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 165
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 Aetnean Isle,
Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso’s Rock, 170
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Aeolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free! 
And through the fortunate Saturnian land,
Into the darkness of the West.

NOTES:  (153 (Io) The Promethetes Bound of Aeschylus.—­[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]) (153 (Ezekiel) And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Aethiopia, and for the bee of Egypt, etc.—­EZEKIEL.—­[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])

MAMMON: 
But if 175
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
Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,
And he shall creep into her dressing-room, 180
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—­

PURGANAX: 
But my LEECH—­a leech
Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, 185
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 190
The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling for ever.

MAMMON: 
This
For Queen Jona would suffice, and less;
But ’tis the Swinish multitude I fear,
And in that fear I have—­

PURGANAX: 
Done what?

MAMMON: 
Disinherited 195
My eldest son Chrysaor, because he
Attended public meetings, and would always
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,
And other topics, ultra-radical; 200
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. [1]

NOTE:  (204 ’If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone.—­CYMBELINE.—­[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

PURGANAX: 
A good match!