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 passed 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):