She could not be deader than she will be soon; I have hummed her and drummed her Leech. I will suck Blood or muck! The disease of the state is a plethory, Rat. I'll slyly seize and Let blood from her weasand,— [To the LEECH. To the GADFLY. Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny, Swine within]. Ugh, ugh, ugh! We will be no longer swine, But bulls with horns and dewlaps. Rat. You know, my lord, the Minotaur For, Purg. [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. I will go [Exit. And spell some scheme to make it ugly then. Enter SWELLFOOT. Swellfoot. She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes Oh Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy, Her memory has received a husband's [A loud tumult, and cries of "Iona for ever!-No Swellfoot!" Swellf. Hark! How the swine cry Iona Taurina; I suffer the real presence; Purganax, Off with her head! Purg. A jury of the pigs. Swellf. But I must first impanel Pack them then. Purg. Or fattening some few in two separate styes, 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 Swellf. This plan might be tried too;-where's General Enter LAOCTONOS and DAKRY. It is my royal pleasure That you, Lord General, bring the head and body, Laoc. That pleasure I well knew, And made a charge with those battalions bold, Bore her in triumph to the public stye. What is still worse, some sows upon the ground Purg. Hark! The Swine [without]. Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot! Dakry. I Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower Which overlooks the stye, and made a long Morals, and precedents, and purity, And how I loved the Queen !-and then I wept With dust and stones. Mam. Enter MAMMON. I wonder that grey wizards Like you should be so beardless in their schemes; To keep Iona and the swine apart. Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge, On which our spies skulked in ovation through A bane so much the deadlier fills it now, As calumny is worse than death, -for here 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! Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover Of what was human! let not man or beast 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 Purg. Give it to me: I have been used to handle All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty Only desires to see the colour of it. There! Mam. 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 stye, and make the pigs If innocent, she will become transfigured You, Purganax, who have the gift of the gab, Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, 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. Purg. All part, in happier plight to meet again. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I.-The Public Stye. The BOARS in full Assembly. Purg. Grant me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars, The glorious constitution of these styes Subsists, and shall subsist. The lean-pig rates To teach the other nations how to live?) Temporary, of course. Those impious pigs, 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! Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona being Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw), Maintain you in to the last drop of A Boar [interrupting him]. Does any one accuse her of? Purg. Makes any positive accusation;-but What Why, no one There were hints dropt, and so the privy wizards His Majesty to investigate their truth; It might produce upon the purity and Of sucking pigs, if it could be suspected First Boar. [A pause. Well, go on; we long To hear what she can possibly have done. Purg. Why, it is hinted, that a certain bull Thus much is known-the milk-white bulls that feed Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews Of lotos-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 And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath Jona's grandmother, but she is innocent! First Boar. Most innocent! Purg. 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 Purg. If innocent, she will turn into an angel, And rain down blessings in the shape of comfits Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do), [Showing the bag. |