADFLY. The LEECH. IONA TAURINA, his Queen. The RAT The MINOTAUR. MAMMON. Arch-Priest of Famine. MOSES, the SOW-gelder. SOLOMON, the Porkman. ZEPHANIAH, Pig-butcher. PURGANAX DAKRY LAOCTONOS (Wizards, Ministers of SWELL-FOOT.) Chorus of the Swinish Multitude. GUARDS, ATTENDANTS, PRIESTS, etc., etc. SCENE. Thebes. ACT I SCENE -- A magnificent Temple, built of thighbones and death's-heads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of boars, sows and sucking-pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock and oak, sitting on the steps and clinging round the Altar of the Temple. Enter SWELLFOOT, in his royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs. SWELLFOOT THOU supreme goddess! by whose power divine These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [He contemplates himself with satisfaction. Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch Swells like a sail before a favoring breeze, And these most sacred nether promontories Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid, (Nor with less toil were their foundations laid) Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain, That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing! Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors, Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers, Bishops and deacons, and the entire army Of those fat martyrs to the persecution Of stifling turtle-soup and brandy-devils, Offer their secret vows! thou plenteous Ceres Of their Eleusis, hail! SWINE 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? SWINE Ugh! ugh! ugh! SWELLFOOT What! ye who grub With filthy snouts my red potatoes up In Allan's rushy bog? who eat the oats Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides? Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest From bones, and scraps of shoe-leather, Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you? SEMICHORUS I OF SWINE The same, alas! the same; Though only now the name Of Pig remains to me. SEMICHORUS II OF SWINE If 't were 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 That pity was a royal thing; Under your mighty ancestors we Pigs Were blessed as nightingales on myrtle sprigs Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew, And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too; 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 rutabaga, none Has yet been ours since your reign begun. FIRST SOW My Pigs, 't is 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. BOARS We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter. 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 thy 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 Solons -- You 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! Ho! there, my guards! Enter a GUARD GUARD Your sacred Majesty SWELLFOOT Call in the Jews, Solomon the court Pork man, 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 of Famine This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy. Cut close and deep, good Moses. MOSES Let your Majesty Keep the Boars quiet, else -- SWELLFOOT 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. We shall find pints of hydatids in 's liver; He has not half an inch of wholesome fat Upon his carious ribs -- SWELLFOOT 'T is all the same. He'll serve instead of riot-money, when Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes' streets; And January winds, after a day Of butchering, will make them relish carrion. Now, Solomon, I'll sell you in a lump The whole kit of them. SOLOMON Why, your Majesty, I could not give -- SWELLFOOT Kill them out of the way -- That shall be price enough; and let me hear Their everlasting grunts and whines no more! [Exeunt, driving in the Swine. Enter MAMMON, the Arch-Priest; and PURGANAX, Chief of the Council of Wizards PURGANAX The future looks as black as death; a cloud, Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it. The troops grow mutinous, the revenue fails, There's something rotten in us; for the level Of the state slopes, its very bases topple; The boldest turn their backs upon them selves! MAMMON Why, what's the matter, my dear fellow, now? Do the troops mutiny? -- decimate some regiments. Does money fail? -- come to my mint -- coin paper, Till gold be at a discount, and, ashamed To show his bilious face, go purge himself, In emulation of her vestal whiteness. PURGANAX Oh, would that this were all! The oracle!! MAMMON Why it was I who spoke that oracle, And whether I was dead-drunk or inspired I cannot well remember; nor, in truth, The oracle itself! PURGANAX The words went thus: 'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war, When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, A Consort-Queen shall hunt a King with hogs, Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.' MAMMON Now if the oracle had ne'er foretold This sad alternative, it must arrive. Or not, and so it must now that it has; And whether I was urged by grace divine Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words, Which must, as all words must, be false or true, It matters not; for the same power made all, Oracle, wine, and me and you -- or none -- 'Tis the same thing. If you knew as much Of oracles as I do -- PURGANAX You arch-priests Believe in nothing; if you were to dream Of a particular number in the lottery, You would not buy the ticket! MAMMON Yet our tickets Are seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken? For prophecies, when once they get abroad, Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends, Or hypocrites, who, from assuming virtue, Do the same actions that the virtuous do, Contrive their own fulfilment. This Iona -- Well -- you know what the chaste Pasiphae did, Wife to that most religious King of Crete, And still how popular the tale is here; And these dull Swine of Thebes boast their descent From the free Minotaur. You know they still Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate; And everything relating to a Bull Is popular and respectable in Thebes; Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules; They think their strength consists in eating beef; Now there were danger in the precedent If Queen Iona -- PURGANAX I have taken good care That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare! And from a cavern full of ugly shapes, I chose a Leech, a Gadfly, and a Rat. The gadfly was the same which Juno sent To agitate Io, and which Ezekiel mentions That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains Of utmost AEthiopia to torment Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast Has a loud trumpet like the Scarabee; His crooked tail is barbed with many stings, Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each Immedicable; from his convex eyes He sees fair things in many hideous shapes, And trumpets all his falsehood to the world. Like other beetles he is fed on dung; He has eleven feet with which he crawls, Trailing a blistering slime; and this foul beast Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits, From isle to isle, from city unto city, Urging her flight from the far Chersonese To fabulous Solyma and the AEtnean Isle, Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock, And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez, AEolia and Elysium, and thy shores, Parthenope, which now, alas! are free! And through the fortunate Saturnian land Into the darkness of the West. MAMMON But if This Gadfly should drive Iona hither? PURGANAX Gods! what an if! but there is my gray Rat, So thin with want he can crawl in and out Of any narrow chink and filthy hole, And he shall creep into her dressing-room, And -- MAMMON My dear friend, where are your wits? as if She does not always toast a piece of cheese, And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough To crawl through such chinks -- PURGANAX But my Leech -- a leech Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, Capaciously expatiative, which make His little body like a red balloon, As full of blood as that of hydrogen, Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks And clings and pulls -- a horse-leech whose deep maw The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill, And who, till full, will cling forever. MAMMON This For Queen Iona might suffice, and less; But't is the Swinish multitude I fear, And in that fear I have -- PURGANAX Done what? MAMMON Disinherited My eldest son Chrysaor, because he Attended public meetings, and would always Stand prating there of commerce, public faith, Economy, and unadulterate coin, And other topics, ultra-radical; And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's Paradise, And funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills, Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina, And married her to the Gallows. PURGANAX A good match! MAMMON A high connection, Purganax. The bridegroom Is of a very ancient family, Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop, And has great influence in both Houses. Oh, He makes the fondest husband; nay, too fond -- New married people should not kiss in public; But the poor souls love one another so! And then my little grandchildren, the Gibbets, Promising children as you ever saw, -- The young playing at hanging, the elder learning How to hold radicals. They are well taught too, For every Gibbet says its catechism, And reads a select chapter in the Bible Before it goes to play. (A most tremendous humming is heard) PURGANAX Ha! what do I hear? Enter the GADFLY MAMMON Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding. GADFLY Hum, hum, hum! From the lakes of the Alps and the cold gray scalps Of the mountains, I come! Hum, hum, hum! From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces Of golden Byzantium; From the temples divine of old Palestine, From Athens and Rome, With a ha! and a hum! I come, I come! All inn-doors and windows Were open to me; I saw all that sin does, Which lamps hardly see That burn in the night by the curtained bed -- The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red. Dinging and singing, From slumber I rung her, Loud as the clank of an ironmonger; Hum, hum, hum! Far, far, far With the trump of my lips and the sting at my hips, I drove her -- afar! Far, far, far, From city to city, abandoned of pity, A ship without needle or star; Homeless she passed, like a cloud on the blast, Seeking peace, finding war; She is here in her car, From afar, and afar. Hum, hum! I have stung her and wrung her! The venom is working; And if you had hung her With canting and quirking, She could not be deader than she will be soon; I have driven her close to you, under the moon, Night and day, hum, hum, ha! I have hummed her and drummed her From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her, Hum, hum, hum! Enter the LEECH and the RAT LEECH I will suck Blood or muck! The disease of the state is a plethory, Who so fit to reduce it as I? RAT I'll slyly seize and Let blood from her weasand, -- Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny, With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny. PURGANAX Aroint ye, thou unprofitable worm! (To the LEECH) And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell, (To the GADFLY) To sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings, And the ox-headed Io. SWINE (within) Ugh, ugh, ugh! Hail, Iona the divine! We will be no longer Swine, But Bulls with horns and dewlaps. RAT For, You know, my lord, the Minotaur -- PURGANAX (fiercely) Be silent! get to hell! or I will call The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon, This is a pretty business! [Exit the RAT. MAMMON I will go And spell some scheme to make it ugly then. [Exit. Enter SWELLFOOT SWELLFOOT She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell! O 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 -- (A loud tumult, and cries of 'IONA FOREVER! -- No SWELLFOOT!') SWELLFOOT Hark! How the Swine cry Iona Taurina! I suffer the real presence. Purganax, Off with her head! PURGANAX But I must first impanel A jury of the Pigs. SWELLFOOT Pack them then. PURGANAX Or fattening some few in two separate sties, And giving them clean straw, tying some bits Of ribbon round their legs -- giving their Sows Some tawdry lace and bits of lustre glass, And their young Boars white and red rags and tails Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers Between the ears of the old ones; and when They are persuaded that, by the inherent virtue Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs, Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up, Not to say help us in destroying her. SWELLFOOT This plan might be tried too. Where's General Laoctonos? Enter LAOCTONOS It is my royal pleasure That you, Lord General, bring the head and body, If separate it would please me better, hither Of Queen Iona. LAOCTONOS That pleasure I well knew, And made a charge with those battalions bold, Called, from their dress and grin, the Royal Apes, Upon the Swine, who in a hollow square Enclosed her, and received the first attack Like so many rhinoceroses, and then Retreating in good order, with bare tusks And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe, Bore her in triumph to the public sty. What is still worse, some Sows upon the ground Have given the Ape-guards apples, nuts and gin, And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry, 'Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!' PURGANAX Hark. THE SWINE (without) Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot! Enter DAKRY DAKRY 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 millstone 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. Enter MAMMON MAMMON I wonder that gray wizards Like you should be so beardless in their schemes; It had been but a point of policy To keep Iona and the Swine apart. Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction Between two parties who will govern you, But for my art. -- Behold this Bag! it is The poison Bag of that Green Spider huge, On which our spies skulked in ovation through The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead: 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 baptized 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 or 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 break The seal, and touch the fatal liquor -- PURGANAX There, Give it to me. I have been used to handle All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty Only desires to see the color of it. MAMMON 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, 't will 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 noonday 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 honor 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 Te red Bellona, should not be deferred. PURGANAX All part, in happier plight to meet again. [Exeunt. ACT II SCENE I. -- The Public Sty. The Boars in full Assembly. Enter PURGANAX PURGANAX GRANT me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars, Ye, by whose patience under public burdens 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 whipped 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! PURGANAX That is the very things 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 straw) That she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig faction Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been Your immemorial right, and which I will Maintain you in to the last drop of -- A BOAR (interrupting him) What Does any one accuse her of? PURGANAX Why, no one 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 -- (A pause) FIRST BOAR Well, go on; we long To hear what she can possibly have done. PURGANAX 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. FIRST BOAR Most innocent! PURGANAX 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 -- PURGANAX Honorable 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 color) 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. [Showing the Bag. I know that she is innocent; I wish Only to prove her so to all the world. FIRST BOAR Excellent, just, and noble Purganax! SECOND BOAR How glorious it will be to see her Majesty Flying above our heads, her petticoats Streaming like -- like -- like -- THIRD BOAR Anything. PURGANAX 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. PURGANAX 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. SEMICHORUS I No! Yes! SEMICHORUS II Yes! No! SEMICHORUS I A law! SEMICHORUS II A flaw! SEMICHORUS I 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 Purganax rub a little of that stuff Upon his face -- PURGANAX (his heart is seen to beat through his waistcoat) Gods! What would ye be at? SEMICHORUS I Purganax 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 there-for. 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 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 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 plough-shares 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 Purganax, I do commit myself Into your custody, and am prepared To stand the test, whatever it may be! PURGANAX 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) Take care, my Lord, They do not smoke you first. PURGANAX At the approaching feast Of Famine let the expiation be. SWINE Content content! IONA TAURINA (aside) I, most content of all, Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall! SCENE II. -- The interior of the Temple of Famine. The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in party-colored rags, seated upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. A number of cxceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. A flourish of trumpets. Enter MAMMON as Arch-priest, SWELLFOOT, DAKRY, PURGANAX, LAOCTONOS, followed by IONA TAURINA guarded. On the other side enter the Swine. CHORUS OF PRIESTS (accompanied by the Court Porkman 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 lean, 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! [SWELLFOOT, etc., seat themselves at a table, magnificently covered, at the upper end of the temple. Atlendants 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 great King's second table. Tho 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. 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 't is 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, Confounding the schemes of the wisest; When thou liftest thy skeleton form, 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! Hail to thee, Empress of Earth! When thou risest, dividing possessions, When thou risest, uprooting oppressions, In the pride of thy ghastly mirth; Over palaces, temples, and graves We will rush as thy minister-slaves, Trampling behind in thy train, Till all be made level again! 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. These prodigies are oracular, and show The presence of the unseen Deity. Mighty events are hastening to their doom! SWELLFOOT I only hear the lean and mutinous Swine Grunting about the temple. DAKRY In a crisis Of such exceeding delicacy, I think We ought to put her Majesty, the Queen, Upon her trial without delay. MAMMON The Bag Is here. 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. 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! IONA TAURINA 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. LIBERTY 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 foison 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 accustomed 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 chanting 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 eat 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 Of all Europa's taurine progeny; I am the old traditional Man-Bull; And from my ancestors having been Ionian I am called Ion, which, by interpretation, Is John; in plain Theban, that is to say, My name's John Bull; I am a famous hunter, And can leap any gate in all Boeotia, Even the palings of the royal park Or double ditch about the new enclosures; And if your Majesty will deign to mount me, At least till you have hunted down your game, I will not throw you. 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. Hoa, hoa! tally-ho! tally-hc! ho! ho! Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down, These stinking foxes, these devouring otters, These hares, these wolves, these anything but men. Hey, for a whipper-in! my loyal Pigs, Now let your noses be as keen as beagles', Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries More dulcet and symphonious than the bells Of village-towers, on sunshine holiday; Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music. Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?) But such as they gave you. Tally-ho! ho! Through forest, furze and bog, and den and desert, Pursue the ugly beasts! Tally-ho! ho! FULL CHORUS OF IONA AND THE SWINE Tally-ho! tally-ho! Through rain, hail, and snow, Through brake, gorse, and briar, Through fen, flood, and mire, We go, we go! Tally-ho! tally-ho! Through pond, ditch, and slough, Wind them, and find them, Like the Devil behind them! Tally-ho, tally-ho! [Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the Swine, with the empty Green Bag. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY AUTUMN: A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ENGLAND IN 1819 by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY EPIPSYCHIDION by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY HYMN OF PAN by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY MONT BLANC; LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |
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