Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still, Lord PURGANAX, I do commit myself PURGANAX. This magnanimity in your sacred majesty Will blind your wondering eyes. Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall! [Exeunt omnes SCENE II. The interior of the Temple of FAMINE. The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in party-coloured rags, seuted upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. Anuriber of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. A flourish of trumpets. Enter MAMMON as Arch-priest, SwEllfoot, Dakry, PubGANAX, 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 cram ming; 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. Those who consume these fruits through thee grow fat, Those who produce these fruits through thee grow lean, Whatever change takes place, O, stick to that! And let things be as they have ever been; Through thee the sacred SWELLFOOT dynasty [SWELLFOOT, &c. seat themselves at a table, magnifi MAMMON. I fear your sacred majesty has lost The appetite which you were used to have. SWELLFOOT. After the trial, And these fastidious pigs are gone, perhaps I may recover my lost appetite. I feel the gout flying about my stomach; PURGANAX. [Filling his glass, and standing up. The glorious constitution of the Pigs! ALL. A toast! a toast! stand up, and three times three! DAKRY. No heel-taps-darken day-lights! LAOCTONOS. Claret, somehow, Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret! 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, 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! 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 DAKRY. In a crisis |