[Enter Swellfoot.]

SWELLFOOT: She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes, When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell! Oh, Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy, And waving o'er the couch of wedded kings The torch of Discord with its fiery hair; 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.

SWELLFOOT: Pack them then.

PURGANAX: Or fattening some few in two separate sties. And giving them clean straw, tying some bits Of ribbon round their legs--giving their Sows Some tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass, And their young Boars white and red rags, and tails Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers Between the ears of the old ones; and when They are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs, Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up, Not to say, help us in destroying her.

SWELLFOOT: This plan might be tried too;--where's General Laoctonos? [ENTER LAOCTONOS AND DAKRY.] It is my royal pleasure That you, Lord General, bring the head and body, If separate it would please me better, hither Of Queen Iona.

LAOCTONOS: That pleasure I well knew, And made a charge with those battalions bold, Called, from their dress and grin, the royal apes, Upon the Swine, who in a hollow square Enclosed her, and received the first attack Like so many rhinoceroses, and then Retreating in good order, with bare tusks And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe, Bore her in triumph to the public sty. What is still worse, some Sows upon the ground Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin, And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry, 'Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!'

PURGANAX: Hark!

THE SWINE (WITHOUT): Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!

DAKRY: I Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower, Which overlooks the sty, and made a long Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine, Of delicacy mercy, judgement, law, Morals, and precedents, and purity, Adultery, destitution, and divorce, Piety, faith, and state necessity, And how I loved the Queen!--and then I wept With the pathos of my own eloquence, And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made A slough of blood and brains upon the place, Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up, And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air, With dust and stones.--