Perde 1
[Textpart 1]
How far you are one of the family servants I don’t know. But unless you are off from here this instant,
MERCURY
family servant as you are, I’ll make you to be received in no familiar style.
355
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.
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.
360
SOSIA
Do you want, as I arrive from foreign parts, to drive me from my home?
MERCURY
Is this your home?
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.
365
MERCURY
Assuredly, at your peril have you come here this day, with your trumped-up lies, your patched-up knaveries, you essence of effrontery.
SOSIA
Why no, it’s rather with garments patched-up that I’m arrived here, not with knaveries.
MERCURY
Why, you are lying again; you come with your feet, surely, and not with your garments.
SOSIA
Yes, certainly.
370
MERCURY
Then certainly take that for your lie.
370
