Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 5

The men say everywhere that you are faithless, The women say your face is a false face And your eyes s.h.i.+fty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith.

Do not forget your window-latch to-night, For when the moon is dead the house is still."

[LEAR again parts the door-curtains at the back, and, seeing GORMFLAITH, enters. At the first slight rustle of the curtains GORMFLAITH stealthily slips the letter back into her bosom before turning gradually, a finger to her lips, to see who approaches her.]

Lear (leaning over the side of her chair):

Lady, what do you read?

Gormflaith:

I read a letter, Sire.

Lear:

A letter--a letter--what read you in a letter?

Gormflaith (taking another letter from her girdle):

Your words to me--my lonely joy your words ...

"If you are steady and true as your gaze "--

Lear (tearing the letter from her, crumpling it, and flinging it to the back of the room):

Pest!

You should not carry a king's letters about, Nor h.o.a.rd a king's letters.

Gormflaith:

No, Sire.

Lear:

Must the King also stand in the presence now?

Gormflaith (rising):

Pardon my troubled mind; you have taken my letter from me.

[LEAR seats himself and takes GORMFLAITH'S hand.]

Gormflaith:

Wait, wait--I might be seen. The Queen may waken yet.

[Stepping lightly to the led, she noiselessly slips the curtain on that side as far forward as it will come. Then she returns to LEAR, who draws her to him and seats her on his knee.]

Lear:

You have been long in coming: 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 ...