AMPHITRUO

Titus Maccius Plautus

tr. Toph Marshall
with songs by Alex Silverman and Toph Marshall

v. 2.0 30 August 2021

© C. W. Marshall

1
 Introduction

Amphitruo is notionally set in mythical Thebes, in central Greece. The characters, however, are
thoroughly Roman, and the world presented is a unique hybrid of Greek fantasy and
Republican reality. This is a world where Jupiter magically prolongs the night so he can put a
human costume on, and yet characters are enslaved (as indeed would many of the actors have
been). They expect physical violence, talk about it, and experience it regularly. The play also
features a sexual assault by a god on a mortal woman: Jupiter extracts consent through
deception and (again) magic, and Alcumena remains ignorant of his identity. These are not
the elements that make the play a “tragicomedy” for the Romans, but they do, and should,
color the content of the play for modern audiences. Roman comedy is filled with dark
humour, blending farce with suffering. How a production (or a reader’s imagination) deals
with this tension is crucial for understanding how the play makes its meaning.
The basic plot would be familiar to an ancient audience: Jupiter, infatuated with the
married Alcumena, has disguised himself as her husband and made her pregnant with the
baby Hercules. Unfortunately, Alcumena was already pregnant by her husband Amphitruo.
That’s not how biology works, but this is a myth. Jupiter so enjoys himself that he has asked
the trickster god Mercurius to magically lengthen the night – the “Long Night” in Plato the
comic playwright’s version – so that Jupiter can last longer in bed. That’s not how biology
works either. There is a lot that is exceptional within the play: Alcumena is one of the most
psychologically complex women in ancient theatre. The long opening dialogue (= scene 2
here) involves the slave Sosia doubting his own identity when he encounters the god
Mercurius disguised as Sosia himself. The prologue (= scene 1 here) is the longest speech from
a play that survives from Greece or Rome (see Gunderson 2015: 202-16). The French word for a
look-alike or doppelganger, comes from this play – un sosie.
Plautus’ dramatic career stretched from c. 205 BCE (near the end of the Second Punic
War) to c. 184. Twenty more-or-less complete plays survive, and this constitutes the earliest
substantial body of Latin literature. We don’t know a precise date of this play, but there are
reasons to think this comes from later in Plautus’ career, and so perhaps Amphitruo was
written and performed c. 190 BCE.° Titus Maccius Plautus was active as a theatre artist right
after Rome’s war with the Carthaginian Hannibal (the Second Punic War), when the city was
rebuilding itself after a protracted series of campaigns. Plautus spoke several languages (Latin,
Greek, and his native Oscan). We don’t know anything more about him than that. His plays
constitute the earliest substantial body of Latin literature to survive. They are set in the Greek-

°
Arcallaschi 1982 suggests that we can be more precise, and tie it to 187 precisely (favoured by
De Melo 2011: 8). O’Neill 2003: 16-21 suggests the play was performed at the votive games for M.
Fulvius Nobilior in 186.

2
speaking Mediterranean world, but Amphitruo is the only one set in mythological times.
Plautus’ creative Latin comedy combines music, wordplay, poetry, farce, coincidence,
absurdism, metatheatre, innuendo, domestic drama, and irony in a way that is constantly
surprising. Was he himself enslaved, freed but in debt and working in a mill? Unlikely, though
such stories survive. He probably acted in his own plays, travelling from festival to festival as
an actor and leader of an itinerant troupe. His triple-name suggests he was a citizen, but it is
likely a stage name – Dickie Clownface McBusker III (see Gratwick 1973)
Amphitruo is an unusual representative of the genre fabula palliata (“plays in Greek
dress” [lit. in a pallium]). Most, or perhaps all, of these were plays translated or adapted from
Greek drama from the fourth and third centuries BCE. Plautus uses the verb vortere barbare
(“to twist into [non-Greek] barbarian”) to describe his translation practice. While most of the
Greek source plays are from the genre of New Comedy (c. 323-260), scholars have suggested
that Amphitruo instead derives from a Greek 5th-c. tragedy (Stärk 1982 suggests Euripides’
Alkmene; Slater 1990, building on Stewart 1958, Euripides’ Bakchai), a Latin adaptation of a
Greek tragedy (Lefèvre 1982), or a Middle Comedy (from c. 385-323; Hunter 1987, and see
Nesselrath 1995 for the birth of gods in Middle Comedy). Lefèvre (1999) stresses the role of the
Italian improvisatory traditions such as the fabula Atellana (Atellan farce), which is certainly
true, but does not answer the question of the source play. Any of these are possible, and it
does not affect our enjoyment of the play; I find Hunter’s assumption the most likely, and it
developed from Plato Comicus’ Nux Makra (The Long Night) or some other play of the period.
Time plays tricks in this play, and no amount of rationalization can produce a clear
account. For Plautus, the gestation of Amphitruo’s child takes the standard nine months,
while Jupiter apparently sleeps with Alcumena, impregnates her, the foetus develops, and she
gives birth all in the same (artificially prolonged) night. Often the action of Greek tragedy took
place within a single day (cf. Euripides’ Medea 340, “Let me remain for a single day…”), and
perhaps this is a joke about that artificial convention.
There was in any case no obligation for every telling of a myth to be consistent with
each other. Versions of the Amphitruo story have preserved multiple variations on this divine
pregnancy. In one, Amphitruo has killed Alcumena’s father and together they married and
fled to Thebes. Before Alcumena will sleep with him, he must first avenge her brothers’ death
against the Teleboeans, and Jupiter assaults her while Amphitruo is on this campaign (Hesiod,
Shield of Heracles 1-55, Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5-8). Elements of this story can be seen in
Mercurius’ prologue, though with no explicit reference to the father-killing, and with
Amphitruo also impregnating his wife before he leaves.
Almost every character in the play poses some challenges for interpretation. Jupiter is
a comic adulterer (and so a lecherous old man?) who, unusually, is successful. Amphitruo is
described as an old man (senex at 1072) as well, but shares many of the qualities of the braggart
soldier (miles gloriosus), while still being sympathetic to a Roman audience (see Galinsky 1966,
Bond 1999, Christenson 2000: 28-29). Mercurius adopts many of the trappings of a slave as part

3
of his disguise, but also performs as if he were that character type, as when he does “the
running slave” (servus currens) routine at lines 984-1008. Perhaps most challenging of all is
Alcumena. Phillips (1984) rightly notes that her pregnancy is fully represented in her costume,
which itself is rare on the ancient stage. Christenson (2000-01, building on Perelli 1983 and
Segal 1987: 171-91 and 230-34) argues that this creates a grotesque realism (in the sense used by
Mikhail Bakhtin) and consequently she is entirely farcical (Bleisch 1997 further emphasizes the
elements of gross-dressing implicit in the scene). This goes against the older view that she is
dignified, even tragic, in her self-presentation, and that her song is presented without parody
(e.g. Gratwick 1982: 109-10, 130, and see Gunderson 2015: 197-202). She enjoys sex, makes jokes,
but also offers a paradigmatic articulation of the presumptive morality of a Republican
Roman wife. Even Bromia, when she appears, takes on the role of a (Greek) tragic messenger,
as Sosia had done when preparing to deliver a messenger speech (lines 203-61; see Dangel
1998, Dumont 1998a and b, Manuwald 1999). Only Sosia feels fully at home in a comedy, but
the unusual mythological setting seems to deny him even that. In all of these cases, there is
fun to be had in problematizing the relationship, in maintaining a tension in theatrical and
staging choices, without ever fully resolving them. This makes the play more challenging for
an audience, but it also then becomes more interesting.
Roman comedy was performed at festivals, in front of crowds seated on temple steps or
in other ad hoc venues (Goldberg 1998). Itinerant troupes would be hired to perform new
adaptations of Greek “classics” as part of a range of entertainments offered. Troupes of male
actors included both free and enslaved individuals, and included a tibicen, a musician who
would provide accompaniment on the tibia, twin pipes played together. The staging demands
are different from what’s required for all other plays of this period, however, and it may be
that the Latin script was meant for a touring production in the Greek stone theatres of South
Italy.°
Central to Amphitruo is the recognition that Roman comedy was inherently
metatheatrical: the play recognizes its own status as a play. This works on several levels: it is
(likely) an adaptation from a Greek original; it makes reference to its own status as a comedy,
with characters demonstrating discrepant awareness of the theatrical situation; it plays with
other theatrical genres (seen, for example, in the tragic feel of both Sosia’s and Bromia’s
messenger speeches). The expectation in a twin-comedy is that the same actor can play both
siblings. We see, for example, in Miles Gloriosus where this is (metatheatrically) inverted and
one person pretends to be twins to confound her guard. Metatheatre is a key concept for
understanding Roman comedy, but it is often given different meanings. First applied to
Plautus by Barchiesi 1969, a central articulation is found in Slater 1985 (and see González

°
Marshall 2006: 23, 2018: 198; there were no permanent theatres in Rome at this time.
However, reference to the Aediles (the Roman “producers” mentioned in line 72) needs
explanation if this is correct). O’Neill 2003: 25-27 suggests a Roman performance, possibly at
the Forum Boarum or Circus Flaminius, both of which had temples to Hercules.

4
Vázquez 2001; and Moore 1998: 108-25, Schoemann 1998 and 1999 for metatheatre in
Mercurius’ prologue). The notion of doubles in Amphitruo is explored by Bettini 2002, and the
understanding of the self-proclaimed genre at line 59 (see Moore 1995, Dumont 1998, Bond
1999, Manuwald 1999, Schmidt 2003).
Roman comedy set a pattern for subsequent comedy in a range of languages in Europe,
and consequently in North America up to the modern television sit com. Amphitruo in
particular has proved an appealing story across cultures and centuries (Shero 1956, Costa 1965,
Christenson 2000: 71-75 Ferry 2011, Hardin 2012, etc.). This play has been widely adapted, and
versions can be found by Shakespeare, Moliere, Dryden, Kleist, and Harold Pinter; Giraudoux
famously named his version Amphitryon 38 because of the number of predecessors he
knew. Each of these plays has its merits: consider, for example, how Molière develops the
passing reference to Sosia’s girlfriend (which might also underlie fat Nell in Comedy of Errors
(3.2.87-114).
Access to the original, however, has been limited by several factors. On the one hand is
the story’s own success: there exist more recent versions that were composed for more
familiar theatre spaces. Second is its unusual position within the surviving corpus of Roman
(and ancient) comedy: though unique as a mythological comedy, it is less representative of the
genre than almost any other example. And third is the lacuna, the gap in the text where the
manuscript tradition has lost leaves from a codex at some point in the play’s copying-and-
recopying history, which meant that when Plautus first was printed, it was no longer
complete. As can be seen here, it is possible to make informed choices about what was in the
lost section (see Fantham 1973), but it limits (but does not eliminate) the possibility of putting
the play on stage.
The play is structured in four ‘arcs’, each of which begins with a non-musical section,
and is followed by a musical section. The split between the third and fourth coincides with a
gap in the manuscripts:
1-462 (=scenes 1-2)
463-860 (=scenes 3-6)
861-fr. 6 (=scenes 7-9)
fr. 7-1148 (=scenes 10-11)
In each case, the first of these scenes is spoken (i.e. scenes 1, 3, 7, and 9), and not accompanied
by the tibicen. Shorter spoken sections also appear in scenes 8 (974-83) and 11 (1131-43).
Every translator feels they introduce something new and fresh to the work they
translate, and there is benefit in comparing translations to see what different scholars have
found. In English, the best accessible translations of Amphitruo now are Carrier 1970,
Christenson 2008, and de Melo 2011. The scene breaks mentioned in the previous paragraph
are mine, and reflect significant moments where the rhythm of the action changes (often
when the tibicen starts or stops playing; a full table of the metrical divisions is found as an

5
appendix). The play was performed without an interval. It is traditional and convenient to
refer to line numbers. While later scribes added act and scene divisions, they post-date
Plautus by centuries, and do not reflect the inherent structure of his plays; they are
consequently best ignored.

Characters and Role Division

The play requires a minimum of five performers. More likely (despite Marshal 2006: 109 n.
80), it was performed with six, which means there can be two baggage carriers coming on at
line 551 (a plural is used at line 854).
1. Mercurius the god Mercury (Greek Hermes), a son of Jupiter
2. Sosia enslaved man and companion to Amphitruo
3. Amphitruo general of the Theban army, returning from war
4. Jupiter king of all the gods (Greek Zeus), disguised as Amphitruo
5. Alcumena wife of Amphitruo
(6.) Belpharo the near-sighted helmsman of Amphitruo’s ship
(can be played by actor 1)
(6.) Bromia enslaved woman in the house of Amphitruo
Either actor 1 or actor 4 (or actor 6) can play the enslaved woman Thessala at 777.

This is less doubling than is often found in Roman comedy, with more roles being
associated with an individual actor. In twin-comedies, this is unusual, where the presumption
is that one actor often plays both sets of a pair of twins (Marshall 2006: 106). That suggests to
me that Amphitruo is unusual in this respect, and perhaps the representation of the pairs was
through casting opposites, rather than actors that were similar.
The table in the appendix shows the disposition of actors and the metrical forms
implied by the production. That listing of roles assumes five actors (the minimum) required.
We can also note how the use of all five of the actors is maintained throughout the play,
following the arc structure:
Scenes 1 and 2 (=arc 1) actors 1 and 2
Scenes 3-6 (= arc 2) actors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Scenes 7-9 (= arc 3) actors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Scenes 10-11 (= arc 4) actors 2, 3, 4, 5 and 1 if he plays Blepharo.
Amphitruo is a much more evenhanded play than many Roman comedies.
Line numbers reflect the Latin, and original metres are marked as they are introduced.
The translation reflects aspects of those metrical forms, but does not reproduce them exactly.
The songs (cantica) are translated with a considerably greater degree of freedom freely

6
adapted to adhere more closely to modern musical expectations, and 1:1 correspondence
between the Latin is not maintained. All stage directions are mine.°

A comic vase from (Greek-speaking) South Italy shows Zeus (Jupiter)

trying to visit Alcmene (Alcumena) through a window, presumably before
getting g the idea to disguise himself as Amphitryon (Amphitruo).
Image from Corrente 2017: 56.

°
Advice to Actors. Plautus’ poetry was renowned in antiquity for the nature of its rhythms, as
the playwright successfully balanced aspects of everyday speech with metrical variety. The
translation preserves the flavour of the different rhythms (it does not represent them exactly),
with further explanation in the notes. Latin names are preserved even for the more familiar
gods, because saying them is fun. Actors reading the verse are encouraged to lean into the
beat as much as possible, hit the rhythm and any alliteration hard. Let it drive the delivery if
you can, particularly when lines are divided between speakers.
For reference, the translated lines should fit the following patterns (s = short, L = long, (s) =
optional, | = possible line break).
ia6: (iambic senarius) sLsLsLsLsL
tr7: (trochaic septenarius) LsLsLsL|(s)|LsLsLsL(s)
ia8: (iambic octonarius) (s)LsLsLsLsLsLsL
sung cantica all in italics.

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 Scene 1.

A street in Thebes, a Greek town, with the house of Amphitruo (a single door, and a roof). An exit
(traditionally stage right) leads to the harbour, and stage left (not used) leads to the forum.°

Enter MERCURIUS, god of tricks, trade, and contracts, who begins immediately with a contract for
the audience.

ia6°
MERCURIUS Whereas you wish,° when merchandise of yours
is bought or sold, that I do gladly grant
great gain and help in every circumstance;
and as you wish your wealth and every plan
be well advanced at home and overseas, 5
and henceforth grow your gains both good and great,
the things you’ve done and those you plan to do;
and as you wish I bring to you and yours
good news for all, what I provide and tell
what will be best for your collective wealth 10
(for you of course know it was fixed, by all
the gods, that I’m in charge of news and gain);
and as you wish I bless, get gain for you
that it will be there always through the year;
then see you keep your silence for this play 15
and also all be judges just and fair.
At whose behest I’m here, and why I’ve come
I’ll tell you now, and also what’s my name.
It’s Jove’s behest. My name’s Mercurius. [mer-CURE-ee-US
Dad sent me here to make my case with you. 20
Although his order to you shows he knew
what you would do, and since he understood

°
This is a common, but not necessary, stage layout for Roman comedy. Sosia will arrive from
the harbour at 148, and at 333 he is positioned to the right of Mercurius. This is the only extant
Roman comedy with only one house/building represented on stage. Thebes is actually inland
and does not have a harbour.
°
1. Metre. Iambic senarii (ia6) are the only metre in Plautus that did not have musical
accompaniment.
°
1-16. Mercurius’ opening suggests a formal legal contract between him (as a character in a
play) and the audience, a contract supervised by the god Mercurius.

8
 you feared and worshipped him, as Jove deserves,
in fact he really ordered me to seek
this favor from you gently with nice words. 25
The Jupiter at whose behest I come,
no less than you, fears that he might be beat.°
He’s born with human mom and human dad.
No wonder then he’s frightened for himself.
And even I, who am the son of Jove, 30
have caught from dad the fear of being beat.
And so in peace I come, and peace I bring.
A fair and easy gift I ask of you,
for fair things from the fair are fair to seek,
and unfair from the fair would not be right. 35
And seeking fair from unfair’s foolishness,
since those unjust don’t know or care what’s fair.°
Now turn your minds this way to what I say.
You all should wish what we wish for. We’ve earned
it, dad and I, from you and from the state. 40
But why should I—like those in tragedies°
I’ve seen when Neptune, Victory, and Worth,
Bellona, Mars remind you what good things [bell-OH-nah
they’ve done—why list the riches from my dad,
gods’ ruler and the architect of all? 45
It never was the habit of my dad
to boast to good folk of the good he does.
He thinks that he is thanked by you for that

°
27. A physical beating by a slaveowner is a “bad result” (malum), though in practice it is
presented as a typical event. Many actors were enslaved, and “Jupiter” (26) refers both to the
god and the actor who plays him. It is suggested that the actor playing Jupiter is himself
enslaved, like many in the audience would have been. At 31, malum is repeated, and the
Mercurius actor implies he too is a slave. (There would be no way to tell by looking at the
masked actor on stage.) The joke goes further, however, since it is also implied Jupiter is the
company’s manager/impresario (possibly Plautus himself), and therefore free. Mercurius is on
stage at the manager’s behest, and the malum may be an unfavorable response from the
audience, which Mercurius seems keen to avoid (15-16, 24-25).
°
33-37. The repetition of “fair” reflects the wordplay on the Latin iustus.
°
41. Mercurius’ claim to have seen tragic prologues delivered by these divinities is
unsupported by extant fragments. We have no idea which plays these might be. There were
temples to Mars, Neptune, Victoria, Bellona, and Virtus (“Worth”, or manliness) in Plautus’
Rome.

9
 and you deserve the good he does for you.
I’ll first announce what I came here to ask, 50
Then I’ll describe this tragedy’s events.
What’s that? You squint your brow since “tragedy”
is what’s to come? I’ll change it, I’m a god.
This same play from a tragedy I’ll make
a comedy, with every verse the same. 55
Do you want this or not? But I’m a dope,
as if, a god, I didn’t know your wants.
I gather what your souls do wish to see.
I’ll mix it up—a tragic-comedy!°
For me to make it comedy alone 60
would not be right when gods come on, and kings.
What then? Since one role also is a slave,
I’ll make it “tragicomic” as I said.
Now Jupiter sent me to tell you this:
to every single seat inquisitors 65
should go throughout the audience’s coop°
and if they spot some cheerers who’ve been comp’ed
they’ll take the cloaks in trust from those cooped up.
If any think our actors worth a prize
or any of our team, or written script, 70
or nominates himself or has it done,
producers° even falsely give reward

°
59. Mercurius’ spur-of-the-moment generic innovation is the earliest known use of the word
“tragicomedy.” Similar constructions are fond in the Greek comic tradition, however:
Dinolochus (3 K-A), an early 5th-century Sicilian poet, as well as the 4th-century Athenian
playwrights Alcaeus (19-21 K-A) and Alexandrides (26 K-A), wrote plays called Komoidotragoidia
(“Comedo-tragedy”). These last two are authors of the period of so-called Middle Comedy,
which often had mythological plots, and from which the source of Amphitruo may have come.
Finally, a shadowy genre from the early 3rd century is hilarotragoidia (“funny tragedy”), by the
South Italian poet Rhinthon, which may also have influenced this play (Stewart 1958: 364-72).
Note however that the vases from South Italy in the 4th and 3rd centuries that appear to show
comic performance are to be associated not with Rhinthon, but with exported Athenian
comedy (Taplin 1993). See also Moore 1995.
°
66. coop = cavea, the seating area of the audience (the term is used of animal and bird cages).
While it is a standard term for the theatre, it is unusual to appear this early, before a
permanent theatre existed in Rome. The term appears in Plautus only here, in 68 and Truc.
931.
°
72. producers = aediles, elected officials who were responsible for administering most of the
annual ludi (games) at Rome. Curule aediles administered the ludi Romani (Roman games) and,

10
 then Jupiter’s decreed the same law goes
as if he’d pipped himself for public post.°
He said you live as winners with your worth, 75
and not with fraud or whingeing. Why should law
treat actors any less than the elect?
One ought to win by worth, and not applause.
They always get applause who do things right,
if those whose hands in which this lies are true. 80
He even also bade me bid you this:
there should for actors be inquisitors,
if those they’ve comp’ed and told to clap for them
or make another please less than they should,
that they should flay their costume and their hide.° 85
I don’t want you surprised why Jupiter
now cares for actors. Do not be surprised.
By Jove, he’ll act this comedy himself.
What’s that? You wonder if the news now’s new?
Has Jupiter become an actor too? 90
Why, just last year when actors on this stage
called “oh my god” he came and gave them help.
And, he has played in tragedies before.°

after 194, the ludi Megalenses (games in honour of the Great Mother); plebeian aediles
administered the ludi Plebeii (Plebeian games). The aediles provided funding for the hired
troupes, arranged a performance venue, and also bonuses (prizes) for actors who delight the
crowds (see also 79). The entire passage (64-85) seems to say a lot about the Roman prizes,
competition, and audience. Possibly line 72 (or more of this passage) reflects post-Plautine
production conditions.
°
74. This is part of an elaborate conceit that actors should be held in esteem equal to those in
public political office (69-80).
°
83-85. The behaviour of actors described seems to suggest both paying audience members to
cheer for them (and so reference is made to giving comp tickets to friends) and even to
upstaging one’s other actors, making oneself look better at the expense of another
performance. We know nothing about the nature of the actors’ contest mentioned in line 69,
though this passage makes clear that audience response was a factor in the evaluation.
°
92-93. The reference seems to be to the performance of a play the previous year in which
Jupiter appeared as a deus ex machina (lit. “cried ‘Jove’ he came and gave to them his help”).
This may be a Latin version of Euripides’ Alkmena, a play Plautus also refers to at Rudens 86.
Arcellaschi 1982 believes it refers to Ennius’ Ambracia, a fabula praetexta (‘play in Roman
dress’). Leo, Ussing, Christenson, and others treat this line as if it were an interpolation added
by a post-Plautine author.

11
 I say, today, will Jove perform this play
himself, and I with him.
Now listen up 95
while I describe the comic plot to you.
This city’s Thebes. Within those doors does live
Amphitruo, from Argos like his dad; [am-FIT-roo-OH
Alcumena’s his wife, Electrus’ girl. [al-CUE-men-UH
°
Amphitruo now leads the legions here 100 [ee-LEC-truss
for war arose in Telebos with Thebes. [TELL-a-BOSS [THEEBS
Before he left here for his troops, did he
knock up his wife Alcumena himself.
I trust you know now what my dad is like
how free he is in matters of this kind, 105
°
how great a lover when his fancy’s seized.
He starts a secret lust, Alcumena
he took her body for himself to use.
In his embrace he made her pregnant too.
So of Alcumena remember this: 110
she’s pregnant from them both, both man and Jove.
My dad now inside here does lie with her,
and for their sake the night is lengthened out,°
while he with her takes what delight he wants.
And he’s disguised, like he’s Amphitruo. 115
Now do not wonder at my costume here,
Because I come in slavish get-up so.
Old and ancient stuff I bring you new,
so I come costumed in a novel style.
Look. Jupiter my dad is inside now. 120
He’s turned into Amphitruonic form,

°
100. The play contains many references to legions and other aspects of specifically the
Roman cultural world.
°
104-6. The gods are not good, but they are powerful. There are no moral restrictions on their
behaviour and Romans were able simultaneously to believe Jupiter was in charge of their city
and the world, while also telling mocking stories about his moral failings.
°
113. This theme, that Mercurius is somehow drawing out the length of the night so that he
might enjoy his time with Alcumea, may refer back to the telling of the Amphitruo story by
Plato Comicus (“the funny one,” not the philosopher) in Nux Makra (The Long Night). See
Storey 2011: 3.132-35. Chiu 2015 offers a number of approaches to understanding what Plautus
is doing with this single night.

12
 and all the slaves who see him trust he’s him.
He shapeshifts thus whenever he should wish.
I took the face of Sosia the slave [SOH-see-YA
who with Amphitruo left for the troops 125
so I could help my dad pursue his lust.
So household slaves won’t ask me who I am
when at the house they see me loitering.
Now since they trust I am their fellow slave
none asks who I may be, or why I’ve come. 130
My dad now gratifies his will inside:
He lies entwined with her he most desires.
My dad relates his battle-deeds to her,°
Alcumena. She trusts he is her man
though she is with the letch. My dad in there 135
relates how foreign legions fled from him
and by what means were many gifts bestowed.
The gifts Amphitruo had won out there
we swiped with ease. My dad does what he wants.
Amphitruo comes home from war today 140
and also does the slave whose face I take.
Now so that you can tell us all apart,
I’ll always have this feather on my hat
and there will be a small gold band on dad’s.°
This token won’t be on Amphitruo’s. 145
These tokens no one of the household here
can yet perceive, but you perceive them plain.
Enter SOSIA from the harbour, with a lantern. He is enslaved,
a soldier returning home from war.
Now here’s Amphitruo’s slave Sosia.
He comes here from the port with lantern now.
I’ll drive him from these doors as he arrives. 150
Stay here! It will be worth your while to watch
Mercurius and Jove be actors here.

°
132. Jupiter lies about what he does in the battle, in order to seem more like Amphitruo. This
anticipates the invented battle narrative Sosia will present at lines 203-61.
°
144. It is not clear what is meant by the “small…band” (torulus, lit. little knot).

13
 Scene 2

MERCURIUS stands aside unnoticed, eavesdropping on SOSIA.°

SOSIA (singing)° [Slower, quite freely]

What other man is braver or more daring than am I?
I know young men's behaviour, yet I walk alone here... why?!

Tonight, tonight, toniiiiiight, the ma-gis-

-trates - the Three Amigos - will throw me in a cell,° 155
And we know how this story goes – it doesn't end that well.

Next they haul me out at break of day and beat me to a pulp;

There’ll be no chance to have my say, or beg my boss’s hulp!°

As with one voice, they'll all insist I get my just deserts:

So eight big boys with anvil fists can hit me where it hurts.
Poor poor poor poor me 160

I travel all this way from port with joyful tidings for ’em
And yet, it seems, the welcome here is not exactly war-em.
What a tale of misery:
I am bid to go,
by Amphitruo
so I come home,
unwillingly.

°
153. Mercurius creates a split-focus scene, and remains unnoticed by Sosia until line 292:
though he is in plain sight, he remains unseen and unheard.
°
153. Metre. Passages marked as sung are cantica mixtis modis (“songs in various metres”, or just
cantica). Lines were accompanied by a tibicen, a musician playing the tibia, twin reeded pipes
(Moore 2008). Evidence for the production of Terence’s plays (165-60) indicate that the
musician was enslaved, and that different combinations of pipes created different musical
registers for a play.
°
155. The “Three Men” (tresviri capitales, also tresviri notcturni) were Roman magistrates in
charge of prisons and executions. The reference to armed companions (159-60) gives some
sense of the authority given to the office (Purcell 1983: 135, 155; viatores who are armamentaria
are attested in inscriptions: CIL VI 2804 = 32479; 37778). An enslaved person wandering alone
at night was criminally suspicious.
°
157. “Boss” is used for erus (master), to reflect the enslaved person’s perspective, minimizing
their lack of rights. The feminine form of this word (era, at 261, 452, 974, and 1061) is rendered
“mistress”.

14
 If this errand's so essential, you might think it could have waited 165
Til it's light, when there's a chance I'll make it home unviolated.
But no, but no, but noooooooo:
‘cos that's not how it goes with slavery.
Poor poor poor poor poor poor poor poor me!

My work is hard and life's a bitch, I'm sure you get the picture:
But when your boss is really rich, your life is so much bitch-er.
All day, all night, do this do that, it never ends, alas...
No rest for me, while he gets fat from sitting on his ass! 170

He plays at being magnaminous, says “all will get their wish”,

But we know when someone’s scammin’ us. This is not even fair-ish!
Poor poor poor poor me
Poor poor poor poor poor poor poor poor me!

So many things to do each day and most of them are crappy.

But I always muddle through, and hey! Sometimes I'm even happy:
That's the tragic irony:
if life were rosier
for poor old Sosia
I wouldn't be:
Poor poor poor poor poor poor poor poor
Poor p-p-p-poor
P-p-p-poor
Poor
Me! 175

MERCURIUS : (singing, unnoticed by Sosia)

I've far more right that he to sing of my unhappy lot.
He never has been free. I was last night... and now I'm not!
Oh how I miss my liberty.
Poor poor poor poor poor poor poor poor me.

Imagine how it feels to find you're suddenly enslaved.

I'm sure his master's mean, but mine's a god, and he's depraved.
And what is worse? He's family!
That's why Mercurius
is rightly furious
I'll match him note for note,
and sing full throat-
-ed ly:
Poor pooooooooooooooooooooor
Me!

15
ia8°
SOSIA I’m a bondsman bound for being beat.° Did it occur to me 180
just now to thank the gods and praise them as they all deserve?
In truth if they by Pollux° cared to give the thanks that I deserve [PAUL-ux
they’d get some guy to smash my face real hard when I returned,
since I was thankless, though they did this good for me unasked.

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) He does what folk so seldom do: he knows what he is worth. 185

SOSIA Some thing that I have never thought, nor any townsman either,
would come to pass, has happened: we have reached our homes alive.
Conquering legions conquered foes and came back home again.
The war hath ended finally,° the enemy’s destroyed,
which granted to the Thebans many bitter funerals. 190
By soldiers’ might and mien the town’s been conquered and subdued
through tactics and my boss’s boons, Amphitruo the Great.
Riches, land, and glory has he given to his folk,°
and for the king of Thebes, for Creon, he has fixed his rule. [KREE-on
and he dispatched me home from port so I could tell his wife 195
how he’s made news as general, as leader, and as chief.
Now I’ll consider in what way I’ll say these things to her
when I approach. If I should lie, I’m doing as I should.
When they were fighting fiercely, then did I so fiercely flee.
So I shall act like I’d been there, I’ll say what I have heard. 200
But in what style and with what words it’s fit that I narrate
I want to first consider here alone. I’ll say it thus:°
“At first when we arrived there, when we first did touch the earth,

°
180. Metre. Iambic octonarii (ia8) are used to continue the elevated narrative of Sosia. The
melody of the tibicen shifts, as music continues.
°
180 sum vero verna verbero. A verna is someone enslaved since birth within a household, the
child of an owner’s slave; “bondsman” is not quite accurate (also in 179), but preserves the
alliteration.
°
182. A common minor oath in Roman comedy is to wear by the Dioscuri, Jupiter’s sons. “By
Pollux [or Pol]” is a common oath for men; “by Castor” is used exclusively by women.
°
189. The line contains a tragic word for war (duello), which gives it an elevated tone.
°
193. The inclusion of “land” in this list would seem to point specifically to the requirements
for a Roman triumph (Harvey 1981: 485-89).
°202. Sosia rehearsal here introduces a parody of a messenger speech, as found in Greek
tragedy and its Latin adaptations.

16
 Amphitruo chose leaders from the men of highest birth.
He deputized and ordered them to tell the Teleboeans: [TELL-a-BOY-ans
if without war or violence returning what they’d stolen,
if they gave back what they’d removed, he’d bring back his brigade
home right away, his Argives leave their land, and he would give [AR-guyvs
them peace and ease; but if they caviled, kept what he had sought,
then he would trounce that town himself with force and all his forces.° 210
When they’d repeated fully what Amphitruo said to tell,
the Teleboians, mighty men who trust in manliness
and men,° did proudly, much too loudly, curse our diplomats.
They said they could protect themselves and theirs with war, and so
we should with haste withdraw our troops from their borders now. 215
The diplomats related this, Amphitruo then led
the troops forth from his camp. Against the Teleboean town,
who led their legions out, and they were armed with pretty swords.
(singing) When the armies on our side were set out and partitioned
Heroes were positioned,
Soldiers were commissioned 220
In the classic Theban style
We deployed in single file,
While the legions on the other side were also stood in lines.°

Then the Generals met up to give each other a good hearing

Far from their soldiers’ cheering
In the middle of a clearing
They agreed, in their meetin’
That whichever team was beaten 225
Would give up their cities, farms, and homes, themselves, and all their shrines.

Then the brassy bugles blasted, a fearful fanfare sounded

All around, it shook the ground,

°
210. There’s some fun wordplay here: ui uirisque (“with force and men”); oppid’ oppugnassere
(“to attack the town”).
°
212-13. The Latin here plays on vires (men) and virtus (“manliness”). Virtus, the term in Roman
ideology for the power to shape and control the world; see also 41 (where it is rendered as
“Worth”) and 648-53 (where it is translated as “courage”).
°
222. The word legio (legion) is used twice in this line, in a seemingly deliberate anachronism,
since the word is naturally used specifically of the Roman military organization.

17
 The soldiers found their voices drownd-ed
Next the leaders stopped to say a
Hasty pre-engagement prayer
To honour mighty Jove, and fill the troops with hope divine. 230

For every man there, this was it -

The hitty shouty stabby death-y bit!
The air was hot and wet,
With heavy breathy steamy sticky sweat
The atmosphere: oppressive,
The noise was even more so...
On every blade of grass a hero bleeding from his torso.

And this is the beginning 235

Of the end. Fast fell the foe.
When they sensed we might be winning,
The Gen’rals shouted 'GO!'

The enemy stood still

To face the fast on-rushing tide:
They'd sooner have been killed
Than budge an inch, and thus... they died. 240

And all thanks to Amphitruo - with victory still elusive,

His ever-clever use of
Cavalry would prove conclusive.
He snuck them round the back
Before unleashing an attack.° 245
So as the noble Theban horsemen trampled through them,
The big ol’ baddies got just what was coming to them.
ia8
MERCURIUS (unnoticed) Up to this point there’s not a single word been said amiss.
For I was there in person when they fought and so was dad.

SOSIA “The enemy began to flee, and courage filled our men. 250
When the Teleboians turned, their bodies stuffed with spears,

°
242-47. Harvey (1981: 486) argues that no specific connection can be made to a contemporary
(Roman) battle.

18
 Amphitruo himself cut down King Pterela.° [p’TARE-e-LAH
So then and there this fight was fought, from dawn till twilight fell.
I have remembered this so well, I had no lunch that day.
But when night intervened at last this battle did conclude. 255
The next day weeping princes left their city, came to camp.
They held an olive branch and prayed that we forgive their sins.
They put themselves, their town, their kids, all blessèd and profane,
into the sway and under judgement of the folk of Thebes.
They gave Amphitruo my boss, a golden cup° for valour 260
°
From which Pterela the king would drink.” That’s what I’ll say.
Now I’ll haste and hurry home, as my boss commands.
tr7°
MERCURIUS (unnoticed) Lookee, he is coming this way,
I’ll go up and meet him here.
I will never let this fellow
ever reach these doors today.
Since I am his perfect likeness
I will surely swindle him. 265
Really, since I stole his shape
and the way he holds his head
I should also fake his habits,
so that I am just like him.
I should be corrupt and clever,
therefore, and be shrewd-ish too.

°252. Slaying the enemy commander in single combat makes Amphitruo worthy of spolia
opima, the highest honour for a general (Christenson 2008: 99).
°260. This is the first explicit reference to the cup (patera, actually a drinking-bowl) of King
Pterela, which will become a key prop in this play (see 419-20, 534-36, 760-97 and 137. The
centrality of the cup as a prop is deiscussed by Polt 2013 (and see Pace 1998).
°
261. Sosia has concluded the rehearsal of his messenger speech (203-61). The tragic colouring
of the elevated battle narrative is undercut by the fact that this s only a dry run for the
audience, as Plautus plays with genre expectations and metatheatrics. Possibly the speech is
modeled on Euripides’ Children of Heracles 799-866 (discussed by Genzmer 1956, according to
Sedgwick 1993: 78). If so, the influence may come from Plautus’ source play, since Children of
Heracles was reperformed in the fourth century (Allan 2001). The whole account is filled with
Roman colouring.
°
263. Metre. Trochaic septenarii (tr7) are the most common metre in Plautus. The melody of
the tibicen shifts, but music continues (Cicero, Tusc. 1.107). The shift to tr7 here will “send the
message ‘OK, enough of whatever else we have been doing: now let’s get on with the plot.’”
(Moore 2012: 251).

19
 With his weapon, wickedness,
I shall drive him from his entry.
But what’s this? He scans the sky.
I shall watch what else he does. 270

SOSIA Pollux! If there’s anything

that I believe or that I know
I know Nocturnus this night is
hungover and sleeping in.°
Seven stars of Ursa Major
cease their movement through the sky;
Luna finds itself no other
place than when it first appeared;
neither Venus, nor Pleiades, [ply-ADD-eez
nor Orion sinks away. 275 [oh-RYE-un
So it is that signs stand still
and night withholds the break of day.

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) Press on, Night, as you’ve been doing,

be obliging to my dad
splendid splendour for the splendrous
giving gifts most splendidly.

SOSIA I don’t think that I have ever

seen a longer night than this,
save that one time I was pummeled
hung in perpetuity. 280
This one, Pollux, masters that one
beating it in magnitude.
Sun’s asleep, I think, by Pollux,
and supremely sloshed as well.°
Miracles take place – unless it
drank its health too much at dinner.

°
272. The identity of Nocturnus is uncertain. Torelli (1995: 108-10) points to the identification of
[Caelus] Nocturnus as the opposite to the sun at Zenith – the darkest night; Goosens 1949
identifies the god with Saturn; Stewart (1960, building on Herrmann 1949) ties it with an
epithet for Bacchus. See also García-Hernández 1984, Soubiran 1992.
°
271-82. Sosia’s cosmology assumes that both Night and the Sun have been drinking, and
neither is impelled to wake up and keep the normal occurance of celestial events.

20
MERCURIUS (unnoticed) Do you say so, punching bag?°
Do you think you’re like the gods?
I will get you for these actions
and your words, you cross-bound-creep,° 285
Pollux, just come here, I beg you,
You will find catastrophe.

SOSIA (to the audience) Anyone from out of town

visiting for the weekend?
Get your money’s worth, since in
a single night you’ll stay for three.°

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) Now my dad obeys instructions

wisely and judiciously.
Lust obeyed, the lover slumbers,
wrapped around Alcumena. 290

SOSIA I’ll go tell Alcumena

What it is my boss has ordered.
SOSIA sees Mercurius, and turns back to the audience.
Who’s this guy I see this night
before the doors? I like it not.

MERCURIUS No one’s cowardly as this guy.

°
284 (and 519, 565, 1029) Verbero (lit. “whipping post”). The first of several common curses in
Roman comedy, implying the addressee is a slave who is regularly beaten.
°
285 (and 539) Furcifer. Literally, he who makes a fork, with reference to crucifixion (perhaps:
“fit to be hanged”?).
°
287-8. Plautus’ joke has Sosia encourage an audience member to take advantage of a sex
worker who charges by the night:
Where are those who sleep alone
unwillingly, and pay for sex?
Get your money’s worth this night, sir,
from a whore who’s overcharged.
Additionally, Plautus uses the derogatory word scortum (whore), rather than the more neutral
meretrix (sex worker).

21
SOSIA Now I see that this guy’s looming,
wants to weave me a new cloak –
i.e. that he will warp my woof.

MERCURIUS He’s afraid. I’ll go and trick him.

SOSIA I am dead! My teeth all shiver. 295

When I get there he will greet me
to a Pounder’s Welcome Fist.°
Maybe he’s kind-hearted. Now due
to the fact my boss has made me
keep the night-watch, with his fists
today he’ll see I go to sleep.
I am dead. I beg you, please,
by Herc,° how big and strong he is.

MERCURIUS Loudly I will speak in answer

so he hears what I will say. 300
That way, to a fuller factor,
he will start to feel more fear.
Come now, fists, it’s been a while
since you’ve got my paunch a lunch.
Feels so long since when you punched
and knocked out four men yesterday,
left them naked in the street.

SOSIA I’m completely terrified

that I’ll change my name and turn
from Sosia to Number Five.° 305
He insists he has knocked out
four men and I fear that I’ll
add one more onto that number.

°
296. An allusion to the publicly-funded hospitality normally offered to respected visitors to
Rome (and see 161-2).
°
299. Another common oath (see 182), “by Herc” is additionally humorous since Hercules has
not yet been born.
°
305. “Quintus” is a common praenomen, comically appropriate after the four men Mercurius
claim he has beaten up (303-04).

22
MERCURIUS (getting ready to fight)
There, I’m set. It’s how I like it.

SOSIA He prepares, he girds himself.

MERCURIUS He’ll not flee without a flogging.

SOSIA (to Mercurius for the first time)°

Who is “he”?

MERCURIUS (to Sosia) Whoever comes here,

that’s the one who’ll eat my fists.

SOSIA: Go away! I have just eaten

I don’t like to dine this late. 310
Give that dinner, if you’re clever,
to the people underfed.

MERCURIUS This hook has a hearty heft.

SOSIA (to audience) Help, I hurt! He hefts his hook.

MERCURIUS (to audience) What if I just tap him lightly

so he sleeps?

SOSIA (to Mercurius) You’ll save my life!

°
These three nights, without a break,
I’ve stayed awake.

MERCURIUS (to Sosia) That is the worst!

(he swings and misses; they’re too far apart)
(to audience) Useless action, jabbing jawlines.
My hand learns this wretchedly. 315
Jaws you jab with glancing blows should
take another shape with punches.

°
309. David 2014 discusses the use of asides and audience address in lines 153-340.
°
314. Chiu 2015: 87-88 ties this to the tradition that the divinely lengthened night lasted three
normal nights’ lengths.

23
SOSIA (to audience) This guy’s going to decorate
my face and make it something new.

MERCURIUS (to his fist) Whom you pummel properly

ought to have his face defaced.

SOSIA This guy thinks how he’ll de-bone my

my face like it’s an eel. How strange.
Off with those who like deboning.
I am dead if he should see me.° 320

MERCURIUS (to audience) I have caught the scent of someone.

SOSIA Yikes! Have I begun to stink?

MERCURIUS Even though he’s greatly distant,

truly he is close at hand.

SOSIA This guy’s a prognosticator!

MERCURIUS And my fists fight zealously.

SOSIA (to Mercurius) If I am your punching bag,

then do your warm-up on a wall.

MERCURIUS To my ears doth fly a voice.

SOSIA (to audience) An ill-starred man I have become, 325

I who didn’t pluck my pinions.
I have words that go on wings.°

MERCURIUS He demands I beat him up

and weigh him down like he’s a mule.

SOSIA I do not have any donkey.

°
318-20. For this elaborate joke, see Petrone 2000.
°
325-26. These lines evoke the (old-fashioned) poetic conceit found in Homer of “wingèd
words” – that speech “flies” from the mouth of the speaker to the ears of the listener.

24
MERCURIUS He’ll be burdened being beat.

SOSIA Herc, I’m tired, since I just landed

here by ship. I’m also seasick.
I can barely go unladen,
with a load I cannot go. 330

MERCURIUS Someone I don’t know is speaking.

SOSIA I am safe, he doesn’t see me.

He says “Someone” speaks, but surely
“Sosia” is what my name is.

MERCURIUS Here, it seems a voice has hit

my ears, it’s coming from the right.

SOSIA I’ll be flogged today I fear,

not my voice which struck at him.

MERCURIUS Awesome, look, he comes my way.

SOSIA I am worried, wholly numb. 335

Where on earth I am, by Pollux,
I don’t know, if someone asks.
Wretched me, I cannot budge,
Because of chicken-heartedness.
All is done! My boss’s bidding
dies along with Sosia.
Really, I’m resolved to reckon
roughly face to face with him,
so that I will seem a tough guy
and he keep his hand from me. 340

MERCURIUS (to Sosia) Where do you go walking, you who

wrap your Vulcan in a horn?°

SOSIA (to Mercurius) Why do you ask this, you who

°
341. Mercurius refers to Sosia’s lantern.

25
 with fists deface this person’s face?

MERCURIUS Slave or free?

SOSIA Whichever one

my spirit happens to prefer.

MERCURIUS Speak you truly?

SOSIA I speak truly.

MERCURIUS I will beat you.

SOSIA Now you lie.

MERCURIUS Now I’ll see you say I say

the truth.

SOSIA What need is there for this? 345

MERCURIUS May I know where you are headed,

Where you’re from and who you are?

SOSIA I go here, at boss’s bidding.

I’m his slave. Is that now clearer?

MERCURIUS Scoundrel, I’ll restrain that tongue

of yours today.

SOSIA I think you can’t.

She is modest and demure.

MERCURIUS Do you keep on making jokes?

What’s your business at these doors?

SOSIA I could ask the same of you. 350

MERCURIUS Good King Creon always sets out

single sentries for the night.

26
SOSIA He does well. Since we’ve been absent,
everything’s been safe at home.
Now begone. Let it be known
the household slave is home again.

MERCURIUS I don’t know how you can be a

household slave. Unless you scram,
I’ll ensure that you’re not welcomed
by the household, “household slave”. 355

SOSIA I live here, I say, and I’m

enslaved by them.

MERCURIUS You know what’s up?

I will see you lifted up
unless you go away.

SOSIA How’s that?

MERCURIUS You’ll be carried off, not proudly

walking, when I fetch my club.

SOSIA I proclaim myself to be

the household slave of this whole house.

MERCURIUS See how soon you get a beating

if you don’t slink off from here. 360

SOSIA I’ve returned from overseas,

and keeping me from home’s your plan?

MERCURIUS Here’s your house?

SOSIA I say it is.

MERCURIUS Who then is the boss of you?

SOSIA He’s the leader of the Theban

legions now, Amphitruo,
he who wed Alcumena.

27
MERCURIUS Listen up: what is your name?

SOSIA Thebans call me Sosia,

begotten of my father, Dave.° 365

MERCURIUS You came here all by your self

with your fabricated fibs,
paragon of pride, today,
with your stitched-together schemes.

SOSIA I come here with just my tunic,

not with stitched-together schemes.

MERCURIUS You are lying. You’ve come here

with your feet, and not your tunic.

SOSIA Really true.

MERCURIUS And so now really

you’ll be beaten for your lies. 370

SOSIA Really, Pollux, I don’t want that.

MERCURIUS Really, Pollux, though unwilling

This one thing is really sure,
not done arbitrarily.
He hits Sosia.
SOSIA Please, I beg you!

MERCURIUS Do you dare

To give your name as Sosia
since I’m he?

SOSIA I’m dead!

MERCURIUS Still more

°
365. Sosia’s father is Davus, a generic name for an enslaved character in comedy. Wright 2013
argues that there is a metaliterary reference to the Davus role in Greek comedy.

28
 you say, compared with what’s to come.
He hits Sosia again.
Who’s your master?

SOSIA You are, since

with your fists, you use me up. 375
MERCURIUS hits Sosia again.
(to audience) Help me, Theban citizens!

MERCURIUS Still you shout, you dead-meat-maker?°

Tell me why you’ve come.

SOSIA It’s so
there’s someone you can punch to death.

MERCURIUS Whose are you?

SOSIA Amphitruo’s
Sosia I am.

MERCURIUS Then you’ll be

beaten more since you’re a poser.
He hits Sosia again.
I am Sosia, not you.

SOSIA May the gods grant that you could be,

so that I can beat on you. 380

MERCURIUS Still you mumble?

SOSIA I’ll be quiet.

MERCURIUS Who’s your boss?

SOSIA I do not care.

°
386 (and 422, 518, 586) Carnufex/carnifex. “Maker of meat” is the literal meaning of this
assistant to capital punishment, a despised job (“hangman’s helper”); keeping the sense of
“dead meat”. Thanks to Michael Hendry.

29
MERCURIUS What then? What are you now called?
He hits Sosia again.

SOSIA Nothing, only what you say.

MERCURIUS You said you’re Amphitruo’s

Sosia?

SOSIA Well, I was wrong.

I should have said myself to be
Amphitruo’s associate.°

MERCURIUS I sure knew we had no other

slave but me called Sosia. 385
Reason’s vanished.

SOSIA On that subject:

would your fists had done the same.

MERCURIUS I am that man Sosia

whom you claimed yourself to be.
He hits Sosia again.

SOSIA Please just let me speak to you

peacefully and not be beaten.

MERCURIUS No, but there can be a passing

truce if you should wish to speak.

SOSIA I won’t speak unless there’s peace,

since you are stronger with your fists. 390

MERCURIUS Speak your mind, I will not hurt you.

SOSIA Should I trust you?

°
384. This translation of the joke is first found in Robert Allison’s 1914 translation (and others
since).

30
MERCURIUS Yes, you should.

SOSIA If you’re lying?

MERCURIUS Then Mercur-

ius will rage on Sosia.

SOSIA Pay attention. Now that I

can say what I should wish to freely.
I am Sosia the slave,
Amphitruo’s.

MERCURIUS What, this again?

SOSIA I’ve made peace, I’ve made a treaty.

I speak truth.

MERCURIUS Now get a beating. 395

He hits Sosia again.

SOSIA As you like, do what you like,

since you are stronger with your fists.
But, by Herc, no matter what
you mean to do, I won’t keep quiet.

MERCURIUS While I live today you’ll never

see that I’m not Sosia.

SOSIA Sure by Pollux you won’t make me

someone else’s while I’m ours.
Nor with just us both together,
there’s no other Sosia. 400
With Amphitruo I went
away from here into the army.

MERCURIUS This man is not sane.

SOSIA The fault

you say I have is what is yours.
Dammit, am I not a slave,

31
 Amphitruo’s own Sosia?
Did our ship not just this night
from the Port of Persicus° [PURR-sick-US
arrive, and did it bring me here?
And did my boss not send me here? 405
Don’t I stand before our house
with a lantern in my hand?
Don’t I speak? Am I awake?
Did he not hit me with his fists?
Herc, he did, for even now
my jaws are sore, o woe is me!
Why then do I hesitate?
Why not enter in our house?

MERCURIUS This your house?

SOSIA It is indeed.

MERCURIUS All you’ve said in truth just now are 410

lies. For I am Sosia,
he who is Amphitruo’s.
For this night our ship had sailed
from the Port of Persicus,
and we laid siege to the town
where King Pterela did rule,
and we captured Teleboian
legions with our battle force
and Amphitruo himself
fought and killed King Pterela. 415

SOSIA (to audience) I do not believe my self

when I hear me say these things.
Things that happened there for certain
he remembers memorably.

°
Stewart 2000 discusses the assumption that Thebes has a harbour nearby, possibly called
Persicus, and that Amphitruo’s troops are called Argives at 208. He suggests that one of
Plautus’ sources followed an alternate tradition in which Hercules (Heracles) was born in the
Argolid, traditionally settled by the descendants of Perseus. The Port of Persicus is mentioned
at 404, 412, and 823, and at 730-32 it seems to be the port at which Amphitruo has arrived.

32
 (to Mercurius) Tell me what the Teleboeans
gave then to Amphitruo.

MERCURIUS Pterela the King, he liked

to guzzle from a golden cup.

SOSIA (to audience) He’s said it right. (to Mercurius) And where’s the cup
gone now?

MERCURIUS It’s in a little chest, 420

with Amphitruo’s seal sealed.

SOSIA Say what kind of seal it is.

MERCURIUS “Rising Sun with Horses Four.”

You can’t trick me, dead-meat maker.

SOSIA (to the audience) He has won with evidence.

I must find another name.
I don’t know how he could see this.
Now I must deceive him fully.
What I did when I was lonely
and when no one else was there 425
in my shelter. That is something
he can never tell today.
(to Mercurius) If you say you’re Sosia,
when the legions fought most fiercely,
what did I do in my shelter?
I’m defeated if you say.

MERCURIUS From a cask of wine I filled

a pitcher.

SOSIA (to audience) He has started right.

MERCURIUS I then drained the unmixed wine,

like a baby from its mom. 430

SOSIA That’s the truth. Since there I drank

a pitcher of some unmixed wine.

33
 I’m astounded if he didn’t
hide inside that pitcher there.

MERCURIUS Now what? Do I prove to you

that you are not Sosia?

SOSIA (to Mercurius) You deny I’m me?

MERCURIUS Why should

I not deny, since I am me?

SOSIA Jupiter, I swear I’m me

and I do not tell a lie. 435

MERCURIUS By Mercurius I swear that

Jove does not believe in you.
I know he’ll believe me more
without an oath than you on oath.

SOSIA Who am I then if I’m not

Sosia? I’m asking you.

MERCURIUS When I’m Sosia no more,

you’ll be Sosia again.
Now, since I am he, you no-one,
you’ll be flogged unless you flee. 440

SOSIA (to audience) Pol, when I examine him,

and compare my countenance,
how I stand – I mirror-gaze
a lot – he’s quite alike to me.
Hat and outfit just like mine
he’s got. He’s as alike as I am.
Shinbone. Footprint. Stature. Haircut.
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose.
Jawline. Chin, and beard, and throat.
Everything. Well, why waste words? 445
If his back is full of scars,
nothing’s more alike in likeness.

34
 When I think, I’m sure I am
the same that I have always been.
It’s our house, I know my boss.
My faculties are full; I feel.
I won’t yield to him and what
he says. So at the door I’ll knock.

MERCURIUS Where you heading?

SOSIA (to Mercurius) Home.

MERCURIUS If you now

climbed into Jove’s chariot, 450
fled from here, you’d hardly be
set to flee catastrophe.

SOSIA May I not announce to mistress

what my boss told me to say?

MERCURIUS If you wish, announce to yours.

Ours in here I won’t allow.
If you bother me, today
what you’ll suffer here’s a hip-wreck.

SOSIA Deathless gods! I’d rather leave.

I beseech you for your help. 455
Where’d I die? Where was I changed?
Wherever did I lose my looks?
Did I leave my self behind,
if maybe I forgot myself?
He now holds all that I was
before this, a perfect likeness.
I’m alive, but when I’m dead
no one will look like this for me.°

°
Roman funeral processions included wax ancestor masks (imagines, sing. imago, translated
here as “perfect likeness”) worn and usually kept prominently in a closed cabinet in the house.
Sosia appropriates the position of a Roman citizen (and so speaking metatheatrically as the
actor?) and laments that Mercurius is wearing his face as in a funeral procession. For a
variation on this theme, see also John Woo (dir.), Face/Off (1997).

35
 I’ll go to the port and tell
my boss the things that happened here, 460
granted he knows who I am.
May Jupiter himself make sure that
I today will shave my head,
and bald, take up a freedman’s cap.°

Exit SOSIA, to the harbour.

Scene 3

MERCURIUS alone.°
ia6
MERCURIUS (to audience) This job today has gone quite well for me.
I nudged a nasty nuisance from the doors
so dad was safe and free to fondle her. 465
Now when he finds Amphitruo his boss
he’ll say slave Sosia sent him away,
then he will think he’s lying to himself
and won’t believe he came here as he should.°
Mistakes and madnesses I’ll make for both 470
of them and all Amphitruo’s household,
until my dad has had his fill of her
whom he’s seduced. And then at last will all
know what’s occurred: then Jupiter will guide
Alcumena to former wedded peace. 475
Amphitruo’s about to start a fight,
declare his wife’s disgrace. But then my dad
will stop her separation from him still.

°
Manumitted slaves shaved their heads and wore a felt cap to mark their transition into a new
status. Survivors of shipwreck (alluded to at 454) might do the same. Sosia ironically invokes
Jupiter (inside, with Alcumena) to bring it about that he is freed for all he has suffered today.
Possibly, he also realizes that if his master does not recognize him, he has no master.
°
“When the gods are alone, that is [when] they address the audience, they regain their divine
status and stop playing the human character whose costume they wear” (Dupont 2001: 181).
°
466-69. The referents for the pronouns are equally ambiguous in the Latin: when Sosia finds
Amphitruo, Amphitruo will say “Sosia” [i.e. Mercurius] sent Sosia away, and Amphitruo will
think Sosia is lying to Amphitruo, and so Amphitruo will not believe Sosia came here [i.e. to
Amphitruo’s house] as he ought to have done.

36
 About Alcumena I didn’t say
before: she’s giving birth to twins today!° 480
One son’s Amphitruo’s, the other’s Jove’s. 483
The younger son has got the greater dad,
and the reverse. So now you know what’s what. 485
To see Alcumena is honoured more,
my dad’s ensured that she be spared a twin
ordeal with birth and labour each made one,° 488
although, Amphitruo will learn it all 491
as I said just before. What then? No one
will think Alcumena’s to blame, it is
not fair a god should let his felony
and his own failure on a mortal fall. 495
The door creaks and opens.
I’ll stop my speech. The doors have creaked. Behold!
a substitute Amphitruo appears,
and with Alcumena, the wife on loan.
MERCURIUS steps to the side to listen.

°
Christensen (2000: 225-26) attributes these lines to a post-Plautine interpolator, since they
introduce an earlier visit by Jupiter, and make odd rationalizing claims about gestation.
Literally, they claim the elder son Iphicles was born in the tenth month (I assume inclusive
counting, and so the ninth by modern reckoning), and Heracles in the “seventh” month (i.e.
the sixth). We know Amphitruo impregnated her before he left (103, 1137) which was “ten”
months before (670). The calculation is at odds with the magically prolonged night in which
Jupiter has come. It’s also at odds with maternal biology, but that at least is presumed in the
story anyways.
[The one boy born in nine full months after
he was conceived, the other premature.]
°
Christenson (2000: 227) follows Leo in suggesting these lines were inserted from another
play. They ascribe an additional motivation, and 491-92 contradict them. The word stuprum
(translated here as “being raped”; “shameful sex” at 883, 898, 1016) refers to a wide range of
sexual disgrace; in this case Alcumena is morally unreproachable, but still unchaste in Roman
eyes. Two imperial Roman authors (Donatus, commentary on Terence, Adelphoe 666, and
Festus p. 61) assume the lines are by Plautus, but do not mention which play. If line 489-90 are
not here, they would be from a lost comedy and transferred here.
[she not take on the shame of being raped
and that the secret sex be well concealed]

37
 Scene 4

Enter from the house JUPITER, disguised as Amphitruo, but with a staff and a gold band on his hat,
and ALCUMENA, nine months pregnant.°

tr7
JUPITER Take good care, Alcumena,
as always of our shared concern.°
Please be careful, for you see
the months for you are coming due. 500
I must leave, but when it’s time,
be sure the child is registered.

ALCUMENA Husband, what’s this business why

you go away so suddenly from
home?

JUPITER It’s surely not, by Pol,

because I’m bored with you at home.
When the topmost general
is not there present with his troops,
what should not take place occurs
more quickly than what should take place. 505

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) He’s a very charming cheater

and he also is my dad.
Check him out, how pleasantly
he soothes the woman with his words.

ALCUMENA I’ve, by Castor, come to know

how highly you esteem your wife.

°
499. Phillips 1984 stresses the humour of Alcumena being so very pregnant, and it seems
certain this is reflected in her costume. This does not necessarily turn her into a figure of
ridicule, however – she is sincere, and desired. We might laugh at the men’s blinkeredness,
but not at her.
°
501. Literally, “be sure the child is lifted up” in the customary Roman practice of recognizing
paternity. Jupiter both ensures Hercules will not be exposed but treated as any Roman citizen
infant boy.

38
JUPITER Is it not enough that there’s
no woman that I love as much?

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) May your wife not come to know,

these things you’re getting done, by Pol.° 510
In that case I bet you’d rather
be Amphitruo than Jove.

ALCUMENA I’d prefer to come to know

than be reminded of your love.
You depart before the bed
where you have slept has gotten cold.
You came yesterday at midnight.
Now you go – that’s what you want?

MERCURIUS (unnoticed) I’ll approach and call to her,

And play the sycophant to dad. 515
(approaching, to Alcumena) I believe by Pol no mortal
man has ever loved his wife,
struck with love as much as this guy
dies for you while struck with love.

JUPITER (to Mercurius) Dead-meat-maker, don’t I know you?

Won’t you get far from my sight?
What concern of yours is this,
you punching bag? Don’t breathe a word.
Now this walking stick of mine will…

ALCUMENA Ah! I don’t…

JUPITER (to Mercurius) Don’t breathe a word. 520

MERCURIUS (to audience) My first try at sycophancy

almost ended in disaster.

°
510. There is ambiguity in the word “wife”, referring both to Jupiter’s divine wife Juno, and to
Alcumena, the wife of Amphitruo. Jupiter wants neither to find out the nature of his actions at
this time.

39
JUPITER (to Alcumena) As for what you said, my wife,
you shouldn’t be upset at me.
Secretly I slipped away,
I left my legion-tasks for you.
So that you could learn this from me,
how I saved the public good.
I related everything
to you. Unless I loved you most, 525
I’d not do so.

MERCURIUS It’s as I said!

Thus he soothes her shrinking self.

JUPITER So the troops don’t lack their orders,

secretly I’ll head back there,
so they will not say I hold
my wife above my state affairs.

ALCUMENA After your departure, you will

make your wife lament.

JUPITER Hush, hush.

Do not spoil your eyes. I’ll come
back quickly.

ALCUMENA Quickly’s far away. 530

JUPITER I don’t go away from here,

or leave you willingly.

ALCUMENA I know.
for you leave the very night
you came to me. She clings to him.

JUPITER Why hold me so?

It is time. I wish to leave
the town before it starts to dawn.
JUPITER elaborately produces a cup from somewhere and gives it to her.
Now to you this cup that was

40
 bestowed on me for honour’s sake,
from which drank King Pterela,
a man I killed with my own hand, 535
I give to Alcumena.
ALCUMENA takes the cup.
ALCUMENA You do as you always do.
Castor! What a precious prize,
just like he who gives the prize.

MERCURIUS Not at all! A precious prize,

just like she who’s given it.

JUPITER (to Mercurius) You still here? You cross-bound creep,

can I not get rid of you?

ALCUMENA No, Amphitruo, I beg you,

don’t blame Sosia for me. 540

JUPITER (to Alcumena) I’ll do as you wish.

MERCURIUS It’s love

that makes him act ferociously.

JUPITER Nothing else?

ALCUMENA When we’re apart,

we love the other when they’re gone.

MERCURIUS Come, “Amphitruo.” It’s light.

JUPITER (to Mercurius) Go ahead, now, “Sosia,”

I will follow.
MERCURIUS exits to the harbour.
(to Alcumena) Nothing else?

ALCUMENA Just come back quickly.

JUPITER Very well.

I’ll be back before you even

41
 know I’m gone. Now have good cheer. 545
ALCUMENA exits into the house.
You have waited for me, Night.
I bid you to yield to Day.
So that with light clear and pure
he’ll illuminate mankind.
Night, as much as you were longer
than the night we had before,
so much shorter will I make
this day be, to balance out.
Go! Let Day appear from Night.
I’ll pursue Mercurius. 550

Exit JUPITER to the harbour. An empty stage. [A short musical break.]°

Scene 5

AMPHITRUO enters from the harbour (not seeing Jupiter), followed by SOSIA and at least one other
enslaved person carrying baggage.° They are not yet at the door.

AMPHITRUO (singing) Come on, keep up.

SOSIA I follow, follow you.

AMPHITRUO You’re the worst.

SOSIA Why? Tell me more, please do!

AMPHITRUO By saying what’s impossible

You're making me irascible.
It isn’t now, it never was, nor ever shall be true.

°
Short musical interludes are suggested, e.g., but Plautus, Pseudolus 573a. Placing one here
ensures that the audience does not think Jupiter and Amphitruo see each other. Alternately,
Jupiter might hide until Amphitruo passes, preventing recognition and avoiding an empty
stage.
°
At line 854 (see note there), the plural hos suggests that they arrive with baggage carriers, who
remain onstage and remain unmentioned throughout what follows.

42
SOSIA Oh
That's so Amphitruo
Master don't you think you owe
Your closest aide a little trust
No wonder you're so strussed! 555

AMPHITRUO What? How so? By Herc, I’ll cut your tongue

For this, you wretch, It’s Götterdammerung!

SOSIA I’m your slave, and you can do with me

Whatever, till you’re through with me
But don't stop me averring
Things that were and are occurring. 560

AMPHITRUO You lie! In song! And this is what you’ve sung!

Though you're here beside me now (-s)
Somehow you're also in my house?

SOSIA I'm being honest with you, truly.

AMPHITRUO You'll be beaten black and bluely,

By the gods, and not unduly
by me too.

SOSIA I know my place.

But Master, dear - why the long face?

AMPHITRUO You punching bag, persisting with this mockery

And tales of idiotic poppy-cockery! 565
A thing that no one’s ever seen,
Because it never could have been:
That you're over there now, and in
fact I see you here - you're standin'
by my side. You can't be both
at once!
SOSIA Exactly - by my troth!

AMPHITRUO May Jove now ruin you for being so cocky!

43
SOSIA Do I deserve a kicking
From my boss? 570

AMPHITRUO Now time is ticking

You still chatter! You're to blame
You and your funny little game.

SOSIA If you can actually prove that I'm a liar

Then batter me and throw me in the deep fat friar
But I beg you, please be gracious
I would never be mendacious...

AMPHITRUO The man is drunk.

SOSIA I wish!

AMPHITRUO See he admits

His number one concern is dulling his own wits. 575

SOSIA (spoken) Eh?

AMPHITRUO Where did you get this wasted?

SOSIA I swear I haven't tasted…

AMPHITRUO Then who was this other fellow?

SOSIA For the tenth time - listen, Hello?!

Sosia was at the war
And he was also at our door!
It's quite a simple story
Did I tell it badly? Or he -'s
Drunk himself, why are all masters hypocrites!

AMPHITRUO Enough now, leave me please.

SOSIA What’s wrong? 580

AMPHITRUO You're addled, and diseased.

44
SOSIA Nah, I feel fine, come on, let's go
home safe and sound, Amphitruo.

AMPHITRUO You feel fine? You piece of trash, you

won't say that when I have thrashed you -
Now it's safe to go back home?!
And you traipse after me, vile gnome,
You dare to mock your boss? No need to ask - Oh!
What a deluded double-cross! What a fiasco! 585
tr7
Since you have not done the things
Your boss had ordered you to do,
Now you come here making mock
of master. With what you describe, which
couldn’t be, you dead-meat-maker,
no one’s ever heard of it.
But today I’ll see these lies
of yours will land upon your back.

SOSIA This despair’s the most despairing

for good slaves, Amphitruo, 590
speaking true things to their boss,
if the truth is trounced by toughness.

AMPHITRUO Howsoever could this be?

Dammit, think with facts for me.
You’re now here and at home too?
How that’s so, I want to know.

SOSIA Truly I am here and there.

You may marvel at this fact.
But this marvel seems no more
marvellous for you than me. 595

AMPHITRUO How?

SOSIA I swear, there’s nothing more

marvellous for you than me.
Gods adore me, I at first

45
 did not believe in Sosia,
till that Sosia himself
made me put my trust in me.
He laid it all out in order
what was done to make it so,
when we set against the foe,
he swiped my bearing and my name. 600
Milk’s no more alike with milk
than that me is alike with me.
When you sent me to our home,
from the port before first light…

AMPHITRUO What?

SOSIA … I was already there

before I came, before the door.

AMPHITRUO Damn this nonsense, are you sane?

SOSIA I am as you see I am.

AMPHITRUO (to audience) On this man an evil hand

has cast some evil – don’t know what – 605
after he had left me.

SOSIA I was
pummelled painfully with punches.

AMPHITRUO Who was beating you?

SOSIA Myself!
I, the me who’s now at home.

AMPHITRUO Be sure you don’t answer me

anything unless I ask.
First of all, I want this said:
who this Sosia might be.

SOSIA He’s your slave.

46
AMPHITRUO With you I’ve got
one more you than I still want. 610
In my life I’ve not had any
slave named Sosia save you.

SOSIA Now, Amphitruo, I say,

I’ll make sure at home you’ll find
Sosia the other slave
than me, I swear, when you arrive.
Child of Dave, the same as me,
with age and stature same as well.
What need now is there for words?
For you this Sosia is twinned. 615

AMPHITRUO You relate such massive marvels,

but did you also see my wife?

SOSIA I was not allowed to go

past the doors inside.

AMPHITRUO Who stopped you?

SOSIA Sosia, who all this time

I told you of, who pummelled me.

AMPHITRUO Who’s this Sosia?

SOSIA It’s me.

How often must I tell you this?

AMPHITRUO Listen up: did you just maybe

fall asleep?

SOSIA No, not at all. 620

AMPHITRUO Maybe there in sleep is where

you saw that certain Sosia.

SOSIA I’m not used to somnolently

follow orders from my boss.

47
 Wide awake I saw, awake
I still see now, awake I speak.
He, awake, a while back
pummelled me, awake, with punches.

AMPHITRUO Who is he?

SOSIA It’s Sosia,

I said. He’s me. What don’t you get? 625

AMPHITRUO Dammit, who could ever get it?

You are blabbing nonsense now.

SOSIA You will quickly see the truth

when you see slave Sosia.

AMPHITRUO Therefore follow me this way.

I must first sort out this mess.° 628
Would the gods make what you say
turn out to not be real today. 632

Scene 6

Enter ALCUMENA from the house. She does not notice AMPHITRUO and SOSIA, and the slave
with the baggage.

ALCUMENA (singing) Pleasure is the tiniest thing, isn’t it?

In life and through the passing of the years.
Small compared with things that are quite difficult
Every human life is marked by tears.

°
Leo and Ernout bracket 628-32, since the order to fetch the baggage contradicts the order to
follow Amphitruo; Christenson only brackets 628-31.
…[See that everything I ordered
Now is brought up from the ship.
SOSIA I’m attentive and I care
what you order should appear. 630
I did not gulp down your order
At the same time as the wine.
AMPHITRUO]

48
 That is how the gods seem to prefer it: 635
Sadness is the friend who comes along
Following behind, right after Pleasure.
That’s the lesson – take it from this song.

For each good thing, there’s trouble coming after.

I know this well, I learned it long before.
I was given pleasure only briefly.
I had him once, and still I need him more.
At dawn my husband left me. I’m alone now. 640
The man I love is going far away.
And the sickness, now he's gone is so much greater
than the pleasure he gave me yesterday.

At least today one thing can make me happy:

His enemy’s defeated - he'll come home.
Returning full of triumph, full of honour
A great relief to me and to all Rome.
He goes and he returns to bathe in glory.
And while he's gone, I live – that’s my reward. 645
My heart is resolute, and if I’m lucky
I'll be the wife of a hero of the war.
Who could ask for more? Therefore…

Courage is the greatest prize, isn’t it?

It stands apart, outshines all other ones:
Your self, your safety, freedom, home, possessions. 650
Courage before parents, before sons.
Things can be preserved, people protected
Courage carries everything within.
All good things belong to the courageous.
Let's hear it for the virtue masculine.
The same thing that you find reflected in
The hopes of an expectant heroine.°

°
In Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), the English poet William Webbe translated lines 649-53:
For if liberty, health, liuing, or substaunce,
Our Country, our parents, and children doo well,
It hapneth by vertue; she doth all aduaunce;
Vertue hath all thinges vnder gouernaunce:
And in whom of vertue is founde great plenty

49
tr7
AMPHITRUO (unnoticed by Alcumena) I believe when I come home
I’ll be quite welcome with my wife.
I love her, she loves me back,
above all with these deeds done well. 655
Rivals are defeated, those who
no one thought would be defeated.
I was leading and in charge;
we vanquished them when first we met.
She, awaiting my arrival,
yearns for me; of this I’m sure.°

SOSIA What? You don’t suppose my girl’s

not waiting my arrival too?°

ALCUMENA (noticing Amphitruo and Sosia, to audience)

Here’s my husband.

AMPHITRUO Follow me
this way.

ALCUMENA Why does he come back 660

When he just said he was rushed?
Perhaps he’s testing me on purpose,
And he wants to learn how much
I yearn for him when he’s away.
I am not averse, by Castor,
to receive him back again.

SOSIA We had best, Amphitruo,

go back to the ship.

AMPHITRUO How come?

Any thing that is good may neuer be dainty.

° 654-58. O’Neill 2013 argues that part of Amphitruo’s characterization is as a returning Roman
general, deserving a triumph. Passages like this therefore point to a formal welcome, from the
state, which the play gives no indication is coming.
°
This is the only indication that Sosia might have a sexual partner, which would likely be
imagined as another enslaved member of the household (and so Thelassa?).

50
SOSIA Since at home no one will give
some lunch to us when we arrive. 665

AMPHITRUO Why is this now on your thoughts?

SOSIA Since we’ve got here far too late.

AMPHITRUO Why?

SOSIA Because Alcumena

I see her by the door—she’s stuffed!

AMPHITRUO When I went away I left her

pregnant here.

SOSIA You’re killing me!

AMPHITRUO What is wrong with you?

SOSIA I’ve come

home in time to fetch her water.
If I reckon numbers right,
it’ll be her ninth month now. 670

AMPHITRUO So be glad!

SOSIA You know how glad

I am? When I pick up a bucket,
you, by Pol, will never trust me
even if I vow it later,
if I do not drain that well
of all its breath once I begin.

AMPHITRUO Follow me this way. Fear not.

I’ll pick another for this task.

ALCUMENA Now I’d show my proper duty

if I went to him, I think. 675
AMPHITRUO and ALCUMENA approach each other and embrace.

51
AMPHITRUO Happily Amphitruo
Greets his so long longed-for wife.
Of the Theban women, all,
her husband judges her the best.
Citizens of Thebes all rumour
her to be so virtuous.
Are you healthy? Are you sure?
Thrilled I’m back?

SOSIA (to audience) I never saw her

thrilled so much. She greets him barely
more than when she greets the dog. 680

AMPHITRUO Wonderful, to see you so

pregnant, and so full of… beauty.

ALCUMENA Castor! For what reason do you

tease me so, I beg of you,
when you greet and meet me thus –
as if you hadn’t, here at home,
seen me; like you’re just back now,
from the foe for the first time?
And you greet me just as if
you hadn’t seen me for so long? 685

AMPHITRUO I’ve not seen you anywhere

on earth today except just now.

ALCUMENA Why deny?

AMPHITRUO I’m taught to speak

the truth.

ALCUMENA It is not fair to un-teach

what’s been taught. Do you examine
what my disposition is?
But why do you come back so soon?
Were you stopped by horoscopes?

52
 Did the weather hold you back? 690
You did not go to the legions
as you said you would just now.

AMPHITRUO Just now? When was this “just now”?

ALCUMENA You tease. “Just now” means recently.

AMPHITRUO How could this be so, you ask?

“Recently”, and so “just now”?

ALCUMENA What’s your thinking? That I mock you

since you’re mocking me in turn?
You say now you’ve just come back?
You just went away from here. 695

AMPHITRUO This one, she speaks balderdash.

SOSIA Wait for just a little while,

while she sleeps off a certain sleep.°

AMPHITRUO Does she sleep while wide awake?

ALCUMENA I’m awake, by Castor, and

awake I’m saying what took place.
For just now before first light
I saw this one and you.

AMPHITRUO But where?

ALCUMENA Where you live inside these doors.

AMPHITRUO Never happened.

SOSIA Hush a sec. 700

Maybe while we slept, the ship

°
697. I follow Christenson’s understanding of unum somnum (“a single sleep”), but not
Fontaine’s suggestion (2005) that the line contains a corrupted version of the Greek word for
wine – “while in a vino doze she sleeps”

53
 brought us from the port to here.

AMPHITRUO You are also on her side?

SOSIA What do you desire be done?

Don’t you know? If you desire
to go against a crazy cultist,°
not just nuts, but nutzier
she’ll go, and hit you all the more.
If you listen, she will settle
for one punch.

AMPHITRUO But Pol it’s certain 705

I will scold her, since she didn’t
want to greet me when I came back
home today.

SOSIA You will stir up

A hornet’s nest.

AMPHITRUO Be quiet, you.

I would like, Alcumena,
To ask you one thing.

ALCUMENA Ask away.

AMPHITRUO Does absurdity approach or

overweening overcome you?

ALCUMENA How does it occur to you

to cross-examine me, my husband? 710

AMPHITRUO Since before this you would always

°
703. “Crazy cultist” (Bacchae bacchanti, “bacchic Bacchant”) refers to the female worshippers
of Dionysus. Scholars of Roman comedy are unable to let the opportunity pass by to mention
the senate’s suppression of the Bacchic cult in Italy in 186 BCE (Livy 39.8-19). The line makes
different sense in a play after 186 than one before, but whatever the date of the play (and I
accept a general c. 190 as a reasonable guess), the anxiety caused by the cult will have been felt
before the senate’s decree. Takács (2000) summarizes the historical events framing the event
less in terms of religion but in terms of the challenge to political order.

54
 greet me when I came back home,
speak to me exactly like
modest women greet their husbands.
Coming home, I find that you
have lost that custom which you had.

ALCUMENA When you came home yesterday

I surely greeted you, by Castor,
welcomed you, and at the same time
asked if you were well as well. 715
Then I took your hand, my husband,
and I offered you a kiss.

SOSIA Yesterday you welcomed him?

ALCUMENA And you also, Sosia.

SOSIA I had hoped, Amphitruo,

she would bear to you a son.
She’s not pregnant with a son.

AMPHITRUO What then?

SOSIA With insanity.

ALCUMENA I am sane of course and beg

the gods I bear a healthy son. 720
(to Sosia) You will get a big bad beating
if he does what duty asks.
For that omen, Captain Omen,°
you will get what you deserve.

SOSIA Pregnant women should be given

palm-I-granted – (to audience) pomegranate
so that she can chew on it,

°
722. “Captain Omen” (ominator) is an invented word modelled on imperator (general) or
gubernator (steersman).

55
 if she starts with morning sickness.°

AMPHITRUO (to Alcumena) Yesterday you saw me here?

ALCUMENA I say I did, ten times I say. 725

AMPHITRUO Sleeping, maybe?

ALCUMENA No, awake!

While wide awake.

AMPHITRUO O what a fate!

SOSIA What is wrong?

AMPHITRUO My wife’s gone mad.

SOSIA I am messed up with this bile.

Nothing forces people to be
quite so mad and quite so quick.°

AMPHITRUO Woman, when did you first feel that

these things were infecting you?

ALCUMENA I am sane and sound, by Castor.

AMPHITRUO Therefore why do you insist 730

that you saw me yesterday,
when we came to port this night?
There I dined and there I slept,
through the night within the ship.
I’ve not placed my foot within
these doors since when I first set out
with my army, where we won

°
723-24. The core of Sosia’s pun balances mālum (apple) and malum (bad thing, i.e. a beating;
see note on 27), threatening a beating and offering pomegranate (“Punic apple”) as a cure for
nausea.
°
727-28. Sosia connects the mental illness with a disruption of the humours, which somehow
also affects him as part of the household.

56
 against the Teleboean foe.

ALCUMENA No! In truth, you dined with me

and slept with me as well.°

AMPHITRUO I what? 735

ALCUMENA I speak truth.

AMPHITRUO On this, by Herc,

you don’t; on other things, who knows?

ALCUMENA At the break of day you left

back to your legions.

AMPHITRUO Huh? How so?

SOSIA She speaks right, as she remembers.

She is telling you her dream.
(to Alcumena) Now that you woke up, though, woman,
you should pray to Jove today,
he that turns away bad omens,
with salted grains or frankincense. 740

ALCUMENA Damn your head!

SOSIA So yours will be,

if you don’t tread carefully.

ALCUMENA (to Amphitruo) He insults me yet again

and without him being beaten.

AMPHITRUO (to Sosia) Quiet, you. (to Alcumena) And you now speak.
I left from here, from you at dawn?

ALCUMENA Who except for you could tell me

°Hough 1970 argues that this line, with its threefold cu-sound (mecum … mecum cubisti) creates
the sound of the cuckoo, a symbol of cuckoldry. It is a clever argument, and more persuasive
here than in the other lines he suggests (112, 290, 808, and 1122), in each of which there is
elision/ecthlipsis.

57
 how the battle went for you?

AMPHITRUO You know this?

ALCUMENA Of course. I heard

from you how you had sacked that 745
mighty town, and you yourself
had killed a king named Pterela.

AMPHITRUO I said this?

ALCUMENA Yes, you yourself.

And Sosia was standing by.

AMPHITRUO (to Sosia) You heard me say this to her

today?

SOSIA Where else would I have heard it?

AMPHITRUO Ask her.

SOSIA What I know is this

did not take place with me nearby.

ALCUMENA No surprise he doesn’t cross you.

AMPHITRUO Sosia, come, look at me. 750

SOSIA See, I look.

AMPHITRUO I tell the truth.

Do not simply side with me.
Did you hear me say to her
those things she says I said today?

SOSIA Please, by Pollux, are you also

crazy when you ask me this?
I myself see her just now
for the first time, same as you.

58
AMPHITRUO What now, woman? Do you hear him?

ALCUMENA I do hear him tell a lie. 755

AMPHITRUO You believe not him nor me,

your husband?

ALCUMENA This is so since

I believe myself the most
and I know things are as I said.

AMPHITRUO You say I came yesterday?

ALCUMENA You deny you left today?

AMPHITRUO I deny it fully and

I say I’ve come home now to you.

ALCUMENA Please, do you deny this too?

That you gave me a golden cup 760
as a gift today which you
were gifted with, when you were there?

AMPHITRUO Pol, I didn’t give or say it,

but I had it in my mind
that I give this cup to you
and so I’m here. Who told you this?

ALCUMENA I heard of the cup from you,

and I did take it from your hand.

AMPHITRUO (to Alcumena) Please be patient. Please, be patient.

(to Sosia) Sosia, I’m quite surprised 765
that she knows a golden cup
was given to me there, unless
you met her a while back
and you told her everything.

SOSIA Pol! I didn’t see or say

anything except with you.

59
AMPHITRUO What a person she must be!

ALCUMENA Do you want the cup?

AMPHITRUO I do.

ALCUMENA Good then. (shouting into the house) You there, Thessala,
bring the cup outside the house 770
that my husband brought today.

AMPHITRUO Sosia, come over here.

AMPHITRUO and SOSIA move to the side.
Truly if she has the cup,
I’ll be more astounded than by
other things astounding me.

SOSIA Do you believe that? It is sealed

With your seal inside this case.
SOSIA removes case from the luggage he had been carrying.

AMPHITRUO Seal’s secure?

SOSIA Check for yourself.

AMPHITRUO Good. It’s as I sealed it.

SOSIA Please,
why don’t you demand that she be 775
purified; she’s muy loca.°

AMPHITRUO This, by Pollux, must be done.

She, by Pollux, is filled up
with poltergeists.

Enter THESSALA, a female domestic slave, with a golden goblet.

°
776. “Muy loca” (a very crazy woman, Sp.) represents the (Oscan) word cerrita (= “woman
maddened by Ceres [Demeter]”); cf. fr. 8.

60
ALCUMENA (interrupting Amphitruo) What need for words?
THESSALA gives the cup to ALCUMENA.
Look, your cup.
AMPHITRUO Give it to me.

ALCUMENA Come, look here, right now, at this,

you who doubt what did take place.
ALCUMENA holds up the cup and shows it to Amphitruo.
I shall prove to you right here,
in plain sight, that it’s the cup
you gave me.

AMPHITRUO Highest Jupiter, 780

What is this? It is the cup,
for sure. I’m dying, Sosia.

SOSIA Pol, this woman either is

the greatest sorceress by far,
or the cup should be in here. He indicates the case.

AMPHITRUO Come then, open up the case.

SOSIA Why then should I open it?

It is sealed, and all is well.
(to Alcumena) You have twinned Amphitruo;
and I’m a second Sosia. 785
If the cup’s now twinned a cup,
we have all been doubled up.

AMPHITRUO I must check and open it.

SOSIA See then if the seal is yours,

so you don’t place blame on me
later on.

AMPHITRUO Then open it,

for indeed she plans to make

61
 us go crazy with her words.

ALCUMENA Where’s this from, if not from you,

a gift which you presented me? 790
She holds up the cup again.

AMPHITRUO This I must investigate.

AMPHITRUO and SOSIA unbreak the seal on the case and open it. The case is empty.

SOSIA Jupiter! By Jupiter!

AMPHITRUO What is wrong?

SOSIA There is no cup

inside this case.

AMPHITRUO What’s this I hear?

SOSIA It’s the truth.

AMPHITRUO Unless it’s here,

a death-by-cross for you is near.

ALCUMENA Here it does appear.

AMPHITRUO Well who

gave it to you?

ALCUMENA The one who asks.

She hands the cup to THESSALA, who takes it and exits inside.

SOSIA (to Amphitruo) You are tricking me since you

ran here in secret from the ship 795
on another street, and you
removed the cup from here,
gave it to her, and then you
in secret sealed it back again.

62
AMPHITRUO Ay, ay, ay! And now you too
are helping her insanity?
(to Alcumena) Did we come here yesterday?

ALCUMENA Yes, and when you came, right then, you

greeted me, as I did you,
and I gave to you a kiss. 800

AMPHITRUO I don’t like the sound of this,

about the kiss.° Now carry on.

ALCUMENA You did bathe.

AMPHITRUO And after that?

ALCUMENA You sat to eat.

SOSIA (to Amphitruo) Oh, very good!

Now inquire...

AMPHITRUO (to Sosia) Don’t interrupt.

(to Alcumena) You continue to describe.

ALCUMENA Dinner was laid out. You dined

with me, and I reclined with you.

AMPHITRUO Were we on the same recliner?

ALCUMENA Yes, the same.

AMPHITRUO I hate this feast.° 805

Let her give the evidence:
(to Alcumena) what then after we had dined?

°
801. Bothe, followed by Christenson, attributed the beginning of this speech to Sosia
(compare the interjection at 805)
°
805. This line is attributed to Sosia (cf. 801), with Amphitruo beginning at “Let her give…”. In
the mouth of Amphitruo they serve to emphasize his dawning realization of the situation she
describes.

63
ALCUMENA You were saying you were tired.
The table went; we went to bed.

AMPHITRUO Where did you sleep?

ALCUMENA In our room.

In the same bed next to you.

AMPHITRUO You have killed me!

SOSIA What is wrong?

AMPHITRUO She has sentenced me to die.

ALCUMENA What, my love?

AMPHITRUO Don’t speak to me.

SOSIA What is wrong?

AMPHITRUO You’re killing me. 810

While I was away this stain
was added to her “modesty”.

ALCUMENA Please, by Castor, husband mine,

why do I hear this from you?

AMPHITRUO I’m your husband? Faithless woman,

don’t call me that faithless name.

SOSIA This is sticky: he’s a she?

If not a husband, he’s a wife.

ALCUMENA (ignoring Sosia) What did I do that deserves

that I be called with such a name? 815

AMPHITRUO You yourself said what you did,

and you ask me what you did wrong.

ALCUMENA What did I do wrong to you,

64
 when I was with the one I wed?

AMPHITRUO You had been with me? Oh, what

is bolder than a shameless wife?
If you lack in modesty,
you might as well take out a loan.

ALCUMENA You accuse me of this deed,

which does not befit our clan. 820
If you try to catch me in some
shameless action, you cannot.

AMPHITRUO O immortal gods! At least

do you know me, Sosia?

SOSIA Yes, I do.

AMPHITRUO Did I then dine

at the Port of Persicus?

ALCUMENA There are also witnesses

who will attest to what I say.

SOSIA I don’t know what I can say

on this affair unless there is some 825
alternate Amphitruo,
who though you’re absent yet perhaps
tends your tasks, and though you’re absent
carries out your duties too.
Since the pseudo-Sosia
seems to be so very strange,
surely stranger still is this
alternate Amphitruo.

AMPHITRUO Some thaumaturgist or other

makes this woman seem a fool. 830

65
ALCUMENA I swear by the Great King’s kingdom,°
by the holy goddess mother
Juno, whom I do respect
and rightly fear especially:
save for you alone, no mortal’s
touched my body with his body.
That would make me be immodest.°

AMPHITRUO I would wish these words were true.

ALCUMENA I speak truth, but it’s for nothing,

since you do not wish to trust. 835

AMPHITRUO You’re a woman, you swear boldly.

ALCUMENA She who’s done no wrong should be

Bold. She should speak for herself
forcefully and daringly.

AMPHITRUO Bold enough.

ALCUMENA As fits a modest

woman.

AMPHITRUO You are good in word.

ALCUMENA What I brought into this marriage

isn’t what was called a dowry.
Rather it’s my modesty,
shame, my well controlled-desires, 840
fear of gods, and love of parents,
harmony with relatives,
deference to you, and giving

°
831. The “Great King” is Jupiter. The irony is operating at two levels: not only is her oath
accurate (no mortal has touched her body) but the one who has done so is one of the gods by
which she swears.
°
Porter 2008 explores the way that Alcumena’s oath plays off expectations of the traditional
deceptive adultery oath. What she says is correct, of course – no mortal has touched her body
– but it is not a deliberate deception on her part.

66
 to the worthy, help the good.

SOSIA (to audience) If she speaks the truth, by Pollux,

is she not completely perfect?

AMPHITRUO (to Sosia) I am so completely smitten

That I don’t know who I am.

SOSIA You’re Amphitruo completely –

see that you don’t lose yourself. 845
People now appear to change
so often since we’ve come back home.

AMPHITRUO Woman, I won’t let this matter

stand without investigation.

ALCUMENA Pollux, do it. I’ll be happy.

AMPHITRUO What is that? Just answer me.

What if I should bring your kinsman
Naucrates here from our ship, [NOW-kra-TEEZ
he who made a single journey
on a single ship with me? 850
If he said things aren’t as you say,
what result would you say’s fair?
Would you not say I had reason
To divorce you right away?

ALCUMENA If I did some wrong, you would.

AMPHITRUO It’s agreed.° You, Sosia,

Bring them in,° and I’ll bring with me

°
852-53. As Braund (2005: 52-55) discusses, the reference to divorce here is a moment of great
tension in the play, and is part of the reason that Jupiter comes onstage to alleviate the
legitimate anxieties at least some in the audience might feel at this point. See also 928.
°
854. duc hos intro. The plural hos is the only indication that there are further attendants. With
a minimum cast allocation, it is possible that these roles are played by the Jupiter and
Mercurius actors, but the line can make sense in English with reference to bags only Sosia has
carried.

67
 Naucrates back from the ship.

Exit AMPHITRUO to the harbour.

SOSIA Now that there is no one with us,

tell me truly, earnestly: 855
is another Sosia
in there who is just like me?

ALCUMENA Leave me be, slave who deserves

your master.

SOSIA I go, as you wish.

Exit SOSIA (and other servants) with baggage into the house.
ALCUMENA Truly it’s a strange event
by Castor, that my husband thinks it’s
right to charge me in this way
wrongly of so bad an action.
I’ll soon learn what it might be
from my kinsman, Naucrates. 860

ALCUMENA exits into the house.

Scene 7

Enter JUPITER, from the harbour.

ia6
JUPITER (to audience) Amphitruo’s my name, and Sosia,
my slave, becomes Mercurius at times.
I live up there, up on the highest floor,
and when it suits, I’m Jupiter as well.
When here I make my entrance, on the spot 865
“Amphitruo” I am, and change my clothes.
I come here now for your dear sake, so that
I don’t conclude this comedy too soon. °

°863-68. “These words may be understood in three different ways, uttered by three different
speakers. First, a comic Jupiter. He relates his adventure in a tone of parody and describes

68
 I’ve also come to bring Alcumena
some help, whom, free of shame, Amphitruo 870
indicts. The fault is mine, which I contrived,
if innocent Alcumena is blamed.
So as I started, I’ll pretend to be
Amphitruo, and I will throw this house
today into the greatest puzzlement. 875
Then after that I’ll see that all’s made clear,
and I will help Alcumena in time.
I’ll see that she delivers without pain
her husband’s child and mine, the both at once.
I told Mercurius to follow straight 880
in case I had a job.
Enter ALCUMENA from the house. She does not see Jupiter.
I’ll speak to her.

ALCUMENA (to audience) I can’t remain inside. Accused by him

of cheating, shameful sex, adultery.
He cries aloud that what’s not done was done,
says what’s not happened I am guilty of, 885
and trusts I’ll think this all beside the point.
I’ve done no wrong, by Pollux. I won’t bear
the shame of false indictment. Either he’ll
apologize or else I will leave him.
For I am blameless of what he’s alleged. 890

JUPITER (to audience) I have to do what she demands if I’m

to lure her back to me as her true love.
Since what I did has hurt Amphitruo,
and my romance has caused such strife for him.
He’s blameless, and though I am blameless too 895
his rage at her and curses fall on me.

Olympus as an upper chamber; on this reading huc [“here”] denotes the earth, the world of
mortals. One may also find here the actor evoking his wretched garret on the top floor of an
insula, which he leaves to play Jupiter and Amphitruo; huc thus becomes the stage in the
theatre. This level may be thought to exist at odds with the earlier suggestion that the actor
playing Jupiter is a slave (lines 26-27). A third speaker is possible, a tragic Jupiter; that god
wedged into the tiny balcony for divine appearances above the stage wall, the theologeion,
called here the superius cenaculum [“highest floor”]. … In the same way, when he intervenes as
ringmaster, Jupiter does the work of a dramatic poet…” (Dupont 2001: 183).

69
ALCUMENA (noticing Jupiter) But look, I see him there who falsely swears
that I’ve had shameful sex.

JUPITER Let’s speak, my wife.

He reaches for her, and ALCUMENA turns away.
Hey, why do you pull back?

ALCUMENA It’s my innate

nature. I always hate to look on foes. 900

JUPITER Oh come, we’re foes?

ALCUMENA It’s so. I speak the truth.

Unless you claim that even this is false?

JUPITER You’re very angry.

He tries to hold her.

ALCUMENA Can’t you watch your hands?

She pulls away again.
For certain, if you’re sane and had some sense,
You would not speak, in jest or earnestly, 905
with someone who you called and judged unchaste.
Unless you’re dumber than the dumbest dolt.

JUPITER My words don’t make it so, and I believe

you, so I have returned to make amends.
For never was my heart so sick as when 910
I heard that you were angriest at me.
“You said this, why?” you ask; I will explain.
It’s not because I thought you were unchaste.
I tested if your heart was truly true,
what you would do, and how, if you’re accused. 915
I said these things to you before in jest.
ALCUMENA slaps him.
It was a joke. Just go ask Sosia.

70
ALCUMENA Why don’t you bring my kinsman Naucrates?
Did you not say before you’d bring him here
to be a witness?

JUPITER If I made a jest, 920

it isn’t fair that you treat it as real.

ALCUMENA Everything I know’s destroyed my heart.

JUPITER (reaching for her hand) By your right hand, Alcumena, I beg
you please, give way to me. Be calm. Forgive.

ALCUMENA My virtue made these words of no account. 925

Now since I’ve kept away from unchaste deeds
I want to stay away from unchaste words.
Farewell. You’ll keep what’s yours; I’ll take what’s mine.°
Let servants come.

JUPITER Are you insane?

ALCUMENA If not,
°
I’ll go alone, with just my Chastity. 930
She starts to leave.

JUPITER Hold on. I’ll swear an oath on terms you state

that I believe my wife is truly chaste.
(to the heavens) And if I lie, I ask you, Highest Jove,
be always angry with Amphitruo.°

ALCUMENA draws out the moment. She and JUPITER lock eyes, and she relents.

°
928. This is a formal formula of divorce adapted from the Twelve Tables, sufficient under
Roman law. Alcumena acts on the threat she had made at 899 (see on 852-53, and Rosenmeyer
1995: 213-15).
°
930. Alcumena presents her chastity (pudicitia), as if it were a companion or slave that would
always be with her.
°
931-34. For Jupiter’s misleading oath, see Rosenmeyer 1995: 216-17.

71
ALCUMENA Let him wish him well.

JUPITER I’m sure he will. 935

I swore a trusty oath to answer you.
So now you are not mad?

ALCUMENA I’m not.

JUPITER Well, good.

In human life, does much turn out just so.
They seek for pleasure then they seek for pain.
Angers erupt, and then comes calm again. 940
And if some angers just like this arise
between them, and if apologies ensue,
then things are twice as friendly than before.

ALCUMENA To start it shouldn’t have been said at all,

but if you show remorse, it can be borne. 945

JUPITER Then order clean equipment be prepared,

so all the vows I made while on campaign
if I came home again, I’ll now fulfill.°

ALCUMENA I shall do that.

JUPITER And call out Sosia,°

so he can fetch our helmsman Blepharo 950 [BLEFF-ah-ROH
for he’s with us on ship, and we’ll have lunch.
(to audience) He will be lightly made a lunch-less fool,
when by the throat I drag Amphitruo.°

°946-8. Jupiter continues to pay the role of Amphitruo, with reference to vows made on the
battlefield (O’Neill 2003: 15). This is part of the characterization of Amphitruo as a returning
general deserving a triumph (see on lines 654-58).
°949. It is not clear whether someone responds to this, or if mentioning the desire for Sosia to
appear is sufficient to bring him out (956). If Alcumena goes to the door, we do not hear her
shout within (compare 770), but it does explain why she does not hear the rest of Jupiter’s
speech (see 954).
°952-3. Normally with sacrifice, half of the offering notionally goes to the gods (the savour and
smoke of the burnt sacrificial animals), the rest (the meat) is divided between those

72
 from here.

ALCUMENA (to audience) I wonder what he wordless says.°

Enter SOSIA from the house.
The door reveals that Sosia appears. 955

Scene 8
tr7
SOSIA I am here, Amphitruo.
What you command, is what I’ll do.

JUPITER Sosia, it’s good you’re here.

SOSIA Is there peace between you now?

I am happy and rejoice,
when I see you both unperturbed.
It seems right then if a slave
makes himself seem decent too.
As his bosses are, so he
should be. His face should match their face. 960
He’ll be sad, when boss is sad,
and he be glad, if they rejoice.
Come, then, answer this. Have you
returned into a peaceful state?

JUPITER You are teasing, since you know

I said these things before in jest.

SOSIA Did you speak in jest? I thought

for sure that you were serious.

JUPITER I have had a scouring.

Peace is made.

celebrating the sacrifice. By imitating Amphitruo, Jupiter has found a way to get both parts of
the sacrifice, and Amphitruo is left without lunch.
°954. Asides are inevitably awkward in a play where characters are often aware of the
audience. Nevertheless, Jupiter’s threat against Amphitruo must be said out of earshot of
Alcumena, and so the convention is used.

73
SOSIA That’s excellent. 965

JUPITER I’ll address divine affairs

inside, all that was vowed.

SOSIA Good plan.

JUPITER You invite the helmsman here

from the ship, with my own words,
Blepharo, so he with me
can eat post-sacrificial lunch.

SOSIA I will be back here while you

think I’m still there.

JUPITER Just come right back.

Exit SOSIA to the harbour.

ALCUMENA You don’t mind if I go in?

I’ll prepare what is required. 970

JUPITER Sure thing, go. And see that all

is ready soon as possible.

ALCUMENA You come in when you might like.

I’ll see there will be no delay.

JUPITER You speak properly, and it’s

exactly as a good wife should.
Exit ALCUMENA into the house.
ia6° (to audience) Now both the slave and mistress have been duped.
They wrongly think that I’m Amphitruo. 975

°
974-83. Jupiter introduces a short passage of iambics here (and at 1131-43). Contrary to what I
believed in 2006, I now feel such an “interruption” in the music does not mark the beginning
of a new arc – the accompanied passage continues. This principle then helps make sense of
the arc structure in Terence’s plays, where such short interruptions are even more regular.

74
 He speaks telepathically to Mercurius.
Now Sosia Divine, be present here.
You hear my words although you are not here.
Now keep away Amphitruo when he
returns. Invent whatever scheme you like.
I want them to be fooled, while I pass time 980
now with the wife on loan. Ensure these things
are done exactly as you think I want.
And you’ll help, as I sacrifice to me.

Exit JUPITER into the house.

Scene 9

Enter MERCURIUS, from the harbour (or through the audience?), rushing.°
ia8
MERCURIUS (to audience) Get out the way! Make way, you all! Clear a path for me!
May no one be so unafraid that they would block my way. 985
Should I be less allowed, by Herc, to threaten those who don’t
clear off, since I’m a god? I’m like a slave in comedy.
The slave says an old man arrives, or that the ship is safe.
I listen to the word of Jove, and come at his command.
And so it’s best to clear the way! Clear the road for me! 990
My father calls, and I obey, on his commanding word.
So be a good son to your dad, just like I am to mine.
I help his love, I urge, stand by, I warn and I rejoice.
If my dad has some passion, it becomes my passion too.
He loves; he’s wise. He does what’s right when acting on an urge. 995
All humans should behave like this, if moderation rules.
My dad now wants Amphitruo be tricked. I’ll see that he
is duped, o audience, right now, before your very eyes.
I’ll cap my cranium with crowns, and I’ll feign drunkenness.
He looks at the roof of the house.
And I’ll climb up. From there I’ll send the man away in style, 1000
from up on high, when he arrives. Sloshed, though he’ll be sober.

°
984. Mercurius performs the stock routine of the “running slave” (servus currens), as is
acknowledged metatheatrically in 987-88.

75
 Then Sosia his slave will suffer sentence straightaway.
He’ll blame him for what I’ve done today. But do I care?
I ought to help my dad, since I’m enslaved to his behests.
Enter AMPHITRUO, from the harbour.
But here he comes, Amphitruo. Now he will properly 1005
be duped, if you would like to listen to the plan I give.
I’ll go backstage, and find a costume fitting for a drunk.
Then I’ll climb on the roof so I can keep him far away.

Exit MERCURIUS into house.

tr7
AMPHITRUO (to audience) Naucrates I’d hoped to meet,
but he was not aboard the ship.
I could not find any one
at home, in town, who had seen him. 1010
I had crept all through the plazas,
gyms, and the perfumeries,°
at the market, at the butcher’s,
wrestling rings, and in the forum,
at the doctor’s, at the barber’s,
and in every sacred space.
I’m exhausted now from seeking –
nowhere I find Naucrates.
Now I’ll go back home and ask
my wife again about this problem, 1015
who it was with whom she filled
her body through her shameful sex.
I’d prefer to be a dead man
than allow this question to
stay unanswered here today.
He tries the door and is unable to open it.
The door is bolted. That’s just great.
This is being done exactly
as the others. I will knock.
Open up. Hey, who is here?

°
For perfumeries as a place people would loiter in the Greek world, see Lysias 24.20 and
Pherecrates fr. 70 (Storey 2011: 2.451).

76
 Who can open up this portal? 1020
MERCURIUS appears on the roof, wearing a garland and holding a bottle.

MERCURIUS Who is at the door?

AMPHITRUO I am.

MERCURIUS Which “I am”?

AMPHITRUO It’s as I said.

MERCURIUS Jove and all the gods are angry

at the one who pounds this door.

AMPHITRUO Why is that?

MERCURIUS It’s for this reason:

so you’ll live your life accursed.

AMPHITRUO Sosia!

MERCURIUS I’m Sosia,

unless you think that I’ve forgotten.
What is up?

AMPHITRUO You crook, you ask me

what I wanted, even now? 1025

MERCURIUS Yes, I ask. You almost broke

the bolts, you dolt, upon the door.
Do you think we purchase portals
charging to the public purse?
Why d’you stare, you stupid dope?
What d’you want? Or what’s your name?

AMPHITRUO (threatening to beat him) Punching bag, you’re asking still

77
 who I am? You’re an elm-rod graveyard.°
For these words today, by Pol,
I will see you shine with scars. 1030

MERCURIUS In your youth once long ago

you must have squandered all your cash.

AMPHITRUO Why is that?

MERCURIUS Because you’re begging

now you’re older… for a beating.

AMPHITRUO Sling these words, you household slave,

you’ll swing today then, from a cross.

MERCURIUS (holding up the bottle) I will sacrifice to you.

AMPHITRUO Why?

MERCURIUS For glory in misfortune. 1034

AMPHITRUO I’ll give glory with a cross

and crucifixion, whipping post.° fr. 1

This is where the text breaks off, since several pages were lost from the manuscripts sometime
between the fifth and tenth centuries. This exchange between Amphitruo and Mercurius
continues, and based on surviving fragments, it seems the following action takes place.
Mercurius threatens Amphitruo if he knocks at the door any more.° Mercurius denies
Amphitruo is who he is. Instead, he pretends Amphitruo is inside:

MERCURIUS Boss Amphitruo is busy… fr. 2

°
1029. Lit. “an Acheron of elms”. The Acheron is a river in the underworld, and elm-rods were
used for beating those who were enslaved. Amphitruo suggests Mercurius (whom he believes
to be Sosia) has caused the “death” of many switches.
°
Fr. 1. Mastigia. Similar to Verbero (see 284), but built from a Greek root. Fr. 1, appears to be from
the start of the missing passage.
°
Fr. 11 shoes this action must have taken place.

78
 Mercurius attempts to drive him away:

MERCURIUS There’s still time to get away. fr. 3

He even threatens to throw down something from his high perch. Maybe ashes:

MERCURIUS On your head by every right

a bowl of ashes could be smashed. fr. 4

Maybe water on his head:

MERCURIUS You’d be asking for a flask

of water dumped upon your jug. fr. 5

In the end, he likely pours whatever his is drinking onto Amphitruo. Amphitruo is angry, and
Mercurius (as Sosia) accuses him of being possessed.

MERCURIUS Plagued by demons, what a wretched

man, by Pollux. Find a doctor. fr. 6

Triumphant, Mercurius leaves the roof and goes back in the house. Amphitruo is left alone on
stage.
We do not know in what order the lines were originally delivered.

Scene 10

Possibly AMPHITRUO gives a brief speech to the audience, but no lines from this speech
survive. ALCUMENA emerges from the house, and is surprised to find Amphitruo outside,
since she has recently left Jupiter disguised as Amphitruo inside. When Amphitruo renews his
accusations (unexpectedly from her perspective), she reminds him that they had just made up:
ia6
ALCUMENA You swore you said it to me all in jest.° fr. 7

Echoing Mercurius (fr. 6), she urges him to seek medical help:

ALCUMENA I beg you, cure your sickness at its source. fr. 8

°
Fr. 7. Alcumena remembers Jupiter’s words to her at 916.

79
 You are possessed or muy loco…°

Alcumena insists on her integrity:

ALCUMENA Unless it happened as I swear it did, fr. 9

there is no bar to say that I’m unchaste.

She goes back inside the house. Amphitruo, talking to himself, continues to suggest Alcumena
has become a prostitute:

AMPHITRUO …for whom? She lent her body, with me gone. fr. 10

We do not know in what order the lines were originally delivered.

Scene 11

Enter SOSIA with the helmsman BLEPHARO, from the harbour.° AMPHITRUO does not
know why Belpharo has been summoned; he had been looking for Naucrates. He also doesn’t
know why Sosia is no longer drunk, and why he’s denying that he poured wine on him.
Amphitruo tries to establish the facts of their previous interaction:
tr7
AMPHITRUO What did you say that you’d do
if I pounded on these doors?° fr. 11

He also threatens Sosia with an extraordinary punishment of manual labour:

AMPHITRUO You’ll be digging more than sixty

ditches for me every day.° fr. 12

BLEPHARO intercedes on behalf of the enslaved person:

°
Fr. 8. Alcumena echoes the accusation at 776-77.
°
Perhaps Blepharo is nearsighted (and presented as an older man) since his name suggests
“eyes” and his job depends on keen vision.
°
Fr. 11. Amphitruo is remembering the curses threatened at 1022, which strongly suggests
Sosia is onstage, though none of his lines survive. There is also an echo of Sosia, having been
threatened by Mercurius at 450-54 with “hip-wreck”.
°
Fr. 12. Five ancient sources quote this line, each differently and none correctly.

80
BLEPHARO Calm yourself. fr. 14

But Amphitruo rejects any possibility of tolerance for Sosia:

AMPHITRUO Don’t ask something for that scum.° fr. 13

Sosia is driven away, perhaps back to the ship.

We do not know in what order the lines were originally delivered.
AMPHITRUO knocks at the door, and JUPITER answers. This is the meeting we have been
waiting for. The two see each other, and Amphitruo assumes that the other version of him is
sleeping with his wife:

AMPHITRUO Have you any shame, you crook,

to come into the sight of all? (he gestures to audience) fr. 17°

Jupiter’s strategy is to pretend to be Amphitruo, and the two begin grappling each other:

JUPITER By his twisted throat I hold

this shameful thief of wives, exposed. fr. 15

AMPHITRUO I hold him! You Theban citizens!

He ensnared my wife at home fr. 16
disrespectfully, a treasure
trove of shocking, shameful sex.

The actions of the divine Amphitruo have occurred within,

speaker uncertain privately. fr. 18

The text continues after several minutes of stage time (let’s assume they were hilarious) until
finally Amphitruo appeals to BLEPHARO to identify his captain, but the helmsman cannot.
The play resumes from here:

JUPITER (to Blepharo) You cannot determine which

°
Fr. 13. Reading pessumo. Lindsay and De Melo prefer pessumae (feminine) which would refer
to Alcumena (“Don’t ask something for that bitch”). If this were the case, then Amphitruo’s
rage somehow gets redirected against his wife.
°Fr. 17. Given that Jupiter is brazenly pretending that he is Amphitruo, there is no reason this
line could not have been delivered by him.

81
 of us two’s Amphitruo.° fr. 19

BLEPHARO You can share her, both of you.

I am going, I have business. 1035
(to audience) I think I have never, ever
seen such unexpected things.

AMPHITRUO Blepharo, please be my witness.

Do not go away.

BLEPHARO I’m off.

Why do you need me as witness,
when I don’t know which I saw?
Exit BLEPHARO, to the harbour.
ALCUMENA gives a shout from within, indicating the beginning of her labour.°
JUPITER I will go, Alcumena
is giving birth inside.°

AMPHITRUO I’m dead!

Exit JUPITER into the house.
Wretched me, what should I do?
My witnesses and friends have fled. 1040
Pollux! What’s-his-name, that guy
will never trick me unavenged.
I’ll go straight unto the king
and tell him all that’s happened here.
Pol! I’ll find revenge this day,
on that Thessalian sorcerer!°

°
Fr. 19. Possibly this line is delivered by Amphitruo, as he realizes his appeal will not work.
°
1038. I believe this is not divine knowledge, but the recognition of a traditional comic routine
(cf. Aulularia 691-2, and Terence, Andria 473, Adelphoe 486-7, and Hecyra 318).
°
1039. Jupiter’s decision to go into the house shows him usurping the expected role of
Amphitruo, in a non-sexual context. This is the only instance I know of where a male figure
wants to be present at the birth of their own offspring.
°
1043. Thessaly was a land of spellcasters (see, for example, Apuleius, Golden Ass
[Metamorphoses] 1.2-3). The word veneficium is literally a poisoner, which points to the

82
 He’s distraught my household’s brains
and left them dazed in disarray.
Where is he? He went inside,
by Pol, I think, to see my wife. 1045
No one else in Thebes lives worse
than I do! What should I do now?
Every human mocks me freely,
and they don’t know who I am?
He draws his sword.
One thing’s sure: I’ll burst inside
the house, and when I spot someone,
whether it’s a slave or slave-girl,
or my wife, or else her lover,
or my dad or grand-dad that
I see, I’ll murder them inside. 1050
Neither Jove nor all the gods
will stop this, even if they want to.
I shall do this as I’ve planned.
I’ll go inside now right away.
AMPHITRUO turns to enter the palace, and a loud peal of thunder is heard. Amphitruo
collapses face-down.
Enter BROMIA, one of the enslaved women in Amphitruo’s household.°
ia8
BROMIA (to audience) The hope and help to keep my life lie buried in my chest.
There’s no assurance in my heart, since I have let it go.
For everything now seems to chase me – earth and sea and sky – 1055
I’m overwhelmed, o wretched me, and I’m about to die
What can I do? So strange inside. Woe for wretched me.
My spirit’s down, I need a drink. I’m ruined and I’m wrecked.
My head’s in pain, don’t hear a thing, my eyes don’t look ahead.
No sadder woman does exist, nor could one seem to be. 1060
My mistress met with such a fate, and then her water broke.

suspicion and threat posed by magic. At 777 it was clear that there was an enslaved Thessalian
woman in the house.
°
The name Bromia suggests “the noisy one”, evocative of the thunder just heard and also
perhaps of the god Bacchus.

83
 (singing) There was never a maid rotunder
as she called the gods in wonder
And the sky was ripped asunder
With a crash so loud it stunned her: [crash smash bang boom blast]
How quick, how close the thunder!
and someone (no one knew who, knew who, knew who)
shouted loudly “Yoo-hoooooooooooooooooo….

“Fear not, my dear, it's ME!

The supreme deity,
Appearing helpfully
To tell you: all will be... [wait for it...]
...just fine! Hunky-dory." 1065
Since I was thrown aground, aground, aground
I stood back up astoooooooooooooooun-
-ded.

The burning house was brightened

Alcumena, enlightened
Called out for me, still frightened
In an anxious state most heightened [this is the best bit]
And I learned as her face whitened,
That amidst all of that noisy noisy, noise
She’d delivered two twin boooooooys: 1070
While the fire and thunder smote us, smote us, smote us
No-one even nooooooooooooooooooooticed
But oh
There's an old man in a poor way
Spreadeagled by our doorway
By Jove has he been struck?
I think he has, by Pol, bad luck!
Alas he must be dead, poor schmuck.

Get it together, Bromia,

Honour him with encomia…
I’ll approach - it's best to know...
Eek! [shouted:] It’s my boss, Amphitruo! 1075
ia8
(to Amphitruo) Amphitruo!

84
AMPHITRUO I’m dead.

BROMIA Get up.

AMPHITRUO I’m buried.

BROMIA Take my hand.

AMPHITRUO Who holds me?

BROMIA Your slave Bromia.

AMPHITRUO I’m thunder-struck by Jove.

I feel like I’ve just come from hell. But why’d you come outside
the house?

BROMIA We women were afraid, struck with a common dread

inside the house where you do live. I saw such marvels. Woe! 1080
Amphitruo, now my mind’s gone as well.

AMPHITRUO Come on, explain:

D’you know me as Amphitruo, your boss?

BROMIA Yes.

AMPHITRUO Check.

BROMIA I do.

AMPHITRUO (to audience) Of all my household she alone still has a healthy mind.

BROMIA No, we are all now fully sane.

AMPHITRUO My wife makes me insane

due to her sordid deeds.

BROMIA But still, I’ll make you change that tune. 1085
tr7 Dutiful and chaste, Amphitruo,
is how you’ll know your wife to be.
Signs of how this is I’ll say

85
 in outline with a shortened speech.
First of all: Alcumena
Has given birth to double sons.

AMPHITRUO You say twins?

BROMIA It’s twins.

AMPHITRUO O gods
protect me.

BROMIA Let me say some more,

so you’ll know that all the gods
think kindly of your wife and you. 1090

AMPHITRUO Speak!

BROMIA Your wife, once she began

delivering the boys today,
when contraction pains emerged,
as people do when birthing starts,
she called on immortal gods
that they would bring their help to her.
Hands were clean, her head was covered.°
There and then it thundered loud
with the greatest noise. At first
we thought your house would fall on us. 1095
All the house was shining forth
like it was made of solid gold.

AMPHITRUO Answer this for me right now,

please, you’ve joked sufficiently.
What came next?

BROMIA While this took place,

in all this time, not one of us
heard your wife let out a groan

°1093. By covering her head, Alcumena is praying like a Roman, not a Greek (Christenson
2008: 143).

86
 or start to weep in any way.
Thus I swear she did give birth
free from pain.

AMPHITRUO For this I’m glad, 1100

heedless of her deeds to me.

BROMIA Stop that. Hear these things I say.

After she gave birth, she ordered
us to wash the boys. We did.
But the boy which I was washing,
he was just so big and strong,
no one there was able to
wrap him in his swaddling clothes.

AMPHITRUO You describe things far too strange.

If this is true, I do not doubt 1105
some divinity has brought
assistance to my darling wife.

BROMIA I will see you call it stranger.

After he was in the cradle,
crested snakes flew down from high
through the skylight,° in a pair.
They were huge! And right away
Both lifted up their heads.

AMPHITRUO Oh no!

BROMIA Do not fret! Now with their eyes

the serpents glared around at all. 1110
Once they saw the boys, they quickly
made their way towards the cribs.
Backing up, I dragged the cribs.
Frightened for the boys, I pulled.
Also fearing for myself,
all the fiercer did the serpents
chase. And once the serpents saw

°
1108. Roman houses had an impluvium, a basin to catch rainwater beneath an open roof.

87
 the twin who I’d described before,
he jumped quickly from his crib.
He attacked them straightaway. 1115
Straightaway he grasped them both
Each of them in each his hands.

AMPHITRUO What you say is strange indeed,

you tell of tasks that petrify!
Terror takes these limbs of mine
terribly, at what you say.
What came after? Say what followed.

BROMIA Child strangled both the snakes.

While this happened, with a voice
so clear, he spoke unto your wife. 1120

AMPHITRUO Who did?

BROMIA Highest Jupiter

Ruler of both gods and men.
He said he had secret sex –
Alcumena was unaware –
in your bed and that the boy
was his, who conquered both the snakes.
She pauses while this sinks in.
And he said the other boy
was yours.

AMPHITRUO By Pol, it does not make me

sad, if I get half the good
dividing it with Jupiter. 1125
Go inside, and see that clean
containers are set out for me.
So I’ll sacrifice for peace
to highest Jove with many gifts.
Exit BROMIA into the house.
I shall call oracular
Tiresias and I will ask [tie-REE-see-US
what he thinks that I should do.

88
 I’ll also tell what’s happened here.
There is loud thunder.
What is this? How loud it thundered.
Gods, I beg your trust in me! 1130

JUPITER appears on the rooftop (or on the crane?).°

ia6
JUPITER Be glad! I’m here to help, Amphitruo,
both you and yours. Fear not. Send soothsayers
and seers away. I’ll say what’s past and what
will come as good as them. I’m Jupiter!
So yes, I took Alcumena on loan, 1135
in bed I made her pregnant with my son.
You also made her pregnant when you left
to fight. Together she gave birth to both.
And of the two, the one born of my seed
will bring immortal glory with his deeds.° 1140
Restore the former favour to your wife
Alcumena. No fault’s deserved by her.
I did it all by force.° I’m heading up.
JUPITER disappears on a cloud.
tr7
AMPHITRUO I’ll do as you bid, and ask
you keep the promises you made.
Forgetting old Tiresias
I’ll go to my wife inside. 1145
(to audience) Now, spectators, give a hand
for the sake of highest Jove.

AMPHITRUO exits into the house.

°
The appearance of Jupiter ex machina – either metaphorically or literally swinging from a
crane – possibly points to a Euripidean (or mock-Euripidean) source play, and also to the
possibility Amphitruo was written for a Greek theatre space.
°
The play never names Hercules, though presumably everyone in the audience would know
who is meant.
° 1143. In his final line Jupiter admits he has committed sexual assault.

89
 Appendix: Scenes, Metre, Parts

This table is provided for reference, to show some structural patterns.

Scene 1 1-152 ia6 MERC
Scene 2 153-79 song MERC SOS
180-218 ia8 ||
219-47 s0ng ||
248-62 ia8 ||
263-462 tr7 ||
Scene 3 463-98 ia6 MERC
Scene 4 499-550 tr7 empty stage MERC JUP ALC
Scene 5 551-85a song SOS AMPH
586-632 tr7 || ||
Scene 6 633-53 song ALC
654-860 tr7 empty stage* SOS ALC AMPH
Scene 7 861-955 ia6 JUP ALC
Scene 8 956-73 tr7 SOS JUP ALC
974-83 ia6 empty stage* JUP
Scene 9 984-1008 ia8 MERC
1009-34, fr. 1-6 tr7 MERC AMPH
Scene 10 fr. 7-10 ia6 ALC AMPH
Scene 11 fr. 11-19 1035-52 tr7 BLEP SOS JUP AMPH
1053-61 ia8 BRO AMPH
1062-75 song ||
1076-85 ia8 ||
1086-1130 tr7 ||
1131-43 ia6 JUP AMPH
1146-48 tr7 AMPH

The moments of an empty stage point to one major break at 550 (Jupiter exits in the same
direction Amphitruo enters, and it may be thought desirable to not have them meet each
other at this point), and two points where there can be a simultaneous exit in one direction
and entry in another (860, 983), which may easily passed without notice or deliberate blocking
choices.

90
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