Tat still would manage those authorities Tat he hath given away! (Goneril, lines 16–18)
Act 1
Scene 3
King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn, Royal Shakespeare Company, 2007
The Duke of Albany’s palace
Lear is spending the first month of his retirement at Goneril’s castle and she is unhappy with the situation. She tells her steward, Oswald, that Lear’s knights are rowdy and out of control, and Lear himself is erratic and bad-tempered. Oswald, who has been struck by Lear for chastising the Fool, is only too ready to agree when Goneril tells him to be rude and discourteous to Lear and to advise the rest of the servants to behave the same way. She hears Lear coming and leaves, saying that she will write immediately to Regan so that she will support her in this plan to treat Lear with coldness.
