Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 11

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 moment's 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 rat 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."