Act 1, Scene 3

A Room in the Duke of Albany's Palace.

[Enter Goneril and Oswald.]
Goneril
487 Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?
Goneril
488 Osw. Ay, madam.
Goneril
489 By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour
490 He flashes into one gross crime or other,
491 That sets us all at odds; I'll not endure it:
492 His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
493 On every trifle.—When he returns from hunting,
494 I will not speak with him; say I am sick.—
495 If you come slack of former services,
496 You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
Oswald
497 He's coming, madam; I hear him.
[Horns within.]
Goneril
498 Put on what weary negligence you please,
499 You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question:
500 If he distaste it, let him to our sister,
501 Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
502 Not to be overruled. Idle old man,
503 That still would manage those authorities
504 That he hath given away!—Now, by my life,
505 Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd
506 With checks as flatteries,—when they are seen abus'd.
507 Remember what I have said.
Oswald
508 Very well, madam.
Goneril
509 And let his knights have colder looks among you;
510 What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so;
511 I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
512 That I may speak.—I'll write straight to my sister
513 To hold my very course.—Prepare for dinner.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 495syntax grammar
“If you come slack of former services, / You shall do well”
The syntax is deliberately inverted. Goneril means: if Oswald and the household staff do their jobs worse than before — slacking off on the service they used to provide Lear — that slackness is exactly what she wants, and she will answer for any blame. 'Come slack of' means fall short of, and 'you shall do well' means you will please me, not you will perform well.
TLN 502archaic vocab
“Idle old man, / That still would manage those authorities / That he hath given away”
'Idle' here means foolish or useless, not lazy. 'Still' means 'continues to' (the older sense). 'Authorities' means the powers of government — decrees, commands, control over the household — that Lear handed to his daughters in Act 1 Scene 1. Goneril's complaint is that Lear keeps trying to exercise a royal authority he has legally surrendered.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 505rhetorical device
“Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd / With checks as flatteries”
Goneril inverts a proverb about the second childhood of old age. 'Checks' means rebukes or corrections. 'When they are seen abus'd' means when old people are shown to have been misled by flattery. Her logic: flattery has made Lear behave badly ('abus'd' = corrupted by indulgence), so he must now be disciplined with sharp rebukes ('checks') the way a misbehaving infant is corrected — not coddled further.
TLN 511archaic vocab
“I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, / That I may speak”
'Breed from hence occasions' means deliberately create opportunities — manufacture pretexts for a confrontation. Goneril is not waiting for Lear to overstep; she is engineering the conditions that will force a clash, so she will have justification to speak openly against him. The plan she outlines here (cold household, a letter to Regan, a coming confrontation) is premeditated, not reactive.