Part 2

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 me Each 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-holes Can sing for themselves; The smallest brown squirrel Both scampers and delves; But a baby does nothing-- She never knows how-- She must hark to her mother Who 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 otter Is sleeky and streaming, With catching bright fishes, Ere babies learn dreaming; But no wet little otter Is ever so warm As 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 grieve That 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 far 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 face And 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 bed, 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 enthralls Like 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 place That 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 women In 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 reply To 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 price For 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 hair And 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 mouthfuls For 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 wenches To 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 sit At love together, unwatched, unknown of all, In the Queen's chamber, near the Queen's crown And with no conscious Queen to hold it from us: Now let me wear the Queen's true crown on me And snatch a breathless knowledge of the feeling Of what it would have been to sit by you Always and closely, equal and exalted, To be my light when life is dark again.

LEAR. Girl, by the black stone god, I did not think You had the nature of a chambermaid, Who pries and fumbles in her lady's clothes With her red hands, or on her soily neck Stealthily hangs her lady's jewels or pearls. You shall be tiring-maid to the next queen And try her crown on every day o' your life In secrecy, if that is your desire: If you would be a queen, cleanse yourself quickly Of menial fingering and servile thought.

GORMFLAITH. You need not crown me. Let me put it on As briefly as a gleam of Winter sun. I will not even warm it with my hair.

LEAR. You cannot have the nature of a queen If 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 voice Will 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 serfs To think things are forbidden And 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 bright To 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, _outside, singing to a quick, chattering tune._ If you have a mind to kiss me You shall kiss me in the dark: Yet rehearse, or you might miss me-- Make my mouth your noontide mark....

_GORMFLAITH'S voice grows fainter as the song progresses, until all sound is lost._

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 me For 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 about After 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 dare To 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 wickedness As that a king's physician so should choose To 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 thoughts Of what the ways of life will do to you To mould and maim you, and I have a power To bring these to expression that I knew not. Why do you wear my crown? Why do you wear My 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 corner So 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 back And 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-women Have come from Brita's child-bed to their drinking By 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 again However we cover our faces and pretend She will be there if we uncover them. I must be hasty, or she'll be as stiff As 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 done Beat 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 dread That now your ghost discovers them in me. Hearken, mother; between us there's a bond Of 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. Come back.

_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 by the garden doorway, leading GORMFLAITH by the hand._

LEAR. What is to do?

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 I Share blood with her, and, though she grew too worn To 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 wakes I will announce my purpose in the need Of 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 doorway, and, taking her hand, leads her to the foot of the bed._

Lady, why will you go? The King intends That you shall soon be royal, and thereby Admitted to our breed: then stay with us In this domestic privacy to mourn The grief here fallen on our family. Kneel now; I yield the eldest daughter's place. Why do you fumble in your bosom so? Put your cold hands together; close your eyes, In inward isolation to assemble Your memories of the dead, your prayers for her.

_She turns to LEAR, who has approached the bed and drawn back the curtain._

What utterance of doom would the king use Upon a watchman in the castle garth Who left his gate and let an enemy in? The watcher by the Queen thus left her station: The sick bruised Queen is dead of that neglect. And what should be the doom on a seducer Who drew that sentinel from his fixt watch?

LEAR. She had long been dying, and she would have died Had all her dutiful daughters tended her bed.

GONERIL. Yes, she had long been dying in her heart. She lived to see you give her crown away; She died to see you fondle a menial: These blows you dealt now, but what elder wounds Received them to such purpose suddenly? What had you caused her to remember most? What things would she be like to babble over In the wild helpless hour when fitful life No more can choose what thoughts it shall encourage In the tost mind? She has suffered you twice over, Your animal thoughts and hungry powers, this day, Until I knew you unkingly and untrue.

LEAR. Punishment once taught you daughterly silence; It shall be tried again.... What has she said?

GONERIL. You cannot touch me now I know your nature: Your force upon my mind was only terrible When I believed you a cruel flawless man. Ruler of lands and dreaded judge of men, Now you have done a murder with your mind Can you see any murderer put to death? Can you--

LEAR. What has she said?

GONERIL. Continue in your joy of punishing evil, Your passion of just revenge upon wrong-doers, Unkingly and untrue?

LEAR. Enough: what do you know?

GONERIL. That which could add a further agony To the last agony, the daily poison Of her late, withering life; but never word Of fairer hours or any lost delight. Have you no memory, either, of her youth, While she was still to use, spoil, forsake, That maims your new contentment with a longing For what is gone and will not come again?

LEAR. I did not know that she could die to-day. She had a bloodless beauty that cheated me: She was not born for wedlock. She shut me out. She is no colder now.... I'll hear no more. You shall be answered afterward for this. Put something over her: get her buried: I will not look on her again.

_He breaks from GONERIL and flings abruptly out by the door near the bed._

GORMFLAITH. My King, you leave me!

GONERIL. Soon we follow him: But, ah, poor fragile beauty, you cannot rise While this grave burden weights your drooping head.

_Laying her hand caressingly on GORMFLAITH'S neck, she gradually forces her head farther and farther down._

You were not nurtured to sustain a crown, Your unanointed parents could not breed The spirit that ten hundred years must ripen. Lo, how you sink and fail.

GORMFLAITH. You had best take care, For where my neck has bruises yours shall have wounds. The King knows of your wolfish snapping at me: He will protect me.

GONERIL. Ay, if he is in time.

_GORMFLAITH, taking off the crown and holding it up blindly toward GONERIL with one hand._

Take it and let me go!

GONERIL. Nay, not to me: You are the Queen's, to serve her even in death. Yield her her own. Approach her: do not fear; She will not chide you or forgive you now. Go on your knees; the crown still holds you down.

_GORMFLAITH stumbles forward on her knees and lays the crown on the bed, then crouches motionlessly against the bedside._