King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 7

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._

_GONERIL, taking the crown and putting it on the dead Queen's head._

Mother and Queen, to you this holiest circlet Returns, by you renews its purpose and pride; Though it is sullied with a menial warmth, Your august coldness shall rehallow it, And when the young lewd blood that lent it heat Is also cooler we can well forget.

_She steps to GORMFLAITH._

Rise. Come, for here there is no more to do, And let us seek your chamber, if you will, There to confer in greater privacy; For we have now interment to prepare.

_She leads GORMFLAITH to the door near the bed._

You must walk first, you are still the Queen elect.

_When GORMFLAITH has pa.s.sed before her GONERIL unsheathes her hunting knife._

GORMFLAITH, _turning in the doorway._ What will you do?

GONERIL, _thrusting her forward with the haft of the knife._ On. On. On. Go in.

_She follows GORMFLAITH out._

_After a moments interval two elderly women, one a little younger than the other, enter by the same door: they wear black hoods and shapeless black gowns with large sleeves that flap like the wings of ungainly birds: between them they carry a heavy cauldron of hot water._

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.

We were listening. We were listening.

THE ELDER WOMAN. We were both listening.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.

Did she struggle?

THE ELDER WOMAN.

She could not struggle long.

_They set down the cauldron at the foot of the bed._

THE ELDER WOMAN, _curtseying to the Queen's body._ Saving your presence, Madam, we are come To make you sweeter than you'll be hereafter, And then be done with you.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN, _curtseying in turn._ Three days together, my Lady, y'have had me ducked For easing a foolish maid at the wrong time; But now your breath is stopped and you are colder, And you shall be as wet as a drowned cat Ere I have done with you.

THE ELDER WOMAN, _fumbling in the folds of the robe that hangs on the wall._ Her pocket is empty; Merryn has been here first.

Hearken, and then begin: You have not touched a royal corpse before, But I have stretched a king and an old queen, A king's aunt and a king's brother too, Without much boasting of a still-born princess; So that I know, as a priest knows his prayers, All that is written in the chamberlain's book About the handling of exalted corpses, Stripping them and trussing them for the grave: And there it says that the chief corpse-washer Shall take for her own use by sacred right The coverlid, the upper sheet, the mattress Of any bed in which a queen has died, And the last robe of state the body wore; While humbler helpers may divide among them The under sheet, the pillow, and the bed-gown Stript from the cooling queen.

Be thankful, then, and praise me every day That I have brought no other women with me To spoil you of your share.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.

Ah, you have always been a friend to me: Many's the time I have said I did not know How I could even have lived but for your kindness.

_The ELDER WOMAN draws down the bedclothes from the Queen's body, loosens them from the bed, and throws them on the floor._

THE ELDER WOMAN.

Pull her feet straight: is your mind wandering?

_She commences to fold the bedclothes, singing as she moves about._

A louse crept out of my lady's s.h.i.+ft-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- Crying "Oi! Oi! We are turned adrift; The lady's bosom is cold and stiffed, And her arm-pit's cold for me."

_While the ELDER WOMAN sings, the YOUNGER WOMAN straightens the Queen's feet and ties them together, draws the pillow from under her head, gathers her hair in one hand and knots it roughly; then she loosens her nightgown, revealing a jewel hung on a cord round the Queen's neck._

THE ELDER WOMAN, _running to the vacant side of the bed._ What have you there? Give it to me.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN. It is mine: I found it.

THE ELDER WOMAN, _seizing the jewel._ Leave it.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN. Let go.

THE ELDER WOMAN. Leave it, I say.

Will you not? Will you not? An eye for a jewel, then!