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 ...