PURGANAX

80

Honorable Swine,
In Piggish souls can prepossessions reign?
Allow me to remind you, grass is green
All flesh is grass; no bacon but is flesh
Ye are but bacon. This divining Bag
(Which is not green, but only bacon color)
Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o'er
A woman guilty of we all know what-
Makes her so hideous, till she finds one
blind

She never can commit the like again;
If innocent, she will turn into an angel
And rain down blessings in the shape of
comfits

As she flies up to heaven. Now, my proposal

89

Is to convert her sacred Majesty
Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do)
By pouring on her head this mystic water.
[Showing the Bag.
I know that she is innocent; I wish
Only to prove her so to all the world.

SEMICHORUS I

Porkers, we shall lose our wash,
Or must share it with the Lean-Pigs!

FIRST BOAR

Order! order! be not rash!
Was there ever such a scene, Pigs !

AN OLD SOW (rushing in)

I never saw so fine a dash
Since I first began to wean Pigs.

SECOND BOAR (solemnly)

The Queen will be an angel time enough.
I vote, in form of an amendment, that
Purganax rub a little of that stuff
Upon his face-

124

PURGANAX (his heart is seen to beat through his

waistcoat)

Gods! What would ye be at?

SEMICHORUS I

Purganax has plainly shown a Cloven foot and jackdaw feather.

SEMICHORUS II

I vote Swellfoot and Iona
Try the magic test together;
Whenever royal spouses bicker,

Both should try the magic liquor. 139

Enter MAMMON as Arch-priest, SWELLFOOT, DAKRY, PURGANAX, LAOCTONOS, followed by IONA TAURINA guarded. On the other side enter the Swine.

CHORUS OF PRIESTS (accompanied by the Court
Porkman on marrow-bones and cleavers)
Goddess bare, and gaunt, and pale,
Empress of the world, all hail!
What though Cretans old called thee
City-crested Cybele?

We call thee Famine!

Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cramming;

Through thee, for emperors, kings and priests and lords,

Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words,

The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits, Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots.

10

SWELLFOOT

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment; But 't is his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,

And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.

(TO PURGANAX)

For God's sake stop the grunting of those Pigs !

PURGANAX

40

We dare not, Sire! 'tis Famine's privilege.

CHORUS OF SWINE

Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Thy throne is on blood, and thy robe is
of rags;

Thou devil which livest on damning;
Saint of new churches and cant, and
Green Bags;

Till in pity and terror thou risest,
Confounding the schemes of the wisest;
When thou liftest thy skeleton form,

When the loaves and the skulls roll

about,

The earth did never mean her foison
For those who crown life's cup with poison
Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge;
But for those radiant spirits, who are
still

The standard-bearers in the van of Clange
Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age !
Remit, O Queen! thy accustomed rage!
Be what thou art not! In voice faint and
low

Freedom calls Famine, her eternal foe,
To brief alliance, hollow truce.
now!

100

- Rise

strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELLFOOT have surrounded IONA TAURINA, who, with her hands folded on her breast and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the business in perfect confidence of her innocence. PURGANAX, after unsealing the Green Bag, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number

The noble and unfortunate lady, Emilia V-, who inspired Epipsychidion was Teresa Emilia Viviani, eldest daughter of Count Viviani, a nobleman of Pisa. She had been placed by her family in the neighboring Convent of St. Anna, and there Shelley met her at the be