Leontes. 
                      Is he won yet?

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? 
I pr’ythee tell me; cram ’s with praise, and make ’s
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
With spur we heat an acre.  But to the goal:—­
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 the purpose—­when? 
Nay, let me have’t; I long.

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. 
                       It is Grace indeed. 
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the 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. 
I have tremor cordis on me;—­my heart dances;
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: 
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
As now they are; and making practis’d smiles
As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as ’twere
The mort o’ the deer:  O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows,—­Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?

Mamillius. 
                 Ay, my good lord.

Leontes. 
                                   I’ fecks! 
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,
Are all call’d neat.—­

[Observing Polixenes and Hermione]

Still virginalling
Upon his palm?—­How now, you wanton calf! 
Art thou my calf?

Mamillius. 
                  Yes, if you will, my lord.