Goneril:
Though she is wilful, obeying only the King,She is a very little child, mother,To be so bitterly thought of.
Hygd:
Because a woman gives herself for everCordeil the useless had to be conceived(Like an after-thought that deceives nobody)To keep her father from another woman.And I lie here.
Goneril (after a silence):
Hard and unjust my father has been to me;Yet that has knitted up within my mindA love of coldness and a love of himWho makes me firm, wary, swift and secret,Until I feel if I become a motherI shall at need be cruel to my children,And ever cold, to string their natures harderAnd make them able to endure men's deeds;But now I wonder if injusticeKeeps house with baseness, taught by kinship —I never thought a king could be untrue,I never thought my father was unclean....O mother, mother, what is it? Is this dying?
Hygd:
I think I am only faint ...Give me the cup of whey ...
GONERIL takes the cup and, supporting HYGD lets her drink.
Goneril:
There is too little here. When was it made?
Hygd:
Yester-eve ... Yester-morn ...
Goneril:
Unhappy mother,You have no daughter to take thought for you —No servant's love to shame a daughter with,Though I am shamed — you must have other food,Straightway I bring you meat ...
Hygd:
It is no use ...Plenish the cup for me ... Not now, not now,But in a while; for I am heavy now ...Old Wynoc's potions loiter in my veins,And tides of heaviness pour over meEach time I wake and think. I could sleep now.
Goneril:
Then I shall lull you, as you once lulled me.
Seating herself on the bed, she sings.
The owlets in roof-holesCan sing for themselves;The smallest brown squirrelBoth scampers and delves;But a baby does nothing —She never knows how —She must hark to her motherWho sings to her now.Sleep then, ladykin, peeping so;Hide your handies and ley lei lo.
She bends over HYGD and kisses her; they laugh softly together. LEAR parts the curtains of the door at the back, stands there a moment, then goes away noiselessly.
The lish baby otterIs sleeky and streaming,With catching bright fishesEre babies learn dreaming;But no wet little otterIs ever so warmAs the fleecy-wrapt baby'Twixt me and my arm.Sleep big mousie...
Hygd (suddenly irritable):
Be quiet ... I cannot bear it.
She turns her head away from GONERIL and closes her eyes.
As GONERIL watches her in silence GORMFLAITH enters by the door beyond the bed. She is young and tall and fresh-coloured; her red hair coils and crisps close to her little head, showing its shape. Her movements are soft and unhurried; her manner is quiet and ingratiating and a little too agreeable; she speaks a little too gently.
Goneril (meeting her near the door and speaking in a low voice):
Why did you leave the Queen? Where have you been?Why have you so neglected this grave duty?
Gormflaith:
This is the instant of my duty, Princess:From midnight until now was Merryn's watch.I thought to find her here: is she not here?
HYGD turns to look at the speakers; then, turning back, closes her eyes again and lies as if asleep.
Goneril:
I found the Queen alone. I heard her cry your name.
Gormflaith:
Your anger is not too great, Madam; I grieveThat one so old as Merryn should act thus —So old and trusted and favoured, and so callous.
Goneril:
The Queen has had no food since yester-night..
Gormflaith:
Madam, that is too monstrous to conceive:I will seek food. I will prepare it now.
Goneril:
Stay here: and know, if the Queen is left again,You shall be beaten with two rods at once.
She picks up the cup and goes out by the door beyond the bed.
GORMFLAITH turns the chair a little away from the bed so that she can watch the jar door, and, seating herself, draws a letter from her bosom.
Gormflaith (to herself, reading):
"Open your window when the moon is dead,And I will come again.The men say everywhere that you are faithless,The women say your face is a false faceAnd your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith.Do not forget your window-latch to-night,For when the moon is dead the house is still."
LEAR again parts the door-curtains at the back, and, seeing GORMFLAITH, enters. At the first slight rustle of the curtains GORMFLAITH stealthily slips the letter back into her bosom before turning gradually, a finger to her lips, to see who approaches her.
Lear (leaning over the side of her chair):
Lady, what do you read?
Gormflaith
I read a letter, Sire.
Lear:
A letter — a letter — what read you in a letter?
Gormflaith (taking another letter from her girdle):
Your words to me — my lonely joy your words ..."If you are steady and true as your gaze " —
Lear (tearing the letter from her, crumpling it, and flinging it to the back of the room):
Pest!You should not carry a king's letters about,Nor hoard a king's letters.
Gormflaith:
No, Sire.
Lear:
Must the King also stand in the presence now?
Gormflaith (rising):
Pardon my troubled mind; you have taken my letter from me.
LEAR seats himself and takes GORMFLAITH'S hand.
Gormflaith:
Wait, wait — I might be seen. The Queen may waken yet.
Stepping lightly to the led, she noiselessly slips the curtain on that side as far forward as it will come. Then she returns to LEAR, who draws her to him and seats her on his knee.
Lear:
You have been long in coming:Was Merryn long in finding you?
Gormflaith (playing with Lear's emerald):
Did Merryn ...Has Merryn been ... She loitered long before she came,For I was at the women's bathing-place ere dawn ...No jewel in all the land excites me and enthrallsLike this strong source of light that lives upon your breast.
Lear (taking the jewel chain from his neck and slipping it over Gormflaith's head while she still holds the emerald):
Wear it within your breast to fill the gentle placeThat cherished the poor letter lately torn from you.
Gormflaith:
Did Merryn at your bidding, then, forsake her Queen?
LEAR nods.
You must not, ah, you must not do these masterful things,Even to grasp a precious meeting for us two;For the reproach and chiding are so hard to me,And even you can never fight the silent womenIn hidden league against me, all this house of women.Merryn has left her Queen in unwatched loneliness,And yet your daughter Princess Goneril has said(With lips that scarce held back the spittle for my face)That if the Queen is left again I shall be whipt.
Lear:
Children speak of the punishments they know.Her back is now not half so white as yours,And you shall write your will upon it yet.
Gormflaith:
Ah, no, my King, my faithful.. Ah, no.. no..The Princess Goneril is right; she judges me:A sinful woman cannot steadily gaze replyTo the cool, baffling looks of virgin untried force.She stands beside that crumbling mother in her hate,And, though we know so well — she and I, O we know —That she could love no mother nor partake in anguish,Yet she is flouted when the King forsakes her dam,She must protect her very flesh, her tenderer flesh,Although she cannot wince; she's wild in her cold brain,And soon I must be made to pay a cruel priceFor this one gloomy joy in my uncherished life.Envy and greed are watching me aloof(Yes, now none of the women will walk with me),Longing to see me ruined, but she'll do it ...It is a lonely thing to love a king ...
She puts her cheek gradually closer and closer to LEAR'S cheek as she speaks: at length he kisses her suddenly and vehemently, as if he would grasp her lips with his: she receives it passively, her head thrown back, her eyes closed.
Lear:
Goldilocks, when the crown is couching in your hairAnd those two mingled golds brighten each other's wonder,You shall produce a son from flesh unused —Virgin I chose you for that, first crops are strongest —A tawny fox with your high-stepping action,With your untiring power and glittering eyes,To hold my lands together when I am done,To keep my lands from crumbling into mouthfulsFor the short jaws of my three mewling vixens.Hatch for me such a youngster from my seed,And I and he shall rein my hot-breathed wenchesTo let you grind the edges off their teeth.
Gormflaith (shaking her head sadly):
Life holds no more than this for me; this is my hour.When she is dead I know you'll buy another Queen —Giving a county for her, gaining a duchy with her —And put me to wet nursing, leashing me with the thralls.It will not be unbearable — I've had your love.Master and friend, grant then this hour to me:Never again, maybe, can we two sitAt love together, unwatched, unknown of all,In the Queen's chamber, near the Queen's crownAnd with no conscious Queen to hold it from us:Now let me wear the Queen's true crown on meAnd snatch a breathless knowledge of the feelingOf what it would have been to sit by youAlways and closely, equal and exalted,To be my light when life is dark again.
Lear:
Girl, by the black stone god, I did not thinkYou had the nature of a chambermaid,Who pries and fumbles in her lady's clothesWith her red hands, or on her soily neckStealthily hangs her lady's jewels or pearls.You shall be tiring-maid to the next queenAnd try her crown on every day o' your lifeIn secrecy, if that is your desire:If you would be a queen, cleanse yourself quicklyOf menial fingering and servile thought.
Gormflaith:
You need not crown me. Let me put it onAs briefly as a gleam of Winter sun.I will not even warm it with my hair.
Lear:
You cannot have the nature of a queenIf you believe that there are things above you:Crowns make no queens, queens are the cause of crowns.
Gormflaith (slipping from his knee):
Then I will take one. Look.
She tip-toes lightly round the front of the bed to where the crown hangs on the wall.
Lear:
Come here, mad thing — come back!Your shadow will wake the Queen.
Gormflaith:
Hush, hush! That angry voiceWill surely wake the Queen.
She lifts the crown from the peg, and returns with it.
Lear:
Go back; bear back the crown:Hang up the crown again.We are not helpless serfsTo think things are forbiddenAnd steal them for our joy.
Gormflaith:
Hush, hush! It is too late;I dare not go again.
Lear:
Put down the crown: your hands are base hands yet.Give it to me: it issues from my hands.
Gormflaith (seating herself on his knee again, and crowning herself):
Let anger keep your eyes steady and brightTo be my guiding mirror: do not move.You have received two queens within your eyes.
She laughs clearly, like a bird's sudden song. HYGD awakes and, after an instant's bewilderment, turns her head toward the sound; finding the bed-curtain dropt, she moves it aside a little with her fingers; she watches LEAR and GORMFLAITH for a short time, then the curtain slips from her weak grasp and she lies motionless.
Lear (continuing meanwhile):
Doff it ...(GORMFLAITH kisses him.)Enough ...(Kiss)Unless you do ...(Kiss)my will ...(Kiss)I shall — —(Kiss)I shall — —(Kiss)I'll have you...(Kiss)sent ...(Kiss)to ...(Kiss.)
Gormflaith:
Hush
Lear:
Come to the garden: you shall hear me there.
Gormflaith:
I dare not leave the Queen ... Yes, yes, I come.
Lear:
No, you are better here: the guard would see you.
Gormflaith:
Not when we reach the pathway near the apple-yard.
They rise.
Lear:
Girl, you are changed: you yield more beauty so.
They go out hand in hand by the doorway at the back. As they pass the crumpled letter GORMFLAITH drops her handkerchief on it, then picks up handkerchief and letter together and thrusts them into her bosom as she passes out.
Hygd (fingering back the bed-curtain again):
How have they vanished? What are they doing now?
Gormflaith (singing outside):
If you have a mind to kiss meYou shall kiss me in the dark:Yet rehearse, or you might miss me —Make my mouth your noontide mark.See, I prim and pout it so;Now take aim and ... No, no, no.Shut your eyes, or you'll not learnWhere the darkness soon shall hide me:If you will not, then, in turn,I'll shut mine. Come, have you spied me?
GORMFLAITH'S voice grows fainter as the song closes.
Hygd:
Does he remember love-ways used with me?Shall I never know? Is it too near?I'll watch him at his wooing once again,Though I peer up at him across my grave-sill.
She gets out of bed and takes several steps toward the garden doorway; she totters and sways, then, turning, stumbles back to the bed for support.
Limbs, will you die? It is not yet the time.I know more discipline: I'll make you go.
She fumbles along the bed to the head, then, clinging against the wall, drags herself toward the back of the room.
It is too far. I cannot see the wall.I will go ten more steps: only ten more.One. Two. Three. Four. Five.Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.Sundown is soon to-day: it is cold and dark.Now ten steps more, and much will have been done.One. Two. Three. Four. Ten.Eleven. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen. Twenty.Twenty-one. Twenty-three. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Thirty-one.At last the turn. Thirty-six. Thirty-nine. Forty.Now only once again. Two. Three.What do the voices say? I hear too many.The door: but here there is no garden ... Ah!
She holds herself up an instant by the door-curtains; then she reels and falls, her body in the room, her head and shoulders beyond the curtains.
GONERIL enters by the door beyond the bed, carrying the filled cup carefully in both hands.
Goneril:
Where are you? What have you done? Speak to me.
Turning and seeing HYGD, she lets the cup fall and leaps to the open door by the bed.
Merryn, hither, hither ... Mother, O mother!
She goes to HYGD. MERRYN enters.
Merryn:
Princess, what has she done? Who has left her?She must have been alone.
Goneril:
Where is Gormflaith?
Merryn:
Mercy o' mercies, everybody asks meFor Gormflaith, then for Gormflaith, then for Gormflaith,And I ask everybody else for her;But she is nowhere, and the King will foam.Send me no more; I am old with running aboutAfter a bodiless name.
Goneril:
She has been here,And she has left the Queen. This is her deed.
Merryn:
Ah, cruel, cruel! The shame, the pity —
Goneril:
Lift.
Together they raise HYGD, and carry her to bed.
She breathes, but something flitters under her flesh:Wynoc the leech must help us now. Go, run,Seek him, and come back quickly, and do not dareTo come without him.
Merryn:
It is useless, lady:There's fever at the cowherd's in the marsh,And Wynoc broods above it twice a day,And I have lately seen him hobble thither.
Goneril:
I never heard such scornful wickednessAs that a king's physician so should chooseTo watch and even heal base men and poor —And, more than all, when there's a queen a-dying ...
Hygd (recovering consciousness):
Whence come you, dearest daughter? What have I done?Are you a dream? I thought I was alone.Have you been hunting on the Windy Height?Your hands are not thus gentle after hunting.Or have I heard you singing through my sleep?Stay with me now: I have had piercing thoughtsOf what the ways of life will do to youTo mould and maim you, and I have a powerTo bring these to expression that I knew not.Why do you wear my crown? Why do you wearMy crown I say? Why do you wear my crown?I am falling, falling! Lift me: hold me up.
GONERIL climbs on the bed and supports HYGD against her shoulder.
It is the bed that breaks, for still I sink.Grip harder: I am slipping!
Goneril:
Woman, help!
MERRYN hurries round to the front of the bed and supports HYGD on her other side. HYGD points at the far corner of the room.
Hygd:
Why is the King's mother standing there?She should not wear her crown before me now.Send her away, she had a savage mind.Will you not hang a shawl across the cornerSo that she cannot stare at me again?
With a rending sob she buries her face in GONERIL'S bosom.
Ah, she is coming! Do not let her touch me!Brave splendid daughter, how easily you save me:But soon will Gormflaith come, she stays for ever.O, will she bring my crown to me once more?Yes, Gormflaith, yes ... Daughter, pay Gormflaith well.
Goneril:
Gormflaith has left you lonely:'Tis Gormflaith who shall pay.
Hygd:
No, Gormflaith; Gormflaith ... Not my loneliness ...Everything ... Pay Gormflaith ...
Her head falls back over GONERIL'S shoulder and she dies.
Goneril (laying Hygd down in bed again):
Send horsemen to the marshes for the leech,And let them bind him on a horse's backAnd bring him swiftlier than an old man rides.
Merryn:
This is no leech's work: she's a dead woman.I'd best be finding if the wisdom-womenHave come from Brita's child-bed to their drinkingBy the cook's fire, for soon she'll be past handling.
Goneril:
This is not death: death could not be like this.She is quite warm — though nothing moves in her.I did not know death could come all at once:If life is so ill-seated no one is safe.Cannot we leave her like herself awhile?Wait awhile, Merryn ... No, no, no; not yet!
Merryn:
Child, she is gone and will not come againHowever we cover our faces and pretendShe will be there if we uncover them.I must be hasty, or she'll be as stiffAs a straw mattress is.
She hurries out by the door near the bed.
Goneril (throwing the whole length of her body along Hygd's body, and embracing it):
Come back, come back; the things I have not doneBeat in upon my brain from every side:I know not where to put myself to bear them:If I could have you now I could act well.My inward life, deeds that you have not known,I burn to tell you in a sudden dreadThat now your ghost discovers them in me.Hearken, mother; between us there's a bondOf flesh and essence closer than love can cause:It cannot be unknit so soon as this,And you must know my touch,And you shall yield a sign.Feel, feel this urging throb: I call to you ...
GORMFLAITH, still crowned, enters by the garden doorway.
Gormflaith:
Come back! Help me and shield me!
She disappears through the curtains. GONERIL has sprung to her feet at the first sound of GORMFLAITH'S voice. LEAR enters through the garden doorway, leading GORMFLAITH by the hand.
Lear:
Goneril (advancing to meet them with a deep obeisance):
O, Sir, the Queen is dead: long live the Queen,You have been ready with the coronation.
Lear:
What do you mean? Young madam, will you mock?
Goneril:
But is not she your choice?The old Queen thought so, for I found her here,Lipping the prints of her supplanter's feet,Prostrate in homage, on her face, silent.I tremble within to have seen her fallen down.I must be pardoned if I scorn your ways:You cannot know this feeling that I know,You are not of her kin or house; but IShare blood with her, and, though she grew too wornTo be your Queen, she was my mother, Sir.
Gormflaith:
The Queen has seen me.
Lear:
She is safe in bed.
Goneril:
Do not speak low: your voice sounds guilty so;And there is no more need — she will not wake.
Lear:
She cannot sleep for ever. When she wakesI will announce my purpose in the needOf Britain for a prince to follow me,And tell her that she is to be deposed ...What have you done? She is not breathing now.She breathed here lately. Is she truly dead?
Goneril:
Your graceful consort steals from us too soon:Will you not tell her that she should remain —If she can trust the faith you keep with a queen?
She steps to GORMFLAITH, who is sidling toward the garden door-way, and, taking her hand, leads her to the foot of the bed.