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