2–4
DIOGENES
Very true; an exact likeness indeed; you might be the fellow himself. But perhaps it’s the other way round, and you are Heracles, and the wraith has married Hebe in heaven.
5
HERACLES
What impudence! You talk too much. If you don’t stop these gibes at me, I’ll soon show you what sort of god has me for a wraith.
DIOGENES
The bow is out and ready. But why should I fear you now? I’ve died once and for all. But please tell me, in the name of your Heracles; when he was alive, were you with him then too, as his wraith? Or were you both one during his lifetime, but split up when you died, Heracles flying off to heaven, while you, his wraith, came here to Hades, as was only right?
HERACLES
One who makes it his business to poke fun doesn’t so much as deserve a reply. However, I’ll let you have one more answer. All of Amphitryon that was in Heracles is dead, and I am all that part; but the part that came from Zeus is in heaven living with the gods.
DIOGENES
Now I understand perfectly. Alcmena, you mean, bore two Heracleses at the same time, one by Amphitryon, the other from Zeus, and so you were twin sons of the same mother—though nobody knew about it?
HERACLES
No, you fool. We were both the same person.
DIOGENES
That’s difficult to understand, two Heracleses in a compound, unless you were man and god fused together, like horse and man in a Centaur.
