Well—I'll go back again and tell my master.
Perhaps he won't own me! The gods grant he don't!
I shall be free then, even if I'm nobody.
The scene in which the pilot of the ship is unable to decide between the false Amphitryon and the true, when at last they are brought upon the stage together, is probably only a "restoration" of the mutilated work of Plautus. Molière has substituted Sosia for the pilot, and makes him decide in favour of the false pretender. The convincing argument which confirms him in this decision has passed into a proverb, better known perhaps in itself than in its context. Jupiter, in his assumed character of Amphitryon, is made to reserve the disputed identity for the verdict of the Thebans in full assembly: meanwhile he invites all the company present to dinner:—
"Sosia. Je ne me trompais, Messieurs, ce mot termine
Toute l'irrésolution;
Le véritable Amphitryon
Est l'Amphitryon où l'on dîne."[1]
VIII.—THE POT OF GOLD (AULULARIA).
The prologue to this comedy is spoken in the character of the "Lar Familiaris," as the Romans called him—a sort of familiar spirit supposed to be attached to every Roman household, who had his own little altar
- ↑ Dunlop shows, however, that this is really borrowed from an older comedy on the same subject by Rotrou—'Les Deux Sosies'—which the later author has laid under contribution in other scenes. Sosia's words in Rotrou's play are—"Point, point d'Amphitryon où l'on ne dîne point."
