The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 72

THE RAT.

MOSES, THE SOW-GELDER.

SOLOMON, THE PORKMAN.

ZEPHANIAH, PIG-BUTCHER.

THE MINOTAUR.

CHORUS OF THE SWINISH MULt.i.tUDE.

GUARDS, ATTENDANTS, PRIESTS, ETC., ETC.

SCENE.--THEBES.

ACT 1.

SCENE 1.1.--A MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE, BUILT OF THIGH-BONES AND DEATH'S-HEADS, AND TILED WITH SCALPS. OVER THE ALTAR THE STATUE OF FAMINE, VEILED; A NUMBER OF BOARS, SOWS, AND SUCKING-PIGS, CROWNED WITH THISTLE, SHAMROCK, AND OAK, SITTING ON THE STEPS, AND CLINGING ROUND THE ALTAR OF THE TEMPLE.

ENTER SWELLFOOT, IN HIS ROYAL ROBES, WITHOUT PERCEIVING THE PIGS.

SWELLFOOT: Thou supreme G.o.ddess! by whose power divine These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [HE CONTEMPLATES HIMSELF WITH SATISFACTION.]

Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze, And these most sacred nether promontories _5 Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid, (Nor with less toil were their foundations laid), Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain, That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing! _10 Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors, Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers, Bishops and Deacons, and the entire army Of those fat martyrs to the persecution Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils, _15 Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres Of their Eleusis, hail!

NOTE: (_8 See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

SWINE: Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh!

SWELLFOOT: Ha! what are ye, Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies, Cling round this sacred shrine?

SWINE: Aigh! aigh! aigh!

SWELLFOOT: What! ye that are The very beasts that, offered at her altar _20 With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards, Ever propitiate her reluctant will When taxes are withheld?

SWINE: Ugh! ugh! ugh!

SWELLFOOT: What! ye who grub With filthy snouts my red potatoes up In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats _25 Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?

Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest From bones, and rags, and sc.r.a.ps of shoe-leather, Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?

SWINE--SEMICHORUS 1: The same, alas! the same; _30 Though only now the name Of Pig remains to me.

SEMICHORUS 2: If 'twere your kingly will Us wretched Swine to kill, What should we yield to thee? _35

SWELLFOOT: Why, skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.

CHORUS OF SWINE: I have heard your Laureate sing, That pity was a royal thing; Under your mighty ancestors, we Pigs Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, _40 Or gra.s.shoppers that live on noonday dew, And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too; But now our sties are fallen in, we catch The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch; Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, _45 And then we seek the shelter of a ditch; Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

FIRST SOW: My Pigs, 'tis in vain to tug.

SECOND SOW: I could almost eat my litter. _50

FIRST PIG: I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.

SECOND PIG: Our skin and our bones would be bitter.

THE BOARS: We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter.

SEMICHORUS: Happier Swine were they than we, _55 Drowned in the Gadarean sea-- I wish that pity would drive out the devils, Which in your royal bosom hold their revels, And sink us in the waves of thy compa.s.sion!

Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation! _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 prost.i.tution, 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 h.e.l.l, 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.'