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.