(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.]