MERC. Listen: do you realise that my fist can knock you spinning?
SOS. Why? What fury has seized you now?
MERC. Tell me, who made you so rash as to take the name of Sosie?
SOS. I do not take it; I have always borne it.
MERC. O what a monstrous lie! What confounded impudence! You dare to maintain that Sosie is your name?
SOS. Certainly; I maintain it, for the good reason that the Gods have so ordered it by their supreme power. It is not in my power to say no, and to be any one else than myself.
(Mercury beats him.) MERC. A thousand stripes ought to be the reward of such audacity.
SOS. Justice, citizens! Help! I beseech you.
MERC. So, you gallows-bird, you yell out?
SOS. You beat me down with a thousand blows, and yet do not wish me to cry out?