es
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.

SCENE VII

AMPHITRYON, ARGATIPHONTIDAS, POSICLES, SOSIE

AMPH. Stay here, gentlemen, follow me a little way off, and do not all
advance, I pray you, until there is need for it.

POS. I quite understand this blow touches you to the heart.

AMPH. Ah! My sorrow is bitter through and through: I suffer in my
affection, as much as in my honour.

POS. If this resemblance is such as is said, Alcmene, without being
guilty...

AMPH. Ah! In this affair, a simple error becomes a veritable crime,
and, though no way consenting, innocence perishes in it. Such errors,