“ 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. ”
Molière
Quotes from Amphitryon (Molière)
“ To what servitude are thy days subjected, Sosie! Our lot is far more hard with the great than with the mean. They insist that everything in nature should be compelled to sacrifice itself for them. Night and day, hail, wind, peril, heat, cold, as soon as they speak we must fly. Twenty years of assiduous service do not gain us any consideration from them. The least little whim draws down upon us their anger. Notwithstanding this, our infatuated hearts cling to the empty honour of remaining near them, contented with the false idea, which every one holds, that we are happy. ”
“ 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? ”
