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?