To the visiting scholar Roger Ascham , who found her reading Plato , she is said to have complained : For when I am in the presence either of father or mother , whether I speak , keep silence , sit , stand or go , eat , drink , be merry or sad , be sewing , playing , dancing , or doing anything else , I must do it as it were in such weight , measure and number , even so perfectly as God made the world ; or else I am so sharply taunted , so cruelly threatened , yea presently sometimes with pinches , nips and bobs and other ways ( which I will not name for the honour I bear them ) ... that I think myself in hell .
`` For when I am in the presence of either Father or Mother , whether I speak , keep silence , sit , stand or go , eat , drink , be merry or sad , be sewing , playing , dancing , or doing anything else , I must do it as it were in such weight , measure and number , even so perfectly as God made the world ; or else I am so sharply taunted , so cruelly threatened , yes presently sometimes with pinches , nips and bobs and other ways ... that I think myself in hell '' .