The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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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,
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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—
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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,
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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,
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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
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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:
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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;
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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,
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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
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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
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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,
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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,5
Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,
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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!—–
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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
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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!
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Iona Taurina (aside). I, most content of all,
Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall!
[Exeunt omnes.
SCENE II.—The interior of the Temple of Fa
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?
5
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,
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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;
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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. Attendants pass over the stage with hog-wash in pails. A number of PIGS, exceedingly lean, follow them licking up the wash.
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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.
25
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
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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 daylights!—
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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.
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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;
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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,
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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;
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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,
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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
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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
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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 ditchwater,
On Lady P—–; it cannot fail. (Taking up the Bag.) Your Majesty
[To SWELLFOOT.
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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,
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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.
Mighty Empress! Death’s white wife!
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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!
90
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—
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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!
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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 this 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 await 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 tripp
Minotaur. I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest
Of all Europa’s taurine progeny—
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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,
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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,
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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! tallyho! tallyho! 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,
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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.
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Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?)
But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!
Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!