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. The light of early morning fills the room.]


Merryn:

Many, many must die who long to live,
Yet this one cannot die who longs to die:
Even her sleep, come now at last, thwarts death,
Although sleep lures us all half way to death ...
I could not sit beside her every night
If I believed that I might suffer so:
I am sure I am not made to be diseased,
I feel there is no malady can touch me--
Save the red cancer, growing where it will.