Amphitryon, or Jupiter in Disguise (388-423)

I pray that I may be allowed to discourse with you in quietness, so as not to be beaten.

Well then, let there be a truce for a short time, if you want to say anything.

I’ll not speak unless peace is concluded, since you are the stronger with your fists.

If you wish to say anything, speak; I’ll not hurt you.

Am I to trust in your word?

Yes, in my word.

What, if you deceive me?

Why, then may Mercury be angry with Sosia [*].

Then give attention: now I’m at liberty to say in freedom anything I please. I am Sosia, servant of Amphitryon.

What, again?

I have concluded the peace, ratified the treaty—I speak the truth.

Take that, then.

As you please, and what you please, pray do, since you are the stronger with your fists. But whatever you shall do, still, upon my faith, I really shall not be silent about that.

So long as you live, you shall never make me to be any other than Sosia at this moment.

I’ faith, you certainly shall never make me to be any other person than my own self;

and besides myself we have no other servant of the name of Sosia—myself, who went hence on the expedition together with Amphitryon.

This fellow is not in his senses.

The malady that you impute to me, you have that same yourself. How, the plague, am I not Sosia, the servant of Amphitryon? Has not our ship, which brought me, arrived here this night from the Persian port[*]?

Has not my master sent me here? Am I not now standing before our house? Have I not a lantern in my hand? Am I not talking? Am I not wide awake? Has not this fellow been thumping me with his fists? By my troth [*], he has been doing so; for even now, to my pain, my cheeks are tingling. Why, then, do I hesitate? Or why don’t I go in-doors into our house?

How—your house?

Indeed it really is so.

Why, all that you have been saying just now, you have trumped up; I surely am Amphitryon’s Sosia. For in the night this ship of ours weighed anchor from the Persian port, and where king Pterelas reigned, the city we took by storm, and the legions of the Teleboans in fighting we took by arms,

and Amphitryon himself cut off the head of king Pterelas in battle.

I do not trust my own self, when I hear him affirm these things; certainly, he really does relate exactly the things that were done there. (Aloud.) But how say you? What spoil from the Teleboans was made a present to Amphitryon?

A golden goblet, from which king Pterelas used to drink.

He has said the truth. Where now is this goblet?

’Tis in a casket, sealed with the seal of Amphitryon.

Tell me, what is the seal?

The Sun rising with his chariot. Why are you on the catch for me, you villain?

He has overpowered me with his proofs. I must look out for another name. I don’t know from whence he witnessed these things. I’ll now entrap him finely;