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 _85
Upon his carious ribs--
SWELLFOOT:
'Tis 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.
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 _85
Upon his carious ribs--
SWELLFOOT:
'Tis 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.
Shelley
_60
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, _65
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!
NOTE:
_59 thy edition 1820; your edition 1839.
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 porkman,
Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah _70
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, _75
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison--
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 _80
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 _85
Upon his carious ribs--
SWELLFOOT:
'Tis 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. _90
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! _95
[EXEUNT, DRIVING IN THE SWINE.
ENTER MAMM0N, 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 _100
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!
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 _105
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, _110
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!
PURGANAX:
The words went thus:--
'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!
When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs, _115
Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.
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, _65
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!
NOTE:
_59 thy edition 1820; your edition 1839.
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 porkman,
Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah _70
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, _75
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison--
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 _80
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 _85
Upon his carious ribs--
SWELLFOOT:
'Tis 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. _90
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! _95
[EXEUNT, DRIVING IN THE SWINE.
ENTER MAMM0N, 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 _100
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!
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 _105
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, _110
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!
PURGANAX:
The words went thus:--
'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!
When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs, _115
Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.
