Perde 2
[Textpart 2]
Oh dear, I don’t like this banquet.
805
AMPHITRYON
Now do let her give her proofs. (To ALCMENA.) What, after we had dined?
ALCMENA
You said that you were inclined to go to sleep; the table was removed; thence we went to bed.
AMPHITRYON
Where did you lie?
ALCMENA
In the chamber, in the same bed together with your. self.
AMPHITRYON
You have proved my undoing.
SOSIA
What’s the matter with you?
AMPHITRYON
This very moment has she sent me to my grave.
ALCMENA
How so, pray?
810
AMPHITRYON
Don’t address me.
810
SOSIA
What’s the matter with you?
810
AMPHITRYON
To my sorrow I’m undone, since, in my absence from here, dishonor has befallen her chastity.
810
ALCMENA
In heaven’s name, my lord, why, I beseech you, do I hear this from you?
AMPHITRYON
I, your lord? False one, don’t call me by a false name.
SOSIA
’Tis an odd matter ’Tis an odd matter: Thornton says, on this passage, The ambiguity of Sosia’s pun in this place depends on the double signification of vir, which means a man and a husband. Poor as it is, it answers very well in the English word lord. this, if indeed he has been made into my lady from my lord.
ALCMENA
What have I done, by reason of which these expressions are uttered to me?
815
AMPHITRYON
You yourself proclaim your own doings; do you enquire of me in what you have offended?
ALCMENA
In what have I offended you, if I have been with you to whom I am married?
AMPHITRYON
You, been with me? What is there of greater effrontery than this impudent woman? At least, if you were wanting in modesty of your own, you might have borrowed it.
ALCMENA
That criminality which you lay to my charge befits not my family. If you try to catch me in incontinence, you cannot convict me.
820
