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Read Ebook: Amphitryon by Moli Re Waller A R Alfred Rayney Translator
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Ebook has 610 lines and 17655 words, and 13 pages
MERC. Are you a master, or a servant?
SOS. As fancy takes me.
MERC. Where are you going?
SOS. Where I intend to go.
MERC. Ah! This annoys me.
SOS. I am ravished to hear it.
SOS. I do good and ill by turns; I come from there; I go there; I belong to my master.
MERC. You show wit, and I see you think to play the man of importance for my edification. I feel inclined to make your acquaintance by slapping your face.
SOS. Mine?
MERC. Yours; and there you get it, sharp.
SOS. Ah! Ah! This is a fine game!
MERC. No; it is only a laughing matter, a reply to your quips.
SOS. Good heavens! Friend, how you swing out your arm without any one saying anything to you.
MERC. These are my lightest clouts, little ordinary smacks.
SOS. If I were as hasty as you, we should have a fine ado.
MERC. All this is nothing as yet: it is merely to fill up time; we shall soon see something else; but let us continue our conversation.
SOS. I give up the game.
MERC. Where are you going?
SOS. What does it matter to you?
MERC. I want to know where you are going.
SOS. I am going to open that door. Why do you detain me?
MERC. If you dare to go near it, I shall rain down a storm of blows on you.
SOS. What? You wish to hinder me from entering our own house by threats?
MERC. What do you say, your house?
SOS. Yes, our house.
MERC. O, the scoundrel! You speak of that house?
SOS. Certainly. Is not Amphitryon the master of it?
MERC. Well! What does that prove?
SOS. I am his valet.
MERC. You?
MERC. His valet?
SOS. Unquestionably.
MERC. Valet of Amphitryon?
SOS. Of Amphitryon himself.
MERC. Your name is?
SOS. Sosie.
MERC. Eh? What?
SOS. Sosie.
MERC. Listen: do you realise that my fist can knock you spinning?
SOS. Why? What fury has seized you now?
MERC. Tell me, who made you so rash as to take the name of Sosie?
SOS. I do not take it; I have always borne it.
MERC. O what a monstrous lie! What confounded impudence! You dare to maintain that Sosie is your name?
SOS. Certainly; I maintain it, for the good reason that the Gods have so ordered it by their supreme power. It is not in my power to say no, and to be any one else than myself.
MERC. A thousand stripes ought to be the reward of such audacity.
SOS. Justice, citizens! Help! I beseech you.
MERC. So, you gallows-bird, you yell out?
SOS. You beat me down with a thousand blows, and yet do not wish me to cry out?
MERC. It is thus that my arm...
SOS. The action is unworthy. You gloat over the advantage which my want of courage gives you over me; that is not fair treatment. It is mere bullying to wish to profit by the poltroonery of those whom one makes to feel the weight of one's arm. To thrash a man who does not retaliate is not the act of a generous soul; and to show courage against men who have none merits condemnation.
MERC. Well! Are you still Sosie? What say you?
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