Amphitryon

Act II

Sosia, with a Dark-Lanthorn; Mercury, in Sosia's shape,with a Dark-Lanthorn also.

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 a-bed, and stretch their lazy limbs, in expectation of the w***e 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 get'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-high night, I mean, by my favour. What, has Ph bus 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 him.

Sos. [Seeing him, 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 his 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 catterwauling.

Sos. I would I had courage, for his sake, that I might teach him to call my singing catterwauling! 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-- [Is 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 the 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. O, 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 remembrance for that lie. [Beats 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 I 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 depose 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 hang 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 to-morrow?

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 a-bed; 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 whipt 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 past 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 end on't. Item, One pair of shambling legs, with two splay feet belonging to them; and, summa totallis, 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 recal 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. [Exit 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.

Enter Jupiter, leading Alcmena, followed by Phdra. Pages with 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.

Alcm. 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.

Alcm. Not yet, my lord.

Jup. Indeed I must.

Alcm. Indeed you shall not go.

Jup. Behold the ruddy streaks o'er yonder hill;

Those are the blushes of the breaking morn,

That k****e day-light to this nether world.

Alcm. 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 day-light, 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.

Phd. [Aside.] I find my lord is an excellent school-master, 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!

So charming and so sweet,

That not a night, but whole eternity,

Were well employed,

To love thy each perfection as it ought.

Alcm. [Kissing him.] I'll bribe you with this kiss, to stay a while.

Jup. [Kissing her.] A bribe indeed that soon will bring me back;

But, to be just, I must restore your bribe.

How I could dwell for ever on those lips!

O, I could kiss them pale with eagerness!

So soft, by heaven! and such a juicy sweet,

That ripened peaches have not half the flavour.

Alcm. Ye niggard gods! you make our lives too long;

You fill them with diseases, wants, and woes,

And only dash them with a little love,

Sprinkled by fits, and with a sparing hand:

Count all our joys, from childhood even to age,

They would but make a day of every year.

Take back your seventy years, the stint of life,

Or else be kind, and cram the quintessence

Of seventy years into sweet seventy days;

For all the rest is flat, insipid being.

Jup. But yet one scruple pains me at my parting:

I love so nicely, that I cannot bear

To owe the sweets of love, which I have tasted,

To the submissive duty of a wife.

Tell me, and sooth my passion ere I go,

That, in the kindest moments of the night,

When you gave up yourself to love and me,

You thought not of a husband, but a lover?

Alcm. But tell me first, why you would raise a blush

Upon my cheeks, by asking such a question?

Jup. I would owe nothing to a name so dull

As husband is, but to a lover all.

Alcm. You should have asked me then, when love and night,

And privacy, had favoured your demand.

Jup. I ask it now, because my tenderness

Surpasses that of husbands for their wives.

O that you loved like me! then you would find

A thousand, thousand niceties in love.

The common love of s*x to s*x is brutal;

But love refined will fancy to itself

Millions of gentle cares, and sweet disquiets;

The being happy is not half the joy;

The manner of their happiness is all.

In me, my charming mistress, you behold

A lover that disdains a lawful title,

Such as of monarchs to successive thrones;

The generous lover holds by force of arms,

And claims his crown by conquest.

Alcm. Methinks you should be pleased; I give you all

A virtuous and modest wife can give.

Jup. No, no; that very name of wife and marriage

Is poison to the dearest sweets of love;

To please my niceness, you must separate

The lover from his mortal foe-the husband.

Give to the yawning husband your cold virtue;

But all your vigorous warmth, your melting sighs,

Your amorous murmurs, be your lover's part.

Alcm. I comprehend not what you mean, my lord;

But only love me still, and love me thus,

And think me such as best may please your thought.

Jup. There's mystery of love in all I say.-

Farewell; and when you see your husband next,

Think of your lover then.

[Exeunt Jup. and Alcm. severally; Phd. follows her.

Merc. [Alone.] Now I should follow him; but love has laid a lime-twig for me, and made a lame god of me. Yet why should I love this Phdra? She's interested, and a jilt into the bargain. Three thousand years hence, there will be a whole nation of such women, in a certain country, that will be called France; and there's a neighbour island, too, where the men of that country will be all interest. O what a precious generation will that be, which the men of the island shall propagate out of the women of the continent!-

Phdra re-enters.

And so much for prophecy; for she's here again, and I must love her, in spite of me. And since I must, I have this comfort, that the greatest wits are commonly the greatest cullies; because neither of the sexes can be wiser than some certain parts about them will give them leave.

Phd. Well, Sosia, and how go matters?

Merc. Our army is victorious.

Phd. And my servant, judge Gripus?

Merc. A voluptuous gormand.

Phd. But has he gotten wherewithal to be voluptuous; is he wealthy?

Merc. He sells justice as he uses; fleeces the rich rebels, and hangs up the poor.

Phd. Then, while he has money, he may make love to me. Has he sent me no token?

Merc. Yes, a kiss; and by the same token I am to give it you, as a remembrance from him.

Phd. How now, impudence! A beggarly serving-man presume to kiss me?

Merc. Suppose I were a god, and should make love to you?

Phd. I would first be satisfied, whether you were a poor god, or a rich god.

Merc. Suppose I were Mercury, the god of merchandise?

Phd. What! the god of small wares, and fripperies, of pedlers and pilferers?

Merc. How the gipsy despises me! [Aside.

Phd. I had rather you were Plutus, the god of money; or Jupiter, in a golden shower: there was a god for us women! he had the art of making love. Dost thou think that kings, or gods either, get mistresses by their good faces? no, it is the gold, and the presents they can make; there is the prerogative they have over their fair subjects.

Merc. All this notwithstanding, I must tell you, pretty Phdra, I am desperately in love with you.

Phd. And I must tell thee, ugly Sosia, thou hast not wherewithal to be in love.

Merc. Yes, a poor man may be in love, I hope.

Phd. I grant a poor rogue may be in love, but he can never make love. Alas, Sosia, thou hast neither face to invite me, nor youth to please me, nor gold to bribe me; and, besides all this, thou hast a wife, poor miserable Sosia!-What, ho, Bromia!

Merc. O thou merciless creature, why dost thou conjure up that sprite of a wife?

Phd. To rid myself of that devil of a poor lover. Since you are so lovingly disposed, I'll put you together to exercise your fury upon your own wedlock.-What, Bromia, I say, make haste; here is a vessel of yours, full freighted, that is going off without paying duties.

Merc. Since thou wilt not let me steal custom, she shall have all the cargo I have gotten in the wars; but thou mightst have lent me a little creek, to smuggle in.

Phd. Why, what have you gotten, good gentleman soldier, besides a legion of-- [Snaps her fingers.

Merc. When the enemy was routed, I had the plundering of a tent.

Phd. That is to say, a house of canvas, with moveables of straw.-Make haste, Bromia!--

Merc. But it was the general's own tent.

Phd. You durst not fight, I am certain; and therefore came last in, when the rich plunder was gone beforehand.-Will you come, Bromia?

Merc. Pr'ythee, do not call so loud:-A great goblet, that holds a gallon.

Phd. Of what was that goblet made? answer quickly, for I am just calling very loud--Bro-

Merc. Of beaten gold. Now, call aloud, if thou dost not like the metal.

Phd. Bromia. [Very softly.

Merc. That struts in this fashion, with his arms a-kimbo, like a city magistrate; and a great bouncing belly, like a hostess with child of a kilderkin of wine. Now, what say you to that present, Phdra?

Phd. Why, I am considering--

Merc. What, I pr'ythee?

Phd. Why, how to divide the business equally; to take the gift, and refuse the giver, thou art so damnably ugly, and so old.

Merc. Now the devil take Jupiter, for confining me to this ungodly shape to-day! [Aside.] but Gripus is as old and as ugly too.

Phd. But Gripus is a person of quality, and my lady's uncle; and if he marries me, I shall take place of my lady.-Hark, your wife! she has sent her tongue before her. I hear the thunderclap already; there is a storm approaching.

Merc. Yes, of thy brewing; I thank thee for it. O how I should hate thee now, if I could leave loving thee!

Phd. Not a word of the dear golden goblet, as you hope for-you know what, Sosia.

Merc. You give me hope, then--

Phd. Not absolutely hope neither; but gold is a great cordial in love matters; and the more you apply of it, the better.-[Aside.] I am honest, that is certain; but when I weigh my honesty against the goblet, I am not quite resolved on which side the scale will turn. [Exit Phd.

Merc. [Aloud.] Farewell, Phdra; remember me to my wife, and tell her--

Enter Bromia.

Brom. Tell her what, traitor? that you are going away without seeing her?

Merc. That I am doing my duty, and following my master.

Brom. 'Umph!-so brisk, too! your master did his duty to my lady before he parted: He could leave his army in the lurch, and come galloping home at midnight to have a lick at the honey-pot; and steal to-bed as quietly as any mouse, I warrant you. My master knew what belonged to a married life; but you, sirrah-you trencher-carrying rascal-you worse than dunghill-c**k; that stood clapping your wings, and crowing without doors, when you should have been at roost, you villain-

Merc. Hold your peace, dame Partlet, and leave your cackling; my master charged me to stand centry without doors.

Brom. My master! I dare swear thou beliest him; my master is more a gentleman than to lay such an unreasonable command upon a poor distressed married couple, and after such an absence too. No, there is no comparison between my master and thee, thou sneaksby.

Merc. No more than there is betwixt my lady and you, Bromia. You and I have had our time in a civil way, spouse, and much good love has been betwixt us; but we have been married fifteen years, I take it; and that hoighty toighty business ought, in conscience, to be over.

Brom. Marry come up, my saucy companion! I am neither old nor ugly enough to have that said to me.

Merc. But will you hear reason, Bromia? my lord and my lady are yet in a manner bride and bridegroom; they are in honey-moon still: do but think, in decency, what a jest it would be to the family, to see two venerable old married people lying snug in a bed together, and sighing out fine tender things to one another!

Brom. How now, traitor, darest thou maintain that I am past the age of having fine things said to me?

Merc. Not so, my dear; but certainly I am past the age of saying them.

Brom. Thou deservest not to be yoked with a woman of honour, as I am, thou perjured villain.

Merc. Ay, you are too much a woman of honour, to my sorrow; many a poor husband would be glad to compound for less honour in his wife, and more quiet. Pr'ythee, be but honest and continent in thy tongue, and do thy worst with every thing else about thee.

Brom. Thou wouldst have a woman of the town, wouldst thou! to be always speaking my husband fair, to make him digest his cuckoldom more easily! wouldst thou be a wittol, with a vengeance to thee? I am resolved I'll scour thy hide for that word. [Holds up her ladle at him.

Merc. Thou wilt not strike thy lord and husband, wilt thou?

Brom. Since thou wilt none of the meat, 'tis but justice to give thee the bastings of the ladle. [She courses him about.

Merc. [Running about.] Was ever poor deity so hen-pecked as I am! nay, then 'tis time to charm her asleep with my enchanted rod, before I am disgraced or ravished. [Plucks out his Caduceus, and strikes her upon the shoulder with it.

Brom. What, art thou rebelling against thy anointed wife! I'll make thee-how now-What, has the rogue bewitched me! I grow dull and stupid on the sudden-I can neither stir hand nor foot-I am just like him-I have lost the use of all my-members-[Yawning.]-I can't so much as wag my tongue-neither, and that's the last liv-ing part about a-woman- [Falls down.

Mercury alone.

Lord, what have I suffered for being but a counterfeit married man one day! If ever I come to this house as a husband again-then-and yet that then was a lie too; for, while I am in love with this young gipsy, Phdra, I must return. But lie thou there, thou type of Juno; thou that wantest nothing of her tongue, but the immortality. If Jupiter ever let thee set foot in heaven, Juno will have a rattling second of thee; and there will never be a fair day in heaven or earth after it:

For two such tongues will break the poles asunder;

And, hourly scolding, make perpetual thunder.

[Exit Mercury.