Page 1810 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!

ALBANY
Well, you may fear too far.

GONERIL
Safer than trust too far.
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.

What he hath utter’d I have writ my sister; [325]
If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
When I have show’d th’unfitness, −
Re-enter Oswald.

How now, Oswald!
What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

OSWALD
Ay, madam.

GONERIL
Take you some company, and away to horse: [330]
Inform her full of my particular fear;

And thereto add such reasons of your own
As may compact it more. Get you gone,
And hasten your return.
(Exit Oswald.)

No, no, my Lord,
This milky gentleness and course of yours [335]
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more attax’d for want of wisdom

Than prais’d for harmful mildness.

ALBANY
How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. [340]

GONERIL