Amph. Now, sirrah, follow me into the house; thou shalt be convinced at thy own cost, villain! What horrible lies hast thou told me! such improbabilities, such stuff, such nonsense!—that the monster, with two long horns, that frighted the great king, and the devil at the stone-cutter's, are truths to these.[8]

Sos. I am but a slave, and you are master; and a poor man is always to lie when a rich man is pleased to contradict him: but, as sure as this is our house—

Amph. So sure 'tis thy place of execution.—Thou art not made for lying neither.

Sos. That's certain; for all my neighbours say I have an honest face; or else they would never call me cuckold, as they do.

Amph. I mean thou hast not wit enough to make a lie that will hang together: thou hast set up a trade that thou hast not stock enough to manage. O that I had but a crab-tree cudgel for thy sake!

Sos. How, a cudgel, said you! the devil take Jupiter for inventing that hard-hearted, merciless, knobby wood.

Amph. The bitterness is yet to come: thou hast had but a half dose of it.

Sos. I was never good at swallowing physic; and my stomach wambles at the very thought of it. But, if I must have a second beating, in conscience let me strip first, that I may show you the black and blue streaks upon my sides and shoulders. I am sure I suffered them in your service.

Amph. To what purpose wouldst thou show them?

Sos. Why, to the purpose that you may not strike me upon the sore places; and that, as he beat me the last night cross-ways, so you would please to beat me long-ways, to make clean work on't, that at least my skin may look like chequer-work.

Amph. This request is too reasonable to be refused. But, that all things may be done in order, tell me over again the same story, with all the circumstances of thy commission, that a blow may follow in due form for every lie. To repetition, rogue; to repetition.

Sos. No; it shall be all a lie, if you please; and I'll eat my words, to save my shoulders.

Amph. Ay, sirrah, now you find you are to be disproved; but 'tis too late. To repetition, rogue; to repetition.

Sos. With all my heart, to any repetition but the cudgel. But would you be pleased to answer me one civil question? Am I to use complaisance to you, as to a great person that will have all things said your own way? or am I to tell you the naked truth alone, without the ceremony of a farther beating?

Amph. Nothing but the truth, and the whole truth; so help thee, cudgel!

Sos. That's a damned conclusion of a sentence: but, since it must be so—back and sides, at your own peril!—I set out from the port in an unlucky hour; the dusky canopy of night enveloping the hemisphere.—

Amph. [Strikes him.] Imprimis, for fustian:—now proceed.

Sos. I stand corrected: In plain prose then,—I went darkling, and whistling to keep myself from being afraid; mumbling curses betwixt my teeth, for being sent at such an unnatural time of night.

Amph. How, sirrah, cursing and swearing against your lord and master! take— [Going to strike.

Sos. Hold, sir—pray, consider if this be not unreasonable to strike me for telling the whole truth, when you commanded me: I'll fall into my old dog-trot of lying again, if this must come of plain dealing.

Amph. To avoid impertinences make an end of your journey, and come to the house;—what found you there, a god's name?

Sos. I came thither in no god's name at all, but in the devil's name; I found before the door a swinging fellow, with all my shapes and features, and accoutred also in my habit.

Amph. Who was that fellow?

Sos. Who should it be, but another Sosia! a certain kind of other me: who knew all my unfortunate commission, precisely to a word, as well as I Sosia; as being sent by yourself from the port upon the same errand to Alcmena.

Amph. What gross absurdities are these?

Sos. O Lord, O Lord, what absurdities!—as plain as any packstaff. That other me had posted himself there before me, me.—You won't give a man leave to speak poetically now; or else I would say, that I was arrived at the door just before I came thither.

Amph. This must either be a dream or drunkenness, or madness in thee. Leave your buffooning and lying; I am not in humour to bear it, sirrah.

Sos. I would you should know I scorn a lie, and am a man of honour in every thing but just fighting. I tell you once again, in plain sincerity and simplicity of heart, that, before last night, I never took myself but for one single individual Sosia; but, coming to our door, I found myself, I know not how, divided, and, as it were, split into two Sosias.

Amph. Leave buffooning: I see you would make me laugh, but you play the fool scurvily.

Sos. That may be; but, if I am a fool, I am not the only fool in this company.

Amph. How now, impudence! I shall——

Sos. Be not in wrath, sir; I meant not you: I cannot possibly be the only fool; for, if I am one fool, I must certainly be two fools; because, as I told you, I am double.

Amph. That one should be two, is very probable!

Sos. Have you not seen a six-pence split into two halves, by some ingenious school-boy, which bore on either side the impression of the monarch's face? Now, as those moieties were two three-pences, and yet in effect but one six-pence——

Amph. No more of your villainous tropes and figures.

Sos. Nay, if an orator must be disarmed of his similitudes——

Amph. A man had need of patience, to endure this gibberish! be brief, and come to a conclusion.

Sos. What would you have, sir? I came thither, but the t'other I was before me; for that there was two I's, is as certain, as that I have two eyes in this head of mine. This I, that am here, was weary: the t'other I was fresh; this I was peaceable, and t'other I was a hectoring bully I.

Amph. And thou expect'st I should believe thee?

Sos. No; I am not so unreasonable; for I could never have believed it myself, if I had not been well beaten into it: but a cudgel, you know, is a convincing argument in a brawny fist. What shall I say, but that I was compelled, at last, to acknowledge myself! I found that he was very I, without fraud, cozen, or deceit. Besides, I viewed myself, as in a mirror, from head to foot; he was handsome of a noble presence, a charming air, loose and free in all his motions; and saw he was so much I, that I should have reason to be better satisfied with my own person, if his hands had not been a little of the heaviest.

Amph. Once again, to a conclusion: Say you passed by him, and entered into the house.

Sos. I am a friend to truth, and say no such thing; he defended the door, and I could not enter.

Amph. How, not enter?

Sos. Why, how should I enter? unless I were a spirit, to glide by him, and shoot myself through locks, and bolts, and two-inch boards.

Amph. O coward! Didst thou not attempt to pass?

Sos. Yes, and was repulsed and beaten for my pains.

Amph. Who beat thee?

Sos. I beat me.

Amph. Didst thou beat thyself?

Sos. I don't mean I, here: but the absent Me beat me here present.

Amph. There's no end of this intricate piece of nonsense.

Sos. 'Tis only nonsense, because I speak it, who am a poor fellow; but it would be sense, and substantial sense, if a great man said it, that was backed with a title, and the eloquence of ten thousand pounds a-year.

Amph. No more; but let us enter:—Hold! my Alcmena is coming out, and has prevented me: how strangely will she be surprised to see me here so unexpectedly!

Enter Alcmena and Phædra.

Alcm. [To Phæd.] Make haste after me to the temple; that we may thank the gods for this glorious success, which Amphitryon has had against the rebels—O heaven! [Seeing him.