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