The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley

a tremendous sound, the Pigs begin scrambling for the leaves, 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.

Mino. 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! 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,

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. Tallyho! ho!

Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!