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Than you to punish.
Hermione
Not your gaoler then,
But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you
You were pretty lordings then!
Polixenes
We were, fair Queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
Hermione
Was not my lord
Polixenes
We were as twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun
And bleat the one at th’ other. What we chang’d
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream’d
And our weak spirits ne’er been higher rear’d
With stronger blood, we should have answer’d heaven
Boldly ‘Not guilty’, the imposition clear’d
Hereditary ours.
Hermione
By this we gather
You have tripp’d since.
Polixenes
Temptations have since then been born to ’s, for
In those unfledg’d days was my wife a girl;
Your precious self had then not cross’d the eyes
Of my young playfellow.
Hermione
Grace to boot!
Your queen and I are devils. Yet, go on;
Th’ offences we have made you do we’ll answer,
If you first sinn’d with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipp’d not
With any but with us.
Leontes
Hermione
He’ll stay, my lord.
Leontes
At my request he would not.
Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st
To better purpose.
Hermione
Never?
Leontes
Never but once.
Hermione
What! Have I twice said well? When was’t before?
As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages; you may ride’s
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
My last good deed was to entreat his stay;
What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to th’ purpose – When?
Leontes
Why, that was when
Three crabbed months had sour’d themselves to death,
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
‘I am yours for ever’.
Hermione
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th’ purpose twice:
The one for ever earn’d a royal husband;
Th’ other for some while a friend.
[Giving her hand to POLIXENES.]
Leontes
[Aside] Too hot, too hot!
To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.
But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
May a free face put on; derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant;
As now they are, and making practis’d smiles
As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as ’twere
The mort o’ th’ deer. O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?
Mamillius
Ay, my good lord.
Leontes
Why, that’s my bawcock. What! hast smutch’d thy nose?
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain,
We must be neat – not neat, but cleanly, Captain.
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
Upon his palm? – How now, you wanton calf,
Art thou my calf?
Mamillius
Yes, if you will, my lord.
Leontes
Thou want’st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,
To be full like me; yet they say we are
That will say any thing. But were they false
As o’er-dy’d blacks, as wind, as waters – false
As dice are to be wish’d by one that fixes
No bourn ’twixt his and mine; yet were it true
Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain!
Most dear’st! my collop! Can thy dam? – may’t be?
