The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 73

MAMMON: Now if the oracle had ne'er foretold This sad alternative, it must arrive, Or not, and so it must now that it has; And whether I was urged by grace divine _120 Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words, Which must, as all words must, he false or true, It matters not: for the same Power made all, Oracle, wine, and me and you--or none-- 'Tis the same thing. If you knew as much _125 Of oracles as I do--

PURGANAX: You arch-priests Believe in nothing; if you were to dream Of a particular number in the Lottery, You would not buy the ticket?

MAMMON: Yet our tickets Are seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken? _130 For prophecies, when once they get abroad, Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends, Or hypocrites who, from a.s.suming virtue, Do the same actions that the virtuous do, Contrive their own fulfilment. This Iona-- _135 Well--you know what the chaste Pasiphae did, Wife to that most religious King of Crete, And still how popular the tale is here; And these dull Swine of Thebes boast their descent From the free Minotaur. You know they still _140 Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate, And everything relating to a Bull Is popular and respectable in Thebes.

Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules; They think their strength consists in eating beef,-- _145 Now there were danger in the precedent If Queen Iona--

NOTES: _114 the edition 1820; thy cj. Forman; cf. Motto below t.i.tle, and II. i, 153-6. ticket? edition 1820; ticket! edition 1839.

_135 their own Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, later editions; their editions 1820 and 1839.

PURGANAX: I have taken good care That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth With this enchanted rod, and h.e.l.l lay bare!

And from a cavern full of ugly shapes _150 I chose a LEECH, a GADFLY, and a RAT.

The Gadfly was the same which Juno sent To agitate Io, and which Ezekiel mentions That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains Of utmost Aethiopia, to torment _155 Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee, His crooked tail is barbed with many stings, Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each Immedicable; from his convex eyes _160 He sees fair things in many hideous shapes, And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.

Like other beetles he is fed on dung-- He has eleven feet with which he crawls, Trailing a blistering slime, and this foul beast _165 Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits, From isle to isle, from city unto city, Urging her flight from the far Chersonese To fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle, Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock, _170 And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez, Aeolia and Elysium, and thy sh.o.r.es, Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!

And through the fortunate Saturnian land, Into the darkness of the West.

NOTES: (_153 (Io) The Promethetes Bound of Aeschylus.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]) (_153 (Ezekiel) And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Aethiopia, and for the bee of Egypt, etc.--EZEKIEL.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

MAMMON: But if _175 This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?

PURGANAX: G.o.ds! what an IF! but there is my gray RAT: So thin with want, he can crawl in and out Of any narrow c.h.i.n.k and filthy hole, And he shall creep into her dressing-room, _180 And--

MAMMON: My dear friend, where are your wits? as if She does not always toast a piece of cheese And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough To crawl through SUCH c.h.i.n.ks--

PURGANAX: But my LEECH--a leech Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, _185 Capaciously expatiative, which make His little body like a red balloon, As full of blood as that of hydrogen, Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks And clings and pulls--a horse-leech, whose deep maw _190 The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill, And who, till full, will cling for ever.

MAMMON: This For Queen Jona would suffice, and less; But 'tis the Swinish mult.i.tude I fear, And in that fear I have--

PURGANAX: Done what?

MAMMON: Disinherited _195 My eldest son Chrysaor, because he Attended public meetings, and would always Stand prating there of commerce, public faith, Economy, and unadulterate coin, And other topics, ultra-radical; _200 And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's Paradise, And funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills, Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina, And married her to the gallows. [1]

NOTE: (_204 'If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so p.r.o.ne.--CYMBELINE.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

PURGANAX: A good match!

MAMMON: A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom _205 Is of a very ancient family, Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop, And has great influence in both Houses;--oh!

He makes the fondest husband; nay, TOO fond,-- New-married people should not kiss in public; _210 But the poor souls love one another so!

And then my little grandchildren, the gibbets, Promising children as you ever saw,-- The young playing at hanging, the elder learning How to hold radicals. They are well taught too, _215 For every gibbet says its catechism And reads a select chapter in the Bible Before it goes to play.

[A MOST TREMENDOUS HUMMING IS HEARD.]

PURGANAX: Ha! what do I hear?

[ENTER THE GADFLY.]

MAMMON: Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.

GADFLY: Hum! hum! hum! _220 From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray scalps Of the mountains, I come!

Hum! hum! hum!

From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces Of golden Byzantium; _225 From the temples divine of old Palestine, From Athens and Rome, With a ha! and a hum!

I come! I come!

All inn-doors and windows _230 Were open to me: I saw all that sin does, Which lamps hardly see That burn in the night by the curtained bed,-- The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red, _235 Dinging and singing, From slumber I rung her, Loud as the clank of an ironmonger; Hum! hum! hum!

Far, far, far! _240 With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, I drove her--afar!

Far, far, far!

From city to city, abandoned of pity, A s.h.i.+p without needle or star;-- _245 Homeless she pa.s.sed, like a cloud on the blast, Seeking peace, finding war;-- She is here in her car, From afar, and afar;-- Hum! hum! _250

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;-- _255 I have driven her close to you, under the moon, Night and day, hum! hum! ha!

I have hummed her and drummed her From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her, Hum! hum! hum! _260

NOTE: _260 Edd. 1820, 1839 have no stage direction after this line.

[ENTER THE LEECH AND THE RAT.]

LEECH: I will suck 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 _265 Let blood from her weasand,-- Creeping through crevice, and c.h.i.n.k, and cranny, With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.

PURGANAX: Aroint ye! thou unprofitable worm!

[TO THE LEECH.]

And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to h.e.l.l! _270 [TO THE GADFLY.]

To sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings, And the ox-headed Io--

SWINE (WITHIN): Ugh, ugh, ugh!

Hail! Iona the divine, We will be no longer Swine, But Bulls with horns and dewlaps.

RAT: For, _275 You know, my lord, the Minotaur--

PURGANAX (FIERCELY): Be silent! get to h.e.l.l! or I will call The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon, This is a pretty business.

[EXIT THE RAT.]

MAMMON: I will go And spell some scheme to make it ugly then.-- _280

[EXIT.]

[ENTER SWELLFOOT.]

SWELLFOOT: She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes, When Swellfoot wishes that she were in h.e.l.l!

Oh, Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy, And waving o'er the couch of wedded kings The torch of Discord with its fiery hair; _285 This is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!

Swellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea, The very name of wife had conjugal rights; Her cursed image ate, drank, slept with me, And in the arms of Adiposa oft 290 Her memory has received a husband's-- [A LOUD TUMULT, AND CRIES OF 'IONA FOR EVER --NO SWELLFOOT!']

Hark!

How the Swine cry Iona Taurina; I suffer the real presence; Purganax, Off with her head!

PURGANAX: But I must first impanel A jury of the Pigs.