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