Hush; hush--you hurt your mother with your voice. You cannot come in, Cordeil; you must go away: Your father is not here ... Cordeil's Voice: He must be here: He is not in his chamber or the hall, He is not in the stable or with Gormflaith: He promised I should ride with him at dawn And sit before his saddle and hold his hawk, And ride with him and ride to the heron-marsh; He said that he would give me the first heron, And hang the longest feathers in my hair. Goneril: Then you must haste to find him; He may be riding now ... Cordeil's Voice: But Gerda said she saw him enter here. Goneril: Indeed, he is not here ... Cordeil's Voice: Let me look ... Goneril: You are too noisy. Must I make you go? Cordeil's Voice: Mother, Goneril is unkind to me. Hygd (raising herself in bed excitedly, and speaking so vehemently that her utterance strangles itself): Go, go, thou evil child, thou ill-comer. [GONERIL, with a sudden strong movement, shuts the resisting door and holds it rigidly. The little hands beat on it madly for a moment, then the child's voice is heard in a retreating wail.] Goneril: Though she is wilful, obeying only the King, She is a very little child, mother, To be so bitterly thought of. Hygd: Because a woman gives herself for ever Cordeil the useless had to be conceived (Like an after-thought that deceives nobody) To keep her father from another woman. And I lie here. Goneril (after a silence): Hard and unjust my father has been to me; Yet that has knitted up within my mind A love of coldness and a love of him Who makes me firm, wary, swift and secret, Until I feel if I become a mother I shall at need be cruel to my children, And ever cold, to string their natures harder And make them able to endure men's deeds; But now I wonder if injustice Keeps house with baseness, taught by kinship-- I never thought a king could be untrue, I never thought my father was unclean ... O mother, mother, what is it? Is this dying? Hygd: I think I am only faint ... Give me the cup of whey ... [GONERIL takes the cup and, supporting HYGD lets her drink.] Goneril: There is too little here. When was it made? Hygd: Yester-eve ... Yester-morn ... Goneril: Unhappy mother, You have no daughter to take thought for you-- No servant's love to shame a daughter with, Though I am shamed--you must have other food, Straightway I bring you meat ... Hygd: It is no use ... Plenish the cup for me ... Not now, not now, But in a while; for I am heavy now ... Old Wynoc's potions loiter in my veins, And tides of heaviness pour over me Each time I wake and think. I could sleep now. Goneril: Then I shall lull you, as you once lulled me. [Seating herself on the bed, she sings.]