Amphitryon, or Jupiter in Disguise

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 874 sections

2.1.574
This fellow’s drunk, as I imagine.
2.1.575
What, I?
2.1.575b
Yes—you there.
2.1.575c
I wish I were so.
2.1.575d
You are wishing for that which is fact; where have you been drinking?
2.1.576
Nowhere, indeed.
2.1.576b
What is this, that is the matter with the fellow?
2.1.576c
Really I have told you ten times over. I am both at home now, I say (do you mark me?), and I, Sosia, am with you likewise. Don’t I appear, master, to have told you quite distinctly, and quite circumstantially, that this is so.
2.1.579b
Avaunt,
2.1.580
get away with you from me.
2.1.580b
What’s the matter?
2.1.581
A pestilence possesses you.
2.1.581b
But why do you say so to me? I really am quite well and in perfect health, Amphitryon.
2.1.583b
But I’ll make you this very day, just as you have deserved, not to be quite so well, and to be miserable instead of your perfect health, if I return home.
2.1.585a
Follow me, you who in this fashion are making sport of your master with your crack-brained talk; you, who, since you have neglected to perform what your master ordered, are now come even of your own accord to laugh at your master. Things which neither can happen, and which no one ever yet heard of in talk, you are telling of, you villain; on your back I’ll take care and make those lies to tell this very day.
2.1.590
Amphitryon, this is the most wretched of wretchedness to a good servant, who is telling the truth to his master, if that same truth is overpowered by violence.
2.1.592
Discuss it with me by proofs. Why, how the plague can such a thing happen, for you now to be both here and at home? That I want to be told.
2.1.594
I really am both here and there; this any person has a right to wonder at; nor, Amphitryon, does this seem more. strange to you than to myself.
2.1.596
In what way?
2.1.596b
In no degree, I say, is this more strange to you than to myself; nor, so may the Deities love me, did I at first credit Sosia—me myself, until that Sosia, I myself, made me to believe me myself. In order did he relate everything, as each thing came to pass, when we sojourned with the enemy;
2.1.600
and then besides, he has carried off my figure together with my name. Not even is milk more like to milk than is that I myself like to me myself. For when some time since, before daybreak, you sent me from the harbour home before you—
2.1.603
What then?
2.1.603b
I had been standing a long time at the door before I had got there.
2.1.604
Plague on it, what nonsense! Are you quite in your senses?
2.1.604b
I’m just as you see me.
2.1.605
Some mischief, I know not what, has befallen this fellow from an evil hand since he left me.
2.1.606b
I confess it; for I have been most shockingly bruised with his fists.
2.1.607
Who has been beating you?
2.1.607b
I myself, who am now at home, beat me myself.
2.1.608
Take you care to say nothing but what I shall ask you. Now, do you answer me. First of all, who this Sosia is, of that I want to be informed.
2.1.610
He is your servant.
2.1.610b
Really I have even more than I desire by your own one self. Never, too, since I was born, had I a servant Sosia besides yourself.
2.1.612
But now, Amphitryon, I say this; I’ll make you, I say, on your arrival, meet with another Sosia at home, a servant of yours, besides myself, a son of Davus, the same father with myself, of figure and age as well
2.1.615
just like myself. What need is there of words? This Sosia of yours is become twofold.
2.1.616
You talk of things extremely wonderful. But did you see my wife?
2.1.617
Nay, but it was never allowed me to go in-doors into the house.
2.1.617b
Who hindered you?
2.1.618
This Sosia, whom I was just now telling of, he who thumped me.
2.1.619
Who is this Sosia?
2.1.619b
Myself, I say; how often must it be told you?
2.1.620
But how say you? Have you been sleeping the while?
2.1.620b
Not the slightest in the world.
2.1.621
Then, perhaps, you might perchance have seen some Sosia in your dreams.
2.1.622
I am not in the habit of performing the orders of my master in a sleepy fashion. Awake I saw him, awake I now see you, awake I am talking, awake did he, a little while since, thump me about with his fists.
2.1.625
What person did so?
2.1.625b
Sosia, that I myself,—he, I say. Prithee, don’t you understand?
2.1.626
How, the plague, can any one possibly understand? You are jabbering such nonsense.
2.1.627
But you’ll know him shortly.
2.1.627b
Whom?
2.1.627c
You’ll know this servant Sosia.
2.1.628
Follow me this way, then; for it is necessary for me first to enquire into this. But take care that all the things that I ordered are now brought from the ship.
2.1.630
I am both mindful and diligent that what you order shall be performed; together with the wine, I have not drunk up your commands.
2.1.632
May the Gods grant, that, in the event, what you have said may prove untrue.
2.2.633
Is not the proportion of pleasures in life and in passing our existence short in comparison with what is disagreable? So it is allotted to each man in life;
2.2.635
so has it pleased the Gods that Sorrow should attend on Pleasure as her companion; but if aught of good befalls us, more of trouble and of ill forthwith attends us. For this do I now feel by experience at home and in relation to myself, to whom delight has been imparted for a very short time, while I had the opportunity of seeing my husband for but one night; and now has he suddenly gone away hence from me before the dawn.
2.2.640
Deserted do I now seem to myself, because he is absent from here, he whom before all I love. More of grief have I felt from the departure of my husband, than of pleasure from his arrival. But this, at least, makes me happy, that he has conquered the foe, and has returned home loaded with glory. Let him be absent, if only with fame acquired
2.2.645
he betakes himself home. I shall bear and ever endure his absence with mind resolved and steadfast; if only this reward is granted me, that my husband shall be hailed the conqueror in the warfare, sufficient for myself will I deem it. Valour is the best reward; valour assuredly surpasses all things:
2.2.650
liberty, safety, life, property and parents, country too, and children, by it are defended and preserved. Valour comprises everything in itself: all blessings attend him in whose possession is valour.
2.2.654
By my troth, I do believe that I shall come much wished for by my wife,
2.2.655
who loves me, and whom, in return, I love: especially, our enterprise crowned with success, the enemy vanquished, whom no one had supposed to be able to be conquered: these, under my conduct and command, at the first meeting, have we vanquished; but I know for sure that I shall come to her much wished for.
2.2.659
Well, and don’t you think that I shall come much wished for to my mistress?
2.2.660
Surely, this is my husband.
2.2.660b
Do you follow me this way.
2.2.660c
But why has he returned, when just now he said that he was in haste? Is he purposely trying me, and is he desirous to make proof of this, how much I regret his departure? By my faith, against no inclination of mine has he betaken himself home.
2.2.664
Amphitryon, it were better for us to return to the ship.
2.2.664b
For what reason?
2.2.665
Because there’s no person at home to give us a breakfast on our arrival.
2.2.666
How comes that now into your mind?
2.2.666b
Why, because we have come too late.
2.2.667
How so?
2.2.667b
Because I see Alcmena standing before the house, with her stomach-full already.
2.2.668
I left her pregnant here when I went away.
2.2.668b
Alas, to my sorrow, I’m undone!
2.2.669
What’s the matter with you?
2.2.669b
I have come home just in good time to fetch the water
2.2.670
in the tenth month after that, according as I understand you to compute the reckoning.
2.2.671
Be of good heart.
2.2.671b
Do you know of how good heart I am? By my troth, do you never after this day entrust to me aught that is sacred, if I don’t draw up all the life of that well, if I do but make a beginning.
2.2.674
Do you only follow me this way. I’ll appoint another person for that business; don’t you fear.
2.2.675
I think that I shall now be doing my duty more, if I go to meet him.
2.2.676
With joy, Amphitryon greets his longed for wife—her, whom of all women in Thebes her husband deems by far the most excellent, and whom so much the Theban citizens truthfully extol as virtuous. Have you fared well all along? Do I arrive much wished for by you?
2.2.679b
I never saw one more so;
2.2.680
for she greets her own husband not a bit more than a dog.
2.2.681
When I see you pregnant, and so gracefully burdened, I am delighted.
2.2.682
Prithee, in the name of all that’s good, why, for the sake of mockery, do you thus salute and address me, as though you hadn’t lately seen me—as though now, for the first time, you were betaking yourself homeward here from the enemy?
2.2.685
For now you are addressing me just as though you were seeing me after a long time.
2.2.686
Why, really for my part, I have not seen you at all this day until now.
2.2.687
Why do you deny it?
2.2.687b
Because I have learned to speak the truth.
2.2.687c
He does not do right, who unlearns the same that he has learned. Are you making trial what feelings I possess? But why are you returning hither so soon?
2.2.690
Has an ill omen delayed you, or does the weather keep you back, you who have not gone away to your troops, as you were lately speaking of?
2.2.692
Lately? How long since was this lately?
2.2.692b
You are trying me; but very lately, just now.
2.2.693
Prithee, how can that possibly be as you say?—but very lately, just now.
2.2.694
Why, what do you imagine? That I, on the other hand, shall trifle with you who are playing with me,
2.2.695
in saying that you are now come for the first time, you who but just now went away from here?
2.2.696
Surely she is talking deliriously.
2.2.696b
Stop a little while, until she has slept out this one sleep.
2.2.697b
Is she not dreaming with her eyes open?
2.2.698
Upon my faith, for my part I really am awake, and awake I am relating that which has happened; for, but lately, before daybreak, I saw both him (pointing at SOSIA) and yourself.

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