I pray that I may be allowed to discourse with you in quietness, so as not to be beaten. MERCURYWell then, let there be a truce for a short time, if you want to say anything. SOSIAI’ll not speak unless peace is concluded, since you are the stronger with your fists.MERCURYIf you wish to say anything, speak; I’ll not hurt you. SOSIAAm I to trust in your word?MERCURYYes, in my word. SOSIAWhat, if you deceive me?MERCURYWhy, then may Mercury be angry with Sosia Angry with Sosia: There is something comical in the absurdity of this oath. Mercury, personating Sosia, says that if he breaks it, the result must be that Mercury (i. e., himself): will be angry with Sosia, the person in whose favour he is pretending to take the oath..SOSIAThen give attention: now I’m at liberty to say in freedom anything I please. I am Sosia, servant of Amphitryon.MERCURYWhat, again?(Offering to strike him.)SOSIAI have concluded the peace, ratified the treaty—I speak the truth.MERCURYTake that, then.(He strikes him.)SOSIAAs you please, and what you please, pray do, since you are the stronger with your fists. But whatever you shall do, still, upon my faith, I really shall not be silent about that.MERCURYSo long as you live, you shall never make me to be any other than Sosia at this moment.SOSIAI’ faith, you certainly shall never make me to be any other person than my own self; and besides myself we have no other servant of the name of Sosia—myself, who went hence on the expedition together with Amphitryon.MERCURYThis fellow is not in his senses.SOSIAThe malady that you impute to me, you have that same yourself. How, the plague, am I not Sosia, the servant of Amphitryon? Has not our ship, which brought me, arrived here this night from the Persian portThe Persian port: Plautus is here guilty of an anachronism; for the Portus Persicus, which was on the coast of Eubœa, was so called from the Persian fleet lying there on the occasion of the expedition to Greece, many ages after the time of Amphitryon.?Has not my master sent me here? Am I not now standing before our house? Have I not a lantern in my hand? Am I not talking? Am I not wide awake? Has not this fellow been thumping me with his fists? By my troth By my troth: Hercle. Literally, by Hercules. Hypercritical Commentators have observed, that Plautus is guilty in this Play of a grammatical anachronism, in putting the expletive, Hercle, in the mouths of persous at a time when Hercules is supposed to be yet unborn. They might with as much justice accuse him of anachronism in putting the Roman language into the mouths of persons at a time when that language did not as yet exist. He merely professes to embody the sentiments of persons in bygone days in such language as may render them the most easily intelligible to a Roman audience., he has been doing so; for even now, to my pain, my cheeks are tingling. Why, then, do I hesitate? Or why don’t I go in-doors into our house?(He makes towards the door.)MERCURY(stepping between.)How—your house?SOSIAIndeed it really is so.MERCURYWhy, all that you have been saying just now, you have trumped up; I surely am Amphitryon’s Sosia. For in the night this ship of ours weighed anchor from the Persian port, and where king Pterelas reigned, the city we took by storm, and the legions of the Teleboans in fighting we took by arms, and Amphitryon himself cut off the head of king Pterelas in battle.SOSIA(aside.)I do not trust my own self, when I hear him affirm these things; certainly, he really does relate exactly the things that were done there. (Aloud.) But how say you? What spoil from the Teleboans was made a present to Amphitryon?MERCURYA golden goblet, from which king Pterelas used to drink.SOSIA(aside.)He has said the truth. Where now is this goblet?MERCURY’Tis in a casket, sealed with the seal of Amphitryon.SOSIATell me, what is the seal?MERCURYThe Sun rising with his chariot. Why are you on the catch for me, you villain?SOSIA(aside.)He has overpowered me with his proofs. I must look out for another name. I don’t know from whence he witnessed these things. I’ll now entrap him finely;