Do you really say so? SOSIA I really do say so. MERCURY Whip-scoundrel Whip-scoundrel : Verbero. This word, as a substantive, properly means a bad slave, who had been whipped— a rascal or scoundrel. As a verb, it means I beat. Sosia chooses, for the sake of the quibble, to take it in the latter sense, and tells Mercury that he lies; meaning to say that he (Mercury) is not beating him (Sosia). ! SOSIA Now you are telling a lie. MERCURY But I’ll soon make you own that I’m telling the truth. SOSIA What necessity is there for it? MERCURY Can I know whence you have set out, whose you are, or why you are come? SOSIA (pointing.) This way I’m going, and I’m the servant of my master. Are you any the wiser now? MERCURY I’ll this day make you be holding that foul tongue of yours. SOSIA You can’t; it is kept pure It is kept pure : , It is generally supposed that in these words indelicate allusion is intended; but it is not so universally agreed on what nature is. and becomingly. MERCURY Do you persist in chattering? What business now have you at this house? (Points to the house.) SOSIA Aye, and what business have you? MERCURY King Creon always sets a watch every night. SOSIA He does right; because we were abroad, he has been protecting our house. But however, do go in now, and say that some of the family servants have arrived. MERCURY How far you are one of the family servants I don’t know. But unless you are off from here this instant, family servant as you are, I’ll make you to be received in no familiar style. SOSIA Here, I say, I live, and of these people I am the servant. MERCURY But do you understand how it is? Unless you are off, I’ll make you to be exalted To be exalted : He probably means by this, that he will beat him to such a degree that he will be obliged to be carried off, either dead or unable to move a limb— elevated on the shoulders of other men. this day. SOSIA In what way, pray? MERCURY You shall be carried off, you shan’t walk away, if I take up a stick. SOSIA But I declare that I am one of the domestics of this family. MERCURY Consider, will you, how soon you want a drubbing, unless you are off from here this instant. SOSIA Do you want, as I arrive from foreign parts, to drive me from my home? MERCURY Is this your home? SOSIA It is so, I say. MERCURY Who is your master, then? SOSIA Amphitryon, who is now the general of the Theban forces, to whom Alcmena is married. MERCURY How say you? What’s your name? SOSIA The Thebans call me Sosia, the son of my father Davus.