SOLOMON:
Why, your Majesty,
I could not give—
SWELLFOOT:
Kill them out of the way,
That shall be price enough, and let me hear
Their everlasting grunts and whines no more! _95
[EXEUNT, DRIVING IN THE SWINE. ENTER MAMM0N, THE ARCH-PRIEST, AND PURGANAX, CHIEF OF THE COUNCIL OF WIZARDS.]
PURGANAX:
The future looks as black as death, a cloud,
Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it—
The troops grow mutinous—the revenue fails—
There’s something rotten in us—for the level _100
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!
MAMMON:
Why what’s the matter, my dear fellow, now?
Do the troops mutiny?—decimate some regiments;
Does money fail?—come to my mint—coin paper,
Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed _105
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, _110
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!
PURGANAX:
The words went thus:—
‘Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!
When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs, _115
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 _120
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 _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?