Perde 2
[Textpart 1]
But how say you? Have you been sleeping the while?
620
SOSIA
Not the slightest in the world.
620
AMPHITRYON
Then, perhaps, you might perchance have seen some Sosia in your dreams.
SOSIA
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.
AMPHITRYON
What person did so?
625
SOSIA
Sosia, that I myself,—he, I say. Prithee, don’t you understand?
625
AMPHITRYON
How, the plague, can any one possibly understand? You are jabbering such nonsense.
SOSIA
But you’ll know him shortly.
AMPHITRYON
Part of line 627 in the Latin. Whom?
SOSIA
Part of line 627 in the Latin. You’ll know this servant Sosia.
AMPHITRYON
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.
SOSIA
I am both mindful and diligent that what you order shall be performed; together with the wine, I have not drunk up your commands.
630
AMPHITRYON
May the Gods grant, that, in the event, what you have said may prove untrue.
[Textpart 2]
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;
ALCMENA
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.
635
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
640
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:
645
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.
650
AMPHITRYON
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.
655
