Cruelty and Love (from 'Love Poems and Others')

FRANCIS LEDWIDGE

The Wife of Llew (from 'Songs of the Fields') A Rainy Day in April " " " The Lost Ones " " "

JOHN MASEFIELD

The Wanderer (from 'Philip the King')

HAROLD MONRO

Milk for the Cat (from 'Children of Love') Overheard on a Saltmarsh " " Children of Love

JAMES STEPHENS

The Rivals (from 'Songs from the Clay') The Goatpaths " " " The Snare " " " In Woods and Meadows " " " Deirdre " " "

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

The End of the World

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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GORDON BOTTOMLEY

KING LEAR'S WIFE [1]

(To T.S.M.)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

LEAR, King of Britain. HYGD, his Queen. GONERIL, daughter to King Lear. CORDEIL, daughter to King Lear. GORMFLAITH, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd. MERRYN, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd. A PHYSICIAN. TWO ELDERLY WOMEN.

KING LEAR'S WIFE.

[The scene is a bedchamber in a one-storied house. The walls consist of a few courses of huge irregular boulders roughly squared and fitted together; a thatched roof rises steeply from the back wall. In the centre of the back wall is a doorway opening on a garden and covered by two leather curtains; the chamber is partially hung with similar hangings stitched with bright wools. There is a small window on each side of this door.

Toward the front a bed stands with its head against the right wall; it has thin leather curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. Farther forward a rich robe and a crown hang on a peg in the same wall. There is a second door beyond the bed, and between this and the bed's head stands a small table with a bronze lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen HYGD, an emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her plenteous black hair, veined with silver, spreads over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, MERRYN, middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching her in a chair on the farther side of the bed. The light of early morning fills the room.]

Merryn:

Many, many must die who long to live, Yet this one cannot die who longs to die: Even her sleep, come now at last, thwarts death, Although sleep lures us all half way to death ... I could not sit beside her every night If I believed that I might suffer so: I am sure I am not made to be diseased, I feel there is no malady can touch me-- Save the red cancer, growing where it will.

[Taking her beads from her girdle, she kneels at the foot of the bed.]

O sweet Saint Cleer, and sweet Saint Elid too, Shield me from rooting cancers and from madness: Shield me from sudden death, worse than two death-beds; Let me not lie like this unwanted queen, Yet let my time come not ere I am ready-- Grant space enow to relish the watchers' tears And give my clothes away and calm my features And streek my limbs according to my will, Not the hard will of fumbling corpse-washers.

[She prays silently.]

[KING LEAR, a great, golden-bearded man in the full maturity of life, enters abruptly by the door beyond the bed, followed by the PHYSICIAN.]

Lear:

Why are you here? Are you here for ever? Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is she?

Merryn:

O, Sire, move softly; the Queen sleeps at last.

Lear (continuing in an undertone):

Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is Gormflaith? It is her watch ... I know; I have marked your hours. Did the Queen send her away? Did the Queen Bid you stay near her in her hate of Gormflaith? You work upon her yeasting brain to think