Till gold be at a discount, and, ashamed
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
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!

PURGANAX

The words went thus:

"Boeotia, choose reform or civil war,

When through thy streets, instead of hare with

dogs,

A Consort-Queen shall hunt a King with hogs,
Riding on the Ionian Minotaur."

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

Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words,
Which must, as all words must, be 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

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?
For prophecies, when once they get abroad,
Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends,
Or hypocrites, who, from assuming virtue,

Do the same actions that the virtuous do,
Contrive their own fulfilment.

This Iona

Well you know what the chaste Pasiphaë 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
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;
Now there were danger in the precedent

If Queen Iona —

PURGANAX

I have taken good care

That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth

With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!

And from a cavern full of ugly shapes,

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 Æthiopia to torment
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

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
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 Ætnean Isle,
Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock,
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Eolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!
And through the fortunate Saturnian land
Into the darkness of the West.

MAMMON

But if

This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?

PURGANAX

Gods! what an if! but there is my gray Rat,
So thin with want he can crawl in and out

176 This Gadfly of yours or should but, Rossetti conj. Queen Iona, Forman conj.

Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,
And he shall creep into her dressing-room,
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 chinks

Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings,
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

The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling forever.

MAMMON

For Queen Iona might suffice, and less;
But 'tis the Swinish multitude I fear,

And in that fear I have

PURGANAX

Done what?

MAMMON

My eldest son Chrysaor, because he

This

Disinherited

Attended public meetings, and would always
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,

And other topics, ultra-radical;

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.

PURGANAX

A good match!

MAMMON

A high connection, Purganax. The bridegroom 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;
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 learn-
ing

How to hold radicals. They are well taught

too,

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?