Мольер (Жан-Батист Поклен)
Amphitryon
SOS. Justice, citizens! Help! I beseech you.
MERC. So, you gallows-bird, you yell out?
SOS. You beat me down with a thousand blows, and yet do not wish me to cry out?
MERC. It is thus that my arm…
SOS. The action is unworthy. You gloat over the advantage which my want of courage gives you over me; that is not fair treatment. It is mere bullying to wish to profit by the poltroonery of those whom one makes to feel the weight of one's arm. To thrash a man who does not retaliate is not the act of a generous soul; and to show courage against men who have none merits condemnation.
MERC. Well! Are you still Sosie? What say you?
SOS. Your blows have not made any metamorphosis in me; all the change there is is that in the matter I am Sosie thrashed.
MERC. Still? A hundred fresh blows for this fresh impudence.
SOS. Have mercy, a truce to your blows.
MERC. Then a truce to your insolence.
SOS. Anything that pleases you; I will keep silence. The dispute between us is too unequal.
MERC. Are you still Sosie? Say, villain!
SOS. Alas! I am what you wish; dispose of my lot exactly as you please: your arm 'has made you the master of it.
MERC. I think you said your name was Sosie?
SOS. True, until now I thought the matter was clear; but your rod has made me see that I was mistaken in this affair.
MERC. I am Sosie: all Thebes avows it. Amphitryon has never had other than me.
SOS. You, Sosie?
MERC. Yes, Sosie; and if any one trifles with me, he must take care of himself.
SOS. Heavens! Must I thus renounce myself, and see my name stolen by an impostor. How lucky I am a poltroon! Or, by the death…!
MERC. What are you mumbling between your teeth?
SOS. Nothing. But, in the name of the Gods, give me leave to speak one moment with you.
MERC. Speak.
SOS. But promise me, I beseech you, that there shall not be any more strokes. Let us sign a truce.
MERC. Let that pass; go on, I grant you this point.
SOS. Tell me, who put this fancy into your head? What benefit will it be to you to take my name? In short, were you a demon, could you hinder me from being myself, from being Sosie?
MERC. What is this, you dare…
SOS. Ah! Gently: there is a truce to blows.
MERC. What! Gallows-bird, impostor, scoundrel…
SOS. As for abuse, give me as much as you please; it makes but a slight wound and does not bother me.
MERC. You say you are Sosie?
SOS. Yes. Some ridiculous tale…
MERC. So, I shall break our truce, and take back my word.
SOS. I can't help it. I cannot annihilate myself for you, and endure so improbable a tale. Is it in your power to be what I am? Can I cease to be myself? Did any one ever hear of such a thing? And can you give the lie to a hundred clear indications? Do I dream? Do I sleep? Is my mind troubled by powerful transports? Do I not feel I am awake? Am I not in my right senses? Has not my master, Amphitryon, commanded me to come here to Alcmene his wife? Am I not, in commending his passion to her, to give her an account of his deeds against our enemies? Have I not just come from the harbour? Do I not hold a lantern in my hand? Have I not found you in front of our house? Did I not speak to you in a perfectly friendly manner? Do you not make use of my poltroonery to hinder me from entering our house? Have you not vented your rage upon my back? Have you not showered blows on me? Ah! All this is but too true: would to Heaven it were less real! Cease therefore to jeer at a wretch's lot, and leave me to acquit myself where my duty calls me.
MERC. Stop, or the shortest step brings down upon your back clattering evidence of my just anger. All you have just said is mine, except the blows. It is I, whom Amphitryon sent to Alcmene; who has just arrived from the Persian port; I, who have come to announce the valour of his arm, which has gained us a glorious victory, and slain the chief of our enemies. In short, I am undoubtedly Sosie, son of Dave, an honest shepherd; brother of Arpage, who died in a foreign land; husband of Cleanthis the prude, whose temper drives me wild; I, who received a thousand cuts from a whip at Thebes, without ever saying anything about it; and who was once publicly branded on the back for being too worthy a man.
SOS. He is right. If he were not Sosie, he could not know all he says; all this is so astounding that even I begin to believe him a little. In fact, now I look at him, I see he has my figure, looks, and manners. I wilt ask him some question, in order to clear up this mystery. What did Amphitryon obtain as his share of all the plunder taken from our enemies?
MERC. Five fine large diamonds, beautifully set in a cluster, which their chief wore as a rare piece of handicraft.
SOS. For whom does he intend so rich a present?
MERC. For his wife; he intends her to wear it.
SOS. Where have you put it, until you meet her?
MERC. In a casket sealed with the arms of my master.
SOS. He does not tell a single lie at any turn: I begin to doubt myself in earnest. He has already cowed me into believing him to be Sosie; and he might even reason me into thinking him so. Yet, when I touch myself, and recollect, it seems to me I am myself. Where can I find some light that will clearly make my way plain? What I have done alone, and what no one has seen, cannot be known to any one else: that, at least, belongs to me. I will astonish him by this question: it will confound him, and we shall see. When they were at close quarters, what were you doing in our tents, whither you ran to hide yourself away?
MERC. Off a ham
SOS. That is it!
MERC. Which I unearthed, I soon cut two succulent slices: they suited me nicely. I added to them a wine which was usually kept dark, and, gloated over the sight of it before I tasted it. So I took heart for our fighters.
SOS. This unparalleled proof ends matters well in his favour; and, unless he were in the bottle, there is nothing to be said. From the proofs you show me, I cannot deny that you are Sosie: I admit it. But, if you are he, tell me whom you wish me to be; for I must be someone.
MERC. When I shall no longer be Sosie, you may be he, I consent to that; but I promise you it shall be the death of you if you take up such a fancy while I am he.
SOS. All this confusion turns me inside out, for reason is against what I see. But I must end this by some means; and the shortest way for me is to go in there.
MERC. Oh! You gallows-bird, you want to taste the stick.
SOS. What is the matter? Great Gods! He makes the blows ring again; my back will ache for a month. I will leave this devil of a fellow, and return to the harbour. O just Heavens, what a fine ambassador I have been!
MERC. At last, I have made him fly; this treatment has paid him out for many of his deeds. But here is Jupiter, gallantly escorting his lover Alcmene.
SCENE III JUPITER, ALCMENE, CLEANTHIS, MERCURY
JUP. My dear Alcmene, forbid the torch-bearers to come near. They give me delight in enabling me to see you; but they might betray my being here, and this were best unrevealed. Restrained by all the heavy cares with which the glory of our arms held me bound, my heart has stolen from the duties of my post the moments it has just given to your charms. This theft, which I have consecrated to your beauty, might be blamed by the public voice; and the only witness I want, is she who can thank me for it.
ALC. I take great interest, Amphitryon, in the glory which your illustrious exploits have cast upon you; the fame of your victory moves my heart to its depths. But when I see that this disastrous honour keeps my lover away from me, such is my heart's feeling that I cannot forbear to think ill of it, and to regret the high order which makes you general of the Thebans. It is sweet after a victory to see the glory to which one's lover has been raised; but, from among the perils attached to this glory, a deadly blow, alas! may soon fall. With how many fears is one's heart wounded at the report of the least skirmish! In the horror of such a thought, is there anything that can console for the threatened stroke? And with whatever laurels the victor may be crowned, whatever share one may have in that supreme honour, is it worth what it costs a tender heart, which trembles every moment for its lover?
JUP. I do not see anything in you but what inflames my passion; everything shows me a deeply enamoured heart; and, I confess, it is a great delight to find so much love in a beloved object. But, if I may dare say so, one scruple in the tender sentiments which you show me causes me anxiety; and, in order to enjoy you the more, dear Alcmene, my heart would rather see love only, and not duty, in the favours which I receive from you; may they arise solely from affection, and have respect to my person only; let not my condition as your husband be the reason for them.
ALC. Yet it is in that name that the ardour which burns me holds the right to show itself: I do not understand this new scruple which troubles your heart.
JUP. The love and tenderness which I have for you far exceeds a husband's; in these sweet moments, you do not realise its delicacy; You do not understand that a heart deeply in love studiously attaches itself to a hundred little trifles, and is restless over the manner of being happy. In me, fair and charming Alcmene, you see a lover and a husband; but, to speak frankly, it is the lover that appeals to me; when near you, I feel the husband restrains him. This lover, who is supremely jealous of your love, wishes your heart to abandon itself solely to him: his passion does not wish anything the husband gives him. He wishes to obtain the warmth of your love from the fountain-head, and not to owe anything to the bonds of wedlock, or to a duty which palls and makes the heart sad, for by these the sweetness of the most cherished favours is daily poisoned. This idea, in short, tosses him to and fro, and he wishes, in order to satisfy his scruples, that you would differentiate where the occasion offends him, the husband to be only for your virtue, and the lover to have the whole affection and tenderness of a heart known to be full of kindness.
ALC. In truth, Amphitryon, you must be jesting, to talk thus; I should be afraid anyone who heard you would think you were not sane.
JUP. There is more reason in this discourse, Alcmene, than you think. But a longer stay here would render me guilty, and time presses for my return to port. Adieu. The stern call of duty tears me away from you for a time; but, lovely Alcmene, I beseech you at least to think of the lover when you see the husband.
ALC. I do not separate what the Gods unite: both husband and lover are very precious to me.
CLE. O Heaven! How delightful are the caresses of an ardently cherished husband! How far my poor husband is from all this tenderness!
MERC. I must tell Night she has but to furl all her sails; the Sun may now arise from his bed and put out the stars.
SCENE IV
CLEANTHIS, MERCURY (Mercury turns to go away)
CLE. So? Is it thus you quit me?
MERC. What would you have? Do you wish me not to do my duty, and follow in Amphitryon's footsteps?
CLE. To separate from me so rudely as this, you villain!
MERC. It is a fine subject to make a fuss about! We have still plenty of time to live together!
CLE. But to go in such a churlish manner, without saying a single kind word to cheer me!
MERC. Where the deuce shall I dig up silly compliments? Fifteen years of married life exhaust nonsense; we said all we had to say to each other a long time ago.
CLE. Look at Amphitryon, you rascal; see how his ardour burns for Alcmene; and then blush for the little passion that you show your wife.
MERC. But, gracious me! Cleanthis, they are still lovers. There comes a certain age when all this passes away; what suits them well in these early days would look ridiculous in us, old married people. It would be it fine sight to see us embracing each other, and saying sweet nothings!
CLE. Oh! You perfidious wretch, must I give up hope that a heart sighs for me?
MERC. No, I should be sorry to say that; but I have too long a beard to dare to sigh; I should make you die of laughter.
CLE. You brute, do you deserve the good fortune of having a virtuous woman for your wife?
MERC. Good Heavens! You are but too virtuous; this fine virtue is not worth anything to me. Do not be quite so honest a woman, and don't bother me so much.
CLE. What? Do you blame me for being too honest?
MERC. A woman's gentleness is what charms me most: your virtue makes a clatter that never ceases to deafen me.
CLE. You care for hearts full of false tenderness, for those women with the laudable and fine talent of knowing how to smother their husbands with caresses in order to make them oblivious of the existence of lovers.
MERC. Well! Shall I tell you what I think? An imaginary evil concerns fools only; my device should be: 'Less honour and more peace.'
CLE. Would you, without any repugnance, suffer me openly to love a gallant?
MERC. Yes, if I were no longer worried by your tongue, and if it changed your temper and your goings-on. I prefer a convenient vice, to a fatiguing virtue. Adieu, Cleanthis, my dear soul; I must follow Amphitryon. (He goes away.)
CLE Why has not my heart sufficient resolution to punish this infamous scoundrel? Ah, how it maddens me, now, that I am an honest woman!
