All inn-doors and windows Were open to me! I saw all that sin does, Which lamps hardly see That burn in the night by the curtained bed,— From slumber I rung her, Loud as the clank of an ironmonger! Far, far, far, With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, Far, far, far, From city to city, abandoned of pity, A ship without needle or star;- She is here in her car, From afar, and afar ; Hum! hum! I have stung her and wrung her! The venom is working; And if you had hung her With canting and quirking, She could not be deader than she will be soon;- I have hummed her and drummed her From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her. I will suck LEECH. Blood or muck! The disease of the state is a plethory, Who so fit to reduce it as I? RAT. I'll slily seize and Let blood from her weasand, Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny, And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell! [To the LEECH. [To the GADFLY. You know, my lord, the Minotaur For, Purganax (fiercely). Be silent! get to hell! or I will call The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon, This is a pretty business! I will go And spell some scheme to make it ugly then. Enter SWELLFOOT. [Exit the RAT. [Exit. Swellfoot. She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes Her memory has received a husband's [A loud tumult, and cries of "Iona for ever!-No Swellfoot!" Swellfoot. How the swine cry Iona Taurina ! I suffer the real presence: Purganax, Off with her head! Purganax. A jury of the pigs. Swellfoot. Hark! But I must first impanel Pack them then. 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 They are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up, 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, Of Queen Iona. Laoctonos. That pleasure I well knew, And made a charge with those battalions bold, What is still worse, some sows upon the ground 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, Which overlooks the sty, and made a long Harangue (all words) to the assembled swine, Of delicacy, mercy, judgment, law, Morals, and precedents, and purity, And how I loved the queen !—and then I wept, With dust and stones. Mammon. Enter MAMMON. I wonder that grey wizards 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 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, As calumny is worse than death,-for here In due proportion, and black ratsbane, which Murmured this pious baptism :-"Be thou called Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch! Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover Of what was human !-let not man nor beast [SWELLFOOT approaches to touch the GREEN BAG, Beware! for God's sake, beware!-if you should break The seal, and touch the fatal liquor Purganax. 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! Mammon. 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,) And that, if she be guilty, 'twill transform her If innocent, she will become transfigured And they will see her flying through the air, Of one another's ears between their teeth, Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Dakry (to Swellfoot.) I, as the keeper of your sacred Humbly remind your majesty that the care Of your high office, as man-milliner To red Bellona, should not be deferred. Purganax. All part, in happier plight to meet again. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I.-The Public Sty. The Boars in full Assembly. Enter PURGANAX. Purganax. Grant me your patience, gentlemen and boars, Ye, by whose patience under public burthens The glorious constitution of these sties Subsists, and shall subsist. The lean pig-rates To teach the other nations how to live?) |