HYGD, his Queen.
GONERIL, daughter to King Lear.
CORDEIL, daughter to King Lear.
GORMFLAITH, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd.
MERRYN, waiting-woman to Queen Hygd.
A PHYSICIAN.
TWO ELDERLY WOMEN.
KING LEAR'S WIFE.
[The scene is a bedchamber in a one-storied house. The walls consist of
a few courses of huge irregular boulders roughly squared and fitted
together; a thatched roof rises steeply from the back wall. In the
centre of the back wall is a doorway opening on a garden and covered by
two leather curtains; the chamber is partially hung with similar
hangings stitched with bright wools. There is a small window on each
side of this door.
Toward the front a bed stands with its head against the right wall; it
has thin leather curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. Farther forward
a rich robe and a crown hang on a peg in the same wall. There is a
second door beyond the bed, and between this and the bed's head stands a
small table with a bronze lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen HYGD, an
emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her plenteous black hair, veined
with silver, spreads over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, MERRYN,
middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching her in a chair on the
farther side of the bed.
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