Amphitryon, or Jupiter in Disguise (610-655)

He is your servant.

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.

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

just like myself. What need is there of words? This Sosia of yours is become twofold.

You talk of things extremely wonderful. But did you see my wife?

Nay, but it was never allowed me to go in-doors into the house.

Who hindered you?

This Sosia, whom I was just now telling of, he who thumped me.

Who is this Sosia?

Myself, I say; how often must it be told you?

But how say you? Have you been sleeping the while?

Not the slightest in the world.

Then, perhaps, you might perchance have seen some Sosia in your dreams.

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.

What person did so?

Sosia, that I myself,—he, I say. Prithee, don’t you understand?

How, the plague, can any one possibly understand? You are jabbering such nonsense.

But you’ll know him shortly.

[*] Whom?

[*] You’ll know this servant Sosia.

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.

I am both mindful and diligent that what you order shall be performed; together with the wine, I have not drunk up your commands.

May the Gods grant, that, in the event, what you have said may prove untrue.

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;

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.

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

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:

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.

By my troth, I do believe that I shall come much wished for by my wife,

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.