SCENE VI: MERCURY, SOSIE

MERC.
Stop. What have you come to poke your nose in here for, you impudent turn-spit?

SOS.
Ah! Gently, gently, for mercy's sake!

MERC.
Ah! You have come back again! I shall tan your hide for you.

SOS.
Ah! Brave and generous I, compose yourself, I beseech you. Sosie, spare Sosie a little, and do not divert yourself by knocking yourself down.

MERC.
Who gave you liberty to call yourself by that name? Did I not expressly forbid you to do so, under penalty of experiencing a thousand cuts from the cane?

SOS.
It is a name we both may bear at the same time, under the same master. I am recognised as Sosie everywhere; I permit you to be he, permit me to be so, too. Let us leave it to the two Amphitryons to give vent to their jealousies, and, though they contend, let the two Sosies live in the bonds of peace.

MERC.
No, one is quite enough; I am determined not to allow any division.

SOS.
You shall have precedence over me; I will be the younger, and you shall be the elder.
MERC.
No: a brother is a nuisance, and not to my taste; I intend to be the only son.

SOS.
O barbarous and tyrannical heart! Allow me at least to be your shadow.

MERC.
Not at all.

SOS.
Let your soul humanise itself with a little pity! Allow me to be near you in that capacity: I shall be everywhere so submissive a shadow that you will be pleased with me.

MERC.
No quarter; the law is immutable. If you again have the audacity to go in there, a thousand blows shall be the fruit.

SOS.
Alas! Poor Sosie, to what miserable disgrace are you reduced!

MERC.
So? Your lips presume again to give yourself a name I forbid!

SOS.
No, I did not intend myself; I was speaking of an old Sosie, who was formerly a relative of mine, and whom, with the utmost barbarity, they drove out of the house at dinner hour.

MERC.
Take care you do not fall into that idiocy if you wish to remain among the number of the living.
SOS.
How I would thwack you if I had the courage, for your wretched puffed up pride, you double son of a strumpet!

MERC.
What do you say?

SOS.
Nothing.

MERC.
I am sure you muttered something.

SOS.
Ask anyone; I do not breathe.

MERC.
Nevertheless I am absolutely certain that something about a son of a strumpet struck my ear.

SOS.
It must have been a parrot roused by the beautiful weather.

MERC.
Adieu. If your back itches for a currying, here is where I live.

SOS.
O Heavens! What a cursed hour is the dinner hour to be turned out of doors! Come, let us yield to fate in our affliction. Let us today follow blind caprice, and join the unfortunate Sosie to the unfortunate Amphitryon: it is a suitable union. I see he is coming in good company.