No More Learning

_295

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 _300
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, _305
Not to say, help us in destroying her.

SWELLFOOT:
This plan might be tried too;--where's General Laoctonos?
[ENTER LAOCTONOS AND DAKRY. ]
It is my royal pleasure
That you, Lord General, bring the head and body,
If separate it would please me better, hither _310
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 _315
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 _320
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!

DAKRY:
I
Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower, _325
Which overlooks the sty, and made a long
Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,
Of delicacy mercy, judgement, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
Adultery, destitution, and divorce, _330
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 mill-stone, which
Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made _335
A slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round
The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,
With dust and stones. --

[ENTER MAMMON.
]

MAMMON:
I wonder that gray wizards _340
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 _345
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 _350
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, _355
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 _360
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 _365
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-- _370
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 _375
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--

NOTE:
_373 or edition 1820; nor edition 1839.