r, 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