Do you really say so?SOSIAI really do say so.MERCURYWhip-scoundrelWhip-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).!SOSIANow you are telling a lie.MERCURYBut I’ll soon make you own that I’m telling the truth.SOSIAWhat necessity is there for it?MERCURYCan 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?MERCURYI’ll this day make you be holding that foul tongue of yours.SOSIAYou 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.MERCURYDo you persist in chattering?What business now have you at this house?(Points to the house.)SOSIAAye, and what business have you?MERCURYKing Creon always sets a watch every night.SOSIAHe 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.MERCURYHow 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.SOSIAHere, I say, I live, and of these people I am the servant.MERCURYBut 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.SOSIAIn what way, pray?MERCURYYou shall be carried off, you shan’t walk away, if I take up a stick.SOSIABut I declare that I am one of the domestics of this family.MERCURYConsider, will you, how soon you want a drubbing, unless you are off from here this instant.SOSIADo you want, as I arrive from foreign parts, to drive me from my home?MERCURYIs this your home?SOSIAIt is so, I say.MERCURYWho is your master, then?SOSIAAmphitryon, who is now the general of the Theban forces, to whom Alcmena is married.MERCURYHow say you? What’s your name?SOSIAThe Thebans call me Sosia, the son of my father Davus.