by John Dryden
Sos. Was not the devil in my master, to send me out this dreadful dark night, to bring the news of his victory to my lady? and was not I possessed with ten devils, for going on his errand, without a convoy for the safeguard of my person? Lord, how am I melted into sweat with fear! I am diminished of my natural weight above two stone: I shall not bring half myself home again, to my poor wife and family; I have been in an ague fit ever since shut of evening; what with the fright of trees by the highway, which looked maliciously like thieves, by moonshine; and what with bulrushes by the river-side, that shaked like spears and lances at me. Well, the greatest plague of a serving-man is to be hired to some great lord! They care not what drudgery they put upon us, while they lie lolling at their ease abed, and stretch their lazy limbs, in expectation of the whore which we are fetching for them.
Merc. [Aside.] He is but a poor mortal, that suffers this; but I, who am a god, am degraded to a foot-pimp; a waiter without-doors! a very civil employment for a deity!
Sos. The better sort of them will say, “Upon my honour,” at every word; yet ask them for our wages, and they plead the privilege of their honour, and will not pay us; nor let us take our privilege of the law upon them. These are a very hopeful sort of patriots, to stand up, as they do, for liberty and property of the subject: There’s conscience for you!— “
Merc. [Aside.] This fellow has something of the republican spirit in him.
Sos. [Looking about him.] Stay; this, methinks, should be our house; and I should thank the gods now for bringing me safe home: but, I think, I had as good let my devotions alone, till I have got the reward for my good news, and then thank them once for all; for, if I praise them before I am safe within-doors, some damned mastiff dog may come out and worry me; and then my thanks are thrown away upon them.
Merc. [Aside.] Thou art a wicked rogue, and wilt have thy bargain beforehand; therefore thou gett’st not into the house this night; and thank me accordingly as I use thee.
Sos. Now am I to give my lady an account of my lord’s victory; ’tis good to exercise my parts beforehand, and file my tongue into eloquent expressions, to tickle her ladyship’s imagination.
Merc. [Aside.] Good! and here’s the god of eloquence to judge of thy oration.
Sos. [Setting down his lanthorn.] This lanthorn, for once, shall be my lady; because she is the lamp of all beauty and perfection.
Merc. [Aside.] No, rogue! ’tis thy lord is the lanthorn by this time, or Jupiter is turned fumbler.
Sos. Then thus I make my addresses to her: — [Bows.] Madam, my lord has chosen me out, as the most faithful, though the most unworthy, of his followers, to bring your ladyship this following account of our glorious expedition. Then she, — O my poor Sosia, — [In a shrill tone.] — how am I overjoyed to see thee! She can say no less. — Madam, you do me too much honour, and the world will envy me this glory: — Well answered on my side. And how does my lord Amphitryon? — Madam, he always does like a man of courage, when he is called by honour. — There I think I nicked it — But when will he return? — As soon as possibly he can; but not so soon as his impatient heart could wish him with your ladyship.
Merc. [Aside.] When Thebes is an university, thou deservest to be their orator.
Sos. But what does he do, and what does he say? Pr’ythee, tell me something more of him. — He always says less than he does, madam; and his enemies have found it to their cost. — Where the devil did I learn these elegancies and gallantries!
Merc. So, he has all the natural endowments of a fop, and only wants the education.
Sos. [Staring up to the sky.] What, is the devil in the night! She’s as long as two nights. The seven stars are just where they were seven hours ago! high day t — high night, I mean, by my favour. What, has Phoebus been playing the good fellow, and overslept himself, that he forgets his duty to us mortals!
Merc. How familiarly the rascal treats us gods! but I shall make him alter his tone immediately. [Mercury comes nearer, and stands just before Mm.
Sos. [Seeing Mm, and starting back, aside.] How now? what, do my eyes dazzle, or is my dark lanthorn false to me? is not that a giant before our door? or a ghost of somebody slain in the late battle? If he be, ’tis unconscionably done, to fright an honest man thus, who never drew weapon wrathfully in all my life. Whatever wight he be, I am devilishly afraid, that’s certain; but, ’tis discretion to keep my own counsel; I ‘ll sing, that I may seem valiant. [Sosia sings; and, as Mercury speaks, by little and little drops Ms voice.
Merc. What saucy companion is this, that deafens us with his hoarse voice? What midnight ballad-singer have we here? I shall teach the villain to leave off caterwauling.
Sos. I would I had courage, for his sake, that I might teach him to call my singing caterwauling! an illiterate rogue! an enemy to the muses, and to music.
Merc. There is an ill savour that offends my nostrils, and it wafteth this way.
Sos. He has smelt me out; my fear has betrayed me into this savour. I am a dead man: the bloody villain is at his fee, fa, fum, already.
Merc. Stand, who goes there?
Sos. A friend.
Merc. What friend?
Sos. Why, a friend to all the world, that will give me leave to live peaceably.
Merc. I defy peace and all its works; my arms are out of exercise, they have mauled nobody these three days: I long for an honourable occasion to pound a man, and lay him asleep at the first buffet.
Sos. [Aside.] That would almost do me a kindness; for I have been kept waking, without tipping one wink of sleep, these three nights.
Merc. Of what quality are you, fellow?
Sos. Why, I am a man, fellow. — Courage, Sosia!
Merc. What kind of man?
Sos. Why, a two-legged man; what man should I be? — [Aside.] I must bear up to him, he may prove as arrant a milksop as myself.
Merc. Thou art a coward, I warrant thee; do not I hear thy teeth chatter in thy head?
Sos. Ay, ay; that’s only a sign they would be snapping at thy nose. — [Aside.] Bless me, what an arm and fist he has, with great thumbs, too; and golls and knuckle-bones of a very butcher!
Merc. Sirrah, from whence came you, and whither go you; answer me directly, upon pain of assassination.
Sos. I am coming from whence I came, and am going whither I go, — that’s directly home; though this is somewhat an uncivil manner of proceeding, at the first sight of a man, let me tell you.
Merc. Then, to begin our better acquaintance, let me first make you a small present of this box o’ the ear —— [Strikes him.
Sos. If I were as choleric a fool as you are now, here would be fine work betwixt us two; but I am a little better bred than to disturb the sleeping neighbourhood; and so good night, friend —— — going.
Merc. [Stopping him,.’] Hold, sir; you and I must not part so easily; once more, whither are you going?
Sos. Why I am going as fast as I can, to get out of the reach of your clutches. Let me but only knock at that door there.
Merc. What business have you at that door, sirrah?
Sos. This is our house; and, when I am got in, I will tell you more.
Merc. Whose house is this, sauciness, that you are so familiar with, to call it ours?
Sos. ’Tis mine, in the first place; and next, my master’s; for I lie in the garret, and he lies under me.
Merc. Have your master and you no names, sirrah?
Sos. His name is Amphitryon; hear that, and tremble.
Merc. What, my lord general?
Sos. Oh, has his name mollified you! I have brought you down a peg lower already, friend.
Merc. And your name is —
Sos. Lord, friend, you are so very troublesome — what should my name be, but Sosia?
Merc. How, Sosia, say you? how long have you taken up that name, sirrah?
Sos. Here’s a fine question! Why I never took it up, friend; it was born with me.
Merc. What, was your name born Sosia? take this remembra
nce for that lie. [Seats him.
Sos. Hold, friend! you are so very flippant with your hands, you won’t hear reason. What offence has my name done you, that you should beat me for it? S, O, S, I, A, — they are as civil, honest, harmless letters, as any are in the whole alphabet.
Merc. I have no quarrel to the name; but that ’tis e’en too good for you, and ’tis none of yours.
Sos. What, am not! Sosia, say you?
Merc. No.
Sos. I should think you are somewhat merrily disposed, if you had not beaten me in such sober sadness. You would persuade me out of my heathen name, would you?
Merc. Say you are Sosia again, at your peril, sirrah.
Sos. I dare say nothing, but thought is free; but whatever I am called, I am Amphitryon’s man, and the first letter of my name is S, too. You had best tell me that my master did not send me home to my lady, with news of his victory?
Merc. I say, he did not.
Sos. Lord, Lord, friend, one of us two is horribly given to lying; but I do not say which of us, to avoid contention.
Merc. I say my name is Sosia, and yours is not.
Sos. I would you could make good your words; for then I should not be beaten, and you should.
Merc. I find you would be Sosia, if you durst; but if I catch you thinking so —
Sos. I hope I may think I was Sosia; and I can find no difference between my former self and my present self, but that I was plain Sosia before, and now I am laced Sosia.
Merc. Take this, for being so impudent to think so. — [Beats him.
Sos. [Kneeling.] Truce a little, I beseech thee! I would be a stock or a stone now by my good will, and would not think at all, for self-preservation. But will you give me leave to argue the matter fairly with you, and promise me to dispose that cudgel, if I can prove myself to be that man that I was before I was beaten?
Merc. Well, proceed in safety; I promise you I will not beat you.
Sos. In the first place, then, is not this town called Thebes?
Merc. Undoubtedly.
Sos. And is not this house Amphitryon’s?
Merc. Who denies it?
Sos. I thought you would have denied that too; for all hangs upon a string. Remember, then, that those two preliminary articles are already granted. In the next place, did not the aforesaid Amphitryon beat the Teleboans, kill their king Pterelas, and send a certain servant, meaning somebody, that for sake-sake shall be nameless, to bring a present to his wife, with news of his victory, and of his resolution to return tomorrow?
Merc. This is all true, to a very tittle; but who is that certain servant? there’s all the question.
Sos. Is it peace or war betwixt us?
Merc. Peace.
Sos. I dare not wholly trust that abominable cudgel; but ’tis a certain friend of yours and mine, that had a certain name before he was beaten out of it; but if you are a man that depend not altogether upon force and brutality, but somewhat also upon reason, now do you bring better proofs that you are that same certain man; and, in order to it, answer me to certain questions.
Merc. I say I am Sosia, Amphitryon’s man; what reason have you to urge against it?
Sos. What was your father’s name?
Merc. Davus; who was an honest husbandman, whose sister’s name was Harpage, that was married, and died in a foreign country.
Sos. So far you are right, I must confess; and your wife’s name is —
Merc. Bromia, a devilish shrew of her tongue, and a vixen of her hands, that leads me a miserable life; keeps me to hard duty abed; and beats me every morning when I have risen from her side, without having first —
Sos. I understand you, by many a sorrowful token; — this must be I. — [Aside.
Merc. I was once taken upon suspicion of burglary, and was whipped through Thebes, and branded for my pains.
Sos. Right, me again; but if you are I, as I begin to suspect, that whipping and branding might have been passed over in silence, for both our credits. And yet, now I think on’t, if I am I (as I am I), he cannot be I. All these circumstances he might have heard; but I will now interrogate him upon some private passages. — What was the present that Amphitryon sent by you or me, no matter which of us, to his wife Alcmena?
Merc. A buckle of diamonds, consisting of five large stones.
Sos. And where are they now?
Merc. In a case, sealed with my master’s coat of arms.
Sos. This is prodigious, I confess; but yet ’tis nothing, now I think on’t; for some false brother may have revealed it to him. [Aside.] — But I have another question to ask you, of somewhat that passed only betwixt myself and me; — if you are Sosia, what were you doing in the heat of battle?
Merc. What a wise man should, that has respect for his own person. I ran into our tent, and hid myself amongst the baggage.
Sos. [Aside.] Such another cutting answer; and I must provide myself of another name. — [To him.] And how did you pass your time in that same tent? You need not answer to every circumstance so exactly now; you must lie a little, that I may think you the more me.
Merc. That cunning shall not serve your turn, to circumvent me out of my name: I am for plain naked truth. There stood a hogshead of old wine, which my lord reserved for his own drinking —
Sos. [Aside.] O the devil! as sure as death, he must have hid himself in that hogshead, or he could never have known that!
Merc. And by that hogshead, upon the ground, there lay the kind inviter and provoker of good drinking —
Sos. Nay, now I have caught you; there was neither inviter, nor provoker, for I was all alone.
Merc. A lusty gammon of —
Sos. [Sighing.] Bacon! — that word has quite made an end of me. — Let me see — this must be I, in spite of me; but let me view him nearer. [ Walks about Mercury with his dark lanthorn.
Merc. What are you walking about me for, with your dark lanthorn?
Sos. No harm, friend; I am only surveying a parcel of earth here, that I find we two are about to bargain for: — He’s damnable like me, that’s certain. Imprimis, there’s the patch upon my nose, with a pox to him. Item, A very foolish face, with a long chin at the end on’t. Item, One pair of shambling legs, with two splay feet belonging to them; and, summa totalis, from head to foot all my bodily apparel. — [To Mercury.] Well, you are Sosia; there’s no denying it: — But what am I, then? for my mind gives me, I am somebody still, if I knew but who I were.
Merc. When I have a mind to be Sosia no more, then thou may’st be Sosia again.
Sos. I have but one request more to thee; that, though not as Sosia, yet as a stranger, I may go into that house, and carry a civil message to my lady.
Merc. No, sirrah; not being Sosia, you have no message to deliver, nor no lady in this house.
Sos. Thou canst not be so barbarous, to let me lie in the streets all night, after such a journey, and such a beating; and therefore I am resolved to knock at the door in my own defence.
Merc. If you come near the door, I recall my word, and break off the truce, and then expect —— [Holds up his cudgel.
Sos. No, the devil take me if I do expect; I have felt too well what sour fruit that crab-tree bears: I’ll rather beat it back upon the hoof to my lord Amphitryon, to see if he will acknowledge me for Sosia; if he does not, then I am no longer his slave; there’s my freedom dearly purchased with a sore drubbing: if he does acknowledge me, then I am Sosia again. So far ’tis tolerably well: but then I shall have a second drubbing for an unfortunate ambassador, as I am; and that ‘s intolerable. — [Ecrit Sosia.
Merc. [Alone.] I have fobbed off his excellency pretty well. Now let him return, and make the best of his credentials. I think, too, I have given Jupiter sufficient time for his consummation. — Oh, he has taken his cue; and here he comes as leisurely, and as lank, as if he had emptied himself of the best part of his almightyship.
SCENE II.
Enter Jupiter, leading Alcmena, followed by
Phædra. Pages wi
th torches before them.
Jup. [To the Pages.] Those torches are offensive; stand aloof;
For, though they bless me with thy heavenly sight, — [To her.
They may disclose the secret I would hide.
The Thebans must not know I have been here;
Detracting crowds would blame me, that I robbed
These happy moments from my public charge,
To consecrate to thy desired embrace;
And I could wish no witness but thyself,
For thou thyself art all I wish to please.
Alc. So long an absence, and so short a stay!
What, but one night! one night of joy and love
Could only pay one night of cares and fears,
And all the rest are an uncancelled sum! —
Curse on this honour, and this public fame;
Would you had less of both, and more of love!
Jup. Alcmena, I must go.
Alc. Not yet, my lord.
Jup. Indeed I must.
Alc. Indeed you shall not go.
Jup. Behold the ruddy streaks o’er yonder hill;
Those are the blushes of the breaking morn,
That kindle daylight to this nether world.
Alc. No matter for the day; it was but made
To number out the hours of busy men.
Let them be busy still, and still be wretched,
And take their fill of anxious drudging day;
But you and I will draw our curtains close,
Extinguish daylight, and put out the sun.
Come back, my lord; in faith you shall retire;
You have not yet lain long enough in bed,
To warm your widowed side.
Phæd. [Aside.] I find my lord is an excellent schoolmaster, my lady is so willing to repeat her lesson.
Merc. [Aside.] That’s a plaguy little devil; what a roguish eye she has! I begin to like her strangely. She’s the perquisite of my place, too; for my lady’s waiting-woman is the proper fees of my lord’s chief gentleman. I have the privilege of a god, too; I can view her naked through all her clothes. Let me see, let me see; — I have discovered something that pleases me already
Jup. Let me not live, but thou art all enjoyment!
