SWELLFOOT.

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,

But 'tis 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.

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,

We will greet thee-the voice of a storm
Would be lost in our terrible shout!

Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Hail to thee, Empress of Earth!
When thou risest, dividing possessions;
When thou risest, uprooting oppressions;
In the pride of thy ghastly mirth.
Over palaces, temples, and graves,
We will rush as thy minister-slaves,
Trampling behind in thy train,
Till all be made level again!

MAMMON.

I hear a crackling of the giant bones

Of the dread image, and in the black pits

Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames :
These prodigies are oracular, and show
The presence of the unseen Deity.

Mighty events are hastening to their doom!

SWELLFOOT.

I only hear the lean and mutinous swine
Grunting about the temple.

DAKRY.

In a crisis

Of such exceeding delicacy, I think
We ought to put her majesty, the QUEEN,
Upon her trial without delay.

Is here.

MAMMON.

The BAG

PURGANAX,

I have rehearsed the entire scene

With an ox-bladder and some ditch-water,

On Lady P.-it cannot fail.

[Taking up the bag.

Your majesty (to SWELLFOOT)

In such a filthy business had better

Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you.
A spot or two on me would do no harm ;

Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad genius
Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,
Upon my brow-which would stain all its seas,
But which those seas could never wash away!

IONA TAURINA.

My lord, I am ready-nay I am impatient,
To undergo the test.

[A graceful figure in a semi-transparent veil passes unnoticed
through the Temple; the word LIBERTY is seen through the

veil, as if it were written in fire upon its forehead. Its words are almost drowned in the furious grunting of the Pigs, and the business of the trial. She kneels on the steps of the Altar, and speaks in tones at first faint and low, but which ever become louder and louder.

Mighty Empress! Death's white wife!

Ghastly mother-in-law of life!

By the God who made thee such,

By the magic of thy touch,

By the starving and the cramming,

Of fasts and feasts !-by thy dread self, O Famine !
I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude,
Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.
The earth did never mean her foizon
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 Change.

Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age !—
Remit, O Queen! thy accustom'd rage !
Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low
FREEDOM calls Famine,-her eternal foe,
To brief alliance, hollow truce.-Rise now!

[Whilst the veiled Figure has been chaunting this 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 of filthy and ugly

animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the Pigs begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the sculls; all those who eat the loaves are turned into Bulls, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a MINOTAUR rises.

MINOTAUR.

I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest
Of all Europa's taurine progeny-

I am the old traditional man bull;

And from my ancestors having been Ionian,
I am called Ion, which, by interpretation,
Is JOHN; in plain Theban, that is to say,
My name 's JOHN BULL; I am a famous hunter,
And can leap any gate in all Boeotia,

Even the palings of the royal park,

Or double ditch about the new inclosures;
And if your majesty will deign to mount me,
At least till you have hunted down your game,
I will not throw you.

IONA TAURINA.

[During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs,
and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking
up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back.

Hoa hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho!
Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down,
These stinking foxes, these devouring otters,

These hares, these wolves, these anything but men.
Hey, for a whipper-in! my loyal pigs,

Now let your noses be as keen as beagles',
Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries
More dulcet and symphonious than the bells
Of village-towers, on sunshine holiday;
Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music.
Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?)

212

EDIPUS TYRANNUS; OR, SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT.

But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!

Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!

FULL CHORUS OF IONA AND THE SWINE.

Tallyho! tallyho!

Through rain, hail, and snow,
Through brake, gorse, and briar,
Through fen, flood, and mire,
We go! we go!

Tallyho tallyho!

Through pond, ditch, and slough,
Wind them, and find them,

Like the Devil behind them,

Tallyho tallyho!

[Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the SWINE, with the empty GREEN BAG.