Act IV, Scene V

Enter JUPITER, from the house.

JUP. Who with such weighty blows has been shaking this door on all the hinges? Who has been making such a great disturbance for this long while before the house? If I find him out, I'll sacrifice him to the shades of the Teleboans. There's nothing, as the common saying is, that goes on well with me to-day. I left Blepharo and Sosia that I might find my kinsman Naucrates; him I have not found, and them I have lost. But I espy them; I'll go meet them, to enquire if they have any news.

SOS. Blepharo, that's our master that's coming out of the house; but this man's the sorcerer.

BLEPH. O Jupiter! What do I behold.? This is not, but that is, Amphitryon; if this is, why really that cannot be he, unless, indeed, he is double.

JUP. See now, here's Sosia with Blepharo; I'll accost them the first. Well, Sosia, come to us at last? I'm quite hungry.

SOS. Didn't I tell you, Blepharo, that this one was the sorcerer?

AMPH. Nay, Theban citizens, I say that this is he (pointing to JUPITER) who in my house has made my wife guilty of incontinence, through whom I find a store of unchastity laid up for me.

SOS. (to JUPITER). Master, if now you are hungry, crammed full of fisticuffs, I betake me to you.

AMPH. Do you persist, whip-scoundrel?

SOS. Hie thee to Acheron, sorcerer.

AMPH. What, I a sorcerer? (Strikes him.) Take that.

JUP. What madness possesses you, stranger, for you to be beating my servant?

AMPH. Your servant? JUP. Mine.

AMPH. You lie. JUP. Sosia, go in-doors, and take care the breakfast is got ready while I'm sacrificing this fellow.

SOS. I'll go. (Aside.) Amphitryon, I suppose, will receive the other Amphitryon as courteously as I, that other Sosia, did me, Sosia, a while ago. Meantime, while they are contending, I'll turn aside into the victualling department: I'll clean out all the dishes, and all the vessels I'll drain. (Goes into the house.)