Enter JUPITER, from the house.
1
JUPITER
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.
SOSIA
Blepharo, that's our master that's coming out of the house; but this man's the sorcerer.
BLEPHARO
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.
JUPITER
See now, here's Sosia with Blepharo; I'll accost them the first. Well, Sosia, come to us at last? I'm quite hungry.
SOSIA
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.
SOSIA
to JUPITER Master, if now you are hungry, crammed full of fisticuffs, I betake me to you.
AMPH.
Do you persist, whip-scoundrel?
SOSIA
Hie thee to Acheron, sorcerer.
AMPH.
What, I a sorcerer? Strikes him. Take that.
JUPITER
What madness possesses you, stranger, for you to be beating my servant?
AMPH.
Your servant?
JUPITER
Mine.
AMPH.
You lie.
JUPITER
Sosia, go in-doors, and take care the breakfast is got ready while I'm sacrificing this fellow.
SOSIA
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 department2: I'll clean out all the dishes, and all the vessels I'll drain. Goes into the house.
