_She attacks the face of the YOUNGER WOMAN with her disengaged hand._

THE YOUNGER WOMAN, _starting back._ Oh!

_The ELDER WOMAN breaks the cord and thrusts the jewel into her pocket._

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.

Aie! Aie! Aie! Old thief! You are always thieving!

You stole a necklace on your wedding-day: You could not bear a child, you stole your daughter: You stole a shroud the morn your husband died: Last week you stole the Princess Regan's comb....

_She stumbles into the chair by the bed, and, throwing her loose sleeves over her head, rocks herself and moans._

THE ELDER WOMAN, _resuming her clothes-folding and her song._ "The lady's linen's no longer neat;"-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- "Her savour is neither warm nor sweet; It's close for two in a winding-sheet, And lice are too good for worms to eat; So here's no place for me."

_GONERIL enters by the door near the bed: her knife and the hand that holds it are b.l.o.o.d.y. She pauses a moment irresolutely._

THE ELDER WOMAN.

Still work for old Hrogneda, little Princess?

_GONERIL goes straight to the cauldron, pa.s.sing the women as if they were not there: she kneels and washes her knife and her hand in it. The women retire to the back of the chamber._

GONERIL, _speaking to herself._ The way is easy: and it is to be used.

How could this need have been conceived slowly?

In a keen mind it should have leapt and burnt: What I have done would have been better done When my sad mother lived and could feel joy.

This striking without thought is better than hunting; She showed more terror than an animal, She was more shiftless....

A little blood is lightly washed away, A common stain that need not be remembered; And a hot spasm of rightness quickly born Can guide me to kill justly and shall guide.

_LEAR enters by the door near the bed._

LEAR.

Goneril, Gormflaith, Gormflaith.... Have you seen Gormflaith?

GONERIL.

I led her to her chamber lately, Sir.

LEAR.

Ay, she is in her chamber. She is there.

GONERIL.

Have you been there already? Could you not wait?

LEAR.

Daughter, she is bleeding: she is slain.

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, _opening the letter._ 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.