Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 13

Goneril (rising from the cauldron with dripping hands):

Yes, she is slain: I did it with a knife: And in this water is dissolved her blood,

(Raising her arms and sprinkling the Queen's body)

That now I scatter on the Queen of death For signal to her spirit that I can slake Her long corrosion of misery with such balm-- Blood for weeping, terror for woe, death for death, A broken body for a broken heart.

What will you say against me and my deed?

Lear:

That now you cannot save yourself from me.

While your blind virgin power still stood apart In an unused, unviolated life, You judged me in my weakness, and because I felt you unflawed I could not answer you; But you have mingled in mortality And violently begun the common life By fault against your fellows; and the state, The state of Britain that inheres in me Not touched by my humanity or sin, Pa.s.sions or privy acts, shall be as hard And savage to you as to a murderess.

Goneril (taking a letter from her girdle):

I found a warrant in her favoured bosom, King: She wore this on her heart when you were crowning her.

Lear:

But this is not my hand:

(Looking about him on the floor)

Where is the other letter?

Goneril:

Is there another letter? What should it say?

Lear:

There is no other letter if you have none.

(Reading) "Open your window when the moon is dead, And I will come again.

The men say everywhere that you are faithless ...

And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith." ...

This is not hers: she'd not receive such words.

Goneril:

Her name stands twice therein: her perfume fills it: My knife went through it ere I found it on her.

Lear:

The filth is suitably dead. You are my true daughter.

Goneril:

I do not understand how men can govern, Use craft and exercise the duty of cunning, Antic.i.p.ate treason, treachery meet with treachery, And yet believe a woman because she looks Straight in their eyes with mournful, trustful gaze, And lisps like innocence, all gentleness.

Your Gormflaith could not answer a woman's eyes.

I did not need to read her in a letter; I am not woman yet, but I can feel What untruths are instinctive in my kind, And how some men desire deceit from us.

Come; let these washers do what they must do: Or shall your Queen be wrapped and coffined awry?

[She goes out by the garden doorway.]

Lear:

I thought she had been broken long ago: She must be wedded and broken, I cannot do it.

[He follows GONERIL out. The two women return to the bedside.]

The Elder Woman:

Poor, masterful King, he is no easier, Although his tearful wife is gone at last: A wilful girl shall p.r.i.c.k and thwart him now.

Old gossip, we must hasten; the Queen is setting.

Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes.

The Younger Woman:

Find your own pennies: then you can steal them safely.

The Elder Woman:

Praise you the G.o.ds of Britain, as I do praise them, That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, And that I lack your unforgiving mind.

Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear And draw away the under sheet for you; Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire-- I never could put damp linen on a corpse.

[She sings.]